Do hardcore gamers lack appreciation of the games that they play?

[Crazy Jamie]

As many of you will know, I'm playing through Bioshock at the moment for the first time. I'm taking my time over it and really exploring every part of the game, as opposed to rushing through it to finish it. And I'm really enjoying it. But upon reading a review of the game on Play.com, one person wrote 'I played the game for about an hour a day and beat it in a week', and he marked the game down for that. Now I've been playing the game for about a month so far, and even though I don't play games that often any more, I've certainly put more than 7 hours into it.

The question is, do you think gamers nowadays are over cynical and seek to nit pick games too much, or play them just to finish them, as opposed to playing them to actually enjoy them? Personally I'm happy that I still play games to enjoy them and not to be critical. But it seems increasingly that the 'hardcore' gamers play games to be critical in serve of perfection that will never come, as opposed to playing games to have fun.

[Quagmire]

I think people do nit pick a lot more today, BUT for 60bucks a game, there is gonna be a lot more compared to when games were 50 or 40. I love exploring my games, and I am glad GTA IV came out when it did instead of Oct 07 like first planned cause I was able to explore it a lot more since I was out of school. (Also Fallout 3 and Fable 2 are coming out during a semester where its pretty a light load of work for me..woo) I do tend to rush a little more if I'm in school and can only play x hours a week compared to y hours a week over Christmas and summer break...where y>x. So how much time can be spent on a game may have something to do with it.

So all and all I agree with you that we nit pick more, but with higher prices you expect better products...if I go to a sit down restaurant and pay say 30bucks for a steak I am expecting a whole lot better quality than if I payed 4bucks for a McSteak (I know it doesnt exist...at least I hope it doesnt) at McDonald's.

[Ralph Nader]

I think people do nit pick a lot more today, BUT for 60bucks a game, there is gonna be a lot more compared to when games were 50 or 40.

Number one reason in my opinion. 60 dollars for games, and 80 dollars for collectors editions.

Now of course I try my best to love the games I buy but after a few Missed Purchases, like enchanted arms, mercenaries two, and titan quest, i felt like i was playing the game for the sake of just playing the game. I dont get my self involved in the story or anything. And right there is 170 dollars worth of games. Thats why im starting to read reviews and saving my money. Unless of course you are a fan of one of the franchises (for me fable and smash.)

However if I do have money, you bet your sweet ass ill be buying 7.0 games.


if I go to a sit down restaurant and pay say 30bucks for a steak I am expecting a whole lot better quality than if I payed 4bucks for a McSteak (I know it doesnt exist...at least I hope it doesnt) at McDonald's.

McRib. Every year they sell it, they raise the price by 50 cents. You can compare it to video games. I would buy two McRibs every time they offer it, but now i can only afford one.

[Fool's Requiem]

When I play a game, I take my sweet old time. A lot of times I end up boring myself because I'm taking to long find every last item or I spend an hour getting through a level only to be killed right at the end and ending up having to play it over again (the Medal of Honor series used to do that... I hated that). But more often than not, I enjoy a game more if I play at a slower pace.

Games cost an arm and a leg nowadays and if you beat them too quickly knowing full well that there's no multiplayer than it's your own damn fault. You should have rented the game.

So in short, yes. Gamers do lack appreciation for the games they play, but it's not just because they speed through games. A lot of gamers nowadays criticize and hate games because of little things like "This gun sucks now, so the entire game sucks," or "The cars in this game are difficult to control than in the previous entries." (That’s a GTA 4 complaint I remember reading somewhere.)

I've noticed that sequels are often criticized by fans of the previous installments because the developers made subtitle changes to improve the overall quality of the game (Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a big one).
My favorites are the legion of haters who have nothing better to do than to hate on popular and/or highly rated games (Halo, Assassin's Creed, Bio-Shock).

Gamers spend so much time complaining about the games instead of enjoying the game.

[Quagmire]

The cars in this game are difficult to control than in the previous entries." (That’s a GTA 4 complaint I remember reading somewhere.)


That is a big complaint...people dont like that the cars now control more realistically

[Fool's Requiem]

That is a big complaint...people dont like that the cars now control more realistically
I personally like the way the cars control in GTA 4. Because the cars drive like they should you can drive them like you wouldn't do in real life. The camera's a pain though.

[Scerro]

hmmm, I feel as "hardcore" doesn't really isolate what you're asking for exactly. "hardcore" gamers like different games, and play through them at different speeds, so its hard to say.

