What's a hardcore gamer (to you)?

To be a 'hardcore' gamer you end up 'having' to collect, imo.

...You usually start off playing 'mainstream' stuff 'cos it's 'cheap' or accessable, then you 'discover' what you like or don't like, or dream of playing.

...Once your hooked you end up playing on damn near any piece of hardware ever created, 'cos sods law dictates that damn near any piece of harware will have at least one playable game, or at best one outstanding game, some of course will be blessed with more!

...The point is you can never capture every 'good' game on one piece of kit.

...Thus you have to diversify.

...Which in turn equals 'collecting'!!!

...'Collecting' should be viewed as a means to an end, be that 'harcore gaming' or 'hardcore appreciation.

 

But some people who collect don't do it for those reasons.

Like sealed game collectors. People with hundreds of games that are factory sealed, and factory sealed consoles, they spend all their time looking for the stuff and buying it, but when you ask them, they reply that they hardly ever actually PLAY videogames.

I seriously don't have a problem with that either, some people do, but I understand the mentality, but I sure as hell wouldn't call that person a hardcore gamer.

 

Excellent response!
I've known a few people like this who set out to obtain every "OMG it iS t3h R4re!" game only to leave it sealed, sitting on a shelf. What's the point really? Are they building a museum or something?

Now dev kit and rare console collecting I can understand, but not the completists who obsess over BUYING rather than PLAYING their games.

 

Ah yes, 'sealed' collectors are totally different, they have little interest in playing the game's, well they can't play them at all, in theory, lol.

...I was only on about peep's who buy and use ALL their stuff

 

Watch the Microsoft and Sony E3 press conferences. Said 3 or 4 time in each one.

 

That was a generic example, and possibly too trivial to be of any use - the point was that a 'hardcore gamer' shouldn't be ignorant about gaming - i.e. shouldn't be surprised if you told him that the Super Mario 2 we got here wasn't the same as Japan's - just things like that that would show a familiarity with the scene.

And Big Viper was just Parodius being goofy, as far as I know.

Well, of course not all arcade hardware - there's far too much for that. But being familiar with the mainstays of the arcade industry - CPS1/2/3, Naomi 1/2, Neo Geo, Atomiswave, STV, the older Sega Systems, the Namco Systems 11/13 - would be a good thing, I think, as it just shows knowledge of the background of the industry, where a lot of these console games began and such.

But yeah, as GaijinPunch said, 'hardcore gamer' is just another term being bandied about by the mainstream publishers and such to convince the casual gamers that they really are the baddest of the bad. I guess the best we can hope for is an Atari-like implosion within the next few years (millions of copies of the next Grand Theft Auto being shoveled into a landfill in New Mexico) that will give the industry to start over while trimming some of the fat from it.

 

Someone that likes old and new games, 2d or 3d, and loves the games, not the systems.

 

its all about the gameplay! frankly I am sick of people going on and on about how much better one system is then another . I buy play and collect , :-D

 

IMO, I'm a gamer stuck in the past. I'm a nostalgic Sega Genesis nut. I've been buying 16bit games lately, well not really but Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega CD and some unknown shooter for the Genesis were the last games I bought. I've been buying those games so that I can play them when I have the time some day. I haven't bought a PS2 game since November of last year and I don't plan on buying any. I don't own a GC or XBOX and will most likely not buy a 360 or the other systems. I'm stuck in my teenage years where the Genesis, 32x, N64, and PSX took up my play-time and have since been buying games for those systems. Yeh I own a some dev hardware, well only one. The only thing I'm really looking into getting is to build my very own Raiden DX arcade machine, or if I do have the money, buy one thats already built.

 

To answer the original question, it would be someone who:

1. Plays mainsteam and non-mainstream games
2. Does not descriminate based on system or dimension (2D vs 3D)
3. Is very knowledgable about the industry and its various non-mainstream products
4. Is able to, or is interested in, programming and/or digital art (sprites, 3D, texturing, etc.)

I don't think being a collector has anything to do with being a 'hardcore gamer'. I like to collect, probably way more then should, but throwing money around, even if you do spend it on hard to find items (betas and such) does not make you any more 'hardcore' as far as im concerned.

 

Hardcore gamer eh? Well as long as it ain't being like Billy Mitchell I couldn't care less I suppose =P

 

You can learn a lot about other posters in this thread. Going to have to pat myself on the back.

 

AMEN!!!

 

You, sir, just made my backbone tingle and the little hairs on my skin to rise in a fit of manic, pleasure-driven shivers.