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You're painting with awfully broad strokes. Hardcore games are actually extremely varied, much more so than casual games. The variance has decreased among the A
by ericd 15y ago
You're painting with awfully broad strokes. Hardcore games are actually extremely varied, much more so than casual games. The variance has decreased among the AAA titles in recent years, but even there it's a good bit more than you imply. Perhaps you're thinking of the twitch genres like FPS's and platformers and generalizing from there? Have you taken a look at the Total War series? X-Com? Monkey Island?
It's sort of like saying that all movies and TV use the same tricks to trigger the pleasure mechanisms of the brain.
- Alex3917 15y agoThat's fair enough, it definitely was a sweeping generalization. I guess what I meant is that if you've already played Ultima Online when you're 12, Everquest when you're 14, etc., do you really need to still be raiding in World of Warcraft when you're 30? I don't think so.
- Goronmon 15y agoIf you've already read Boxcar Children when you're 12, Hardy Boys when you're 14, do you really need to be reading Harry Potter when you're 30?
- philwelch 15y agoActually, I don't think it makes much sense for grown adults to read childrens' books like Harry Potter.
- ericd 15y agoI'll give you that MMOs in particular don't bring much to the table (except that they're a form of socialization), and that they're engineered to be digital crack. I don't see much value in them either, and I'm really relieved that I got tired of WoW and quit after playing it for 2 weeks straight, instead of becoming more addicted and flunking out like some of my friends in college did. I wouldn't lump the rest of hardcore games in with those, though - there's a lot of really wonderful stuff out there that's just made to be fun rather than addictive. There's nothing quite like a good strategy game, for me. There does seem to be a worrying shift towards games with ongoing revenue streams like WoW, which inevitably shifts the company's focus to gameplay mechanics that are addictive as much as they are fun.
- klipt 15y ago> There does seem to be a worrying shift towards games with ongoing revenue streams like WoW, which inevitably shifts the company's focus to gameplay mechanics that are addictive as much as they are fun. The problem is that ongoing revenue streams are so much more profitable. As a game I prefer StarCraft to WoW, but Blizzard probably makes more from WoW in a month than they've ever made off StarCraft.
- ericd 15y agoNo argument there. It's true of most SAAS companies as well.