If you mean people who play through games really fast, then yeah they probably don't appreciate games that much. I'm kinda like that, but usually i still take the story more into account.

[Woozie]

I can truthfully say that reviewers being overly cynical is entirely developers fault. If you're a smaller website that doesn't get many hits and only has 100 unique views a day, you shouldn't really be considered "press."

But there are still developers out there who send games to IGN, Gamespot, and 1UP the day it comes out. That's not enough time to play a game peacefully. Adam Sessler from G4 said once on a 1Up Yours Episode that he had to play Mass Effect over the weekend and have a review ready on Monday. Mass Effect is a long ass game, so even if he spent every waking hour playing it (That'd be around 14-16 hours each day so 28-32 hours) he would've barley had enough time to fully experience a single playthrough of that game, and he has to tell thousands of people whether or not to get the game based on that rushed experience? That's not fair to anyone. There are time crunches in the industry, and that's the sad truth of things. So if a reviewer seems cyncical, that's why. Which probably explains why virtually everyone who does professional reviews absolutely HATES games like Dynasty Warriors, since it's the same thing over and over again, and they HAVE to play that for 20+ hours.

But hardcore gamers, I don't really know. You mention BioShock, which is funny because, I'm sure everyone knows, I didn't like BioShock. I wrote that "Woozie's Hate Blog" a few weeks ago based on the impressions I had on the game nearly a year ago. But Jamie claimed he'd "comment as soon as he finished the game" so I started playing the game again at a steady pace so when I beat it before him I could tell him how much he sucks at games. I never finished it (things got busy) but for the few hours that I played it, with one or two hours every day, I was liking it a lot more. If the player can learn to relax, and play a game all the time, that's a good combination. But sometimes players want to rush through as quickly as possible, even if they don't try to on purpose.

I like to think that never happens to me, but that seemed to be the case with BioShock. But then again, that's the only occasion I can think of something like that occurring.

[Crazy Jamie]

I like to think that never happens to me, but that seemed to be the case with BioShock. But then again, that's the only occasion I can think of something like that occurring.That's really ironic, because obviously I played it through at a slow pace and finished it a few days ago. I'll post in that thread now, but guess it won't be the debate we all thought it would be.

[gamertech]

First of all, I don't believe that the price of games is a real factor at all. Many, many PS1 games, Genesis games and N64 games sold in the $50 - $70 range when those systems were the current thing. Hell, I think I paid $50 for a Gameboy Advance game once. It only seems like an issue because we're all still spoiled on the reduced prices of last gen games. But that doesn't make for a fair comparison.

I think the bigger problem is that the Internet has turned the masses into spoiled brats. How many thousands of sit4e are their that spend their time reviewing, rating and complaining about games? There now exists a widespread culture of complaining that didn't exist in such a large force even ten years ago.

So now everyone thinks it's the 'right thing to do'. It's become popular and chic to nitpick and point out every little shortcoming that we used to be able to cope with like mature people. Gamers are wimps now-a-days.

But any form of entertainment engulfed in a culture of relentless critique is going to appear to be getting worse because pointing out the bad is what makes for interesting reading. And pointing out the bad is what gives reviewers their 'power'.

So, in short, Jamie is absolutely correct. Hardcore gamers in general have lost much of their appreciation for the art of video gaming. New gamers don't face these issues because they are fresh eyes to the field and aren't quite so biased by the onslaught of time and criticism.

And I believe that 'hardcore' IS the proper term. The so-called hardcore gamers are the ones that dedicate a lot of time and resources into their gaming hobby. They are the ones who look at gaming under the most critical lens. I'm referring, of course, with respect to the perceived quality of games and how that relates to the passage of time, not with respect to those who view gaming as a social deviance. That's a whole different ball of wax.

[Cyanide]

It may not necessarily be that hardcore gamers lack appreciation, just that attention spans have gotten worse. People want to hurry up and beat the game so they can move on the next thing.

Actually, in GTA, I felt like I was playing it just to finish missions. I haven't played it seriously since then.

[Steve]

It may not necessarily be that hardcore gamers lack appreciation, just that attention spans have gotten worse. People want to hurry up and beat the game so they can move on the next thing.

I think that's an accurate point and I agree with it. You look at games now these days, and they are having alot of replay value to them, so even if you do "beat" the game, you can play it over and still have some fun with it. Me as a gamer, I like to explore every area of the game and get my moneys worth. I see no point in spending 50-60$ on a game that you're going to complete in a day or two and never play again.