On one end of the spectrum we have the casual gamers. People who worry little about innovation, revolutions, hardware power, or brand name. Instead they play games for the most basic principle of all - fun.

On the other end is the hardcore gamer. Self dedicated to being the best and aligning themselves with the best. Starving for innovation and new ideas. Quick to praise niche titles and laugh at mainstream hits. But at times miss out on the most important aspect - fun.

So which group do you believe have moved furthest away from being called a " true gamer?"

*FOR NOW* I' m gonna go with " Hardcore gamers" as having lost touch, simply
because of some of the stuff I' ve seen/read at other places. Sometimes I' ll read reviews or comments from hardcore gamers who are extremely critical of games, and
often times I' m left wondering, " is there a game out there that this person does like???"

" is there a game out there that this person does like???"

The name Joe comes to mind instantly

its hard to put people into such extreme groups, im right smack in the middle. Some people iv read about in forums, well i read their posts, say they refuse to buy a game unless it gets atleast a 9 in score, and they are missing out. So id go with the last one!

an interesting trend I' ve noticed is that the hardcore group, and I mean in the negative fanboy sense, have actually put older casual gamers off.

I have a couple mates who have had enough of hardware specs and shiny advertising types and well hype. And now htey hardly play there games systems, where as before this nextgen they were playing loads and buying a shedload of titles..

maybe they will come back on board when things settled down, but they were both in their early 40' s & 50' s and both had PS2' s, they are actually tired of hearing from their kids hype about PS3 and high end PC graphics cards!

the 2 groups aren' t like that at all.

Mainstream gamers

" On one end of the spectrum we have the casual gamers. People who worry little about innovation, revolutions, hardware power, or brand name. Instead they play games for the most basic principle of all - fun. "

they are mostly about hardware power , only they' ve got their info from comercials.
They don' t play for fun - how fun can <put some movie licensed EA game> be?
They play what everyone plays and they might actually like it cause they didn' t see anything 10 times better.

" HardCore"
For me HC gamers are people who master a few titles instantly - like pro VF Arcade players and so on.They aren' t into any other games , and they are in this for the one thing only - competition.

" Gamer 4 life"
A very rare thing - he knows many systems , he' s been through some fanboy shit in his younger days (who hasn' t?) just to realise how stupid it is.He can' t miss any great title and he can go retro if he finds out, that there is some awesome title he' s missed.He plays games to finish them and plays most genres, not just shooters and so on (that' s more like HC gamer).

I think the problem of the industry is that most gamers are the Mainstream gamers and they are the market, that most developers aim for.Since those gamers don' t expect much from their games ,those games are getting worse while selling very well.

I hate EA ...

I name the categories differently but agree with there being 3 of them:

" Nubs" - play madden and other EA like games

" Proffesional Gamers" - only play one game all day every day with the purpose of winning tournaments and stuff

" Gamers" - People that play games for fun and are smart enough not to buy tomb raider

I' m somewhere between gamer and proffesional gamer. I enjoy games just because they are fun but I also enjoy competetive play and pwning nubs in tournaments.

I hate games!

<---hardcore gamer.

I don' t think any " group" of gamers has lost touch with gaming. Instead I think gaming has lost touch with many gamers. Games cost a ton of money to make nowadays, so therefore they want to sell massive quantities of them. Therefore you MUST try to appeal to the casual gamer as much as you can. This can be fun sometimes with games like Downhill Domination, Burnout Revenge, and even Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2. Hey they' re all racing games! Anyway the FPS genre is what normal people love to death right now, so game companies make oodles and oodles of FPS games. Have ya noticed? Not too many chances are taken anymore, so hardcore gamers who like games like Super Monkey Ball (one of my favorite games ever), Shenmue (one of my favorite games ever) and the like don' t have enough variety to appeal to them to make this generation truly memorable. Although I guess the Dreamcast is in this generation, technically. Plus Sega doesn' t make too much that is worthy any more, so I kind of have a " blah" attitude towards gaming right now. I do enjoy a lot of the DS titles. The PSP looks like a portable PS2 to me, and the PS2 is extremely mainstream.

The better question here would be, " do you play games to have fun, or do you play games to master a game and become insanely stupid great at the game for the sole purpose of playing that game online to hopefully embarrass the casual game so that it makes your hardcore, nothing else in my life other than games self esteem high." I think that the hardcore gamer who I am talking about doesn' t at all care about the game itself, but rather plays the game for 200 hours to finish the game and become a God at the game only to make themselves feel good about themselves and able to look at themselves in the mirror and say " I was the King today online, I beat up on all those guys, what losers." These hardcore gamers is what ruins games and makes them no fun anymore. Of all the next gen systems to come out I am most excited about the Nintendo Revolution, because Nintendo makes games for the casual gamer, they make games that are going to be fun for everyone, not just for the crappy hardcore gamer who has no life outside of playing videogames.

^^ one of the nubs that gets pwnt too much.

I think everyone has their own idea of the definition of hardcore and casual gamers.
My perspective is that casual gamers simply have other hobbies or passtimes they put ahead of gaming. So they usually buy games based on what their friends are playing,reputation of frachise, boxart and price. Basically the casuals don' t know what they are buying half the time and if they play it online the hardcore players rape them and call them noobs.

The hardcore gamers like many of us are the ones who would rather play a good fishing game on the newest console then to actually go fishing (well maybe thats a bad example). The hardcore gamer almost never buy a game without knowing everything about it. We' re the type that buys a console for hundreds of dollars and twelve years later we download emulators to play the same fucking games on our computers. I think Terry is right when he said that some hardcore gamers are jaded, but that' s only because we spend so much money on gaming (I added it up one time and almost puked) that its just so insulting to find half ass games that cost 60 bucks. Its especially, insulting when its a game from a franchise or liscense that you like.

Everyone here who is reading this is a hardcore gamer, otherwise you' re just weird for spending time at a gaming forum.

So to answer the question, who has lost touch with gaming I would say the casuals but they have never been in touch with gaming in the first place. Not like the hardcore who are always right on the mark by the very nature of what makes them hardcore. I would say the group of people that have lost touch are the fanboys. Sony, Nintendo,xbox,pc,console fanboys are all ignorant.

Well,you heard the whining when Ninja gaiden came..-..

LEARN TO ADEPT TO THE GAME FFS...

OH THE ENMEIS DOESNT DIE IN ONE HIT!!!

CRAP GAME!!!

Thanks Itagaki for saying that they are losers who complain.

they are loosers actually, and shouldn' t whine about game being too hard

In fact, I think they should all DIE !!!!

It' s that same type of complaining that you heard all the time though and it' s getting even more audible...and nausiating I just hope gaming doesn' t take too much of a decline just to accomodate people who just wanna touch one button that does like ten things then get bored leaving the ' hardcore' out of good games.

Anyway to answer the question I don' t think any section has lost touch with gaming like somone said before me it' s a lot these days to do with the developers wanting to make as much money as the can even if that means listening to people who don' t really play and have hardley any interests in games.