Hello one and all, you’ve chosen to read this article out either a frothing rage that I’ve basically just called the hardcore argument a fallacy, or you’re waiting for the inevitable shitstorm that such a proclamation generally causes.

Though hopefully the latter won’t happen.

If you are of the former then I invite you to sit down, with a beverage of your choice (Preferably a cup of tea or something similar, as it will both relax and energise you into the correct state for reading this).

Are we sitting comfortably?

Good, let’s begin

The Definition

So yeah, if you have a games collection then this is what you have to beat.

Before we begin fully, let’s discuss what a hardcore gamer is. As a once self-confessed hardcore gamer, I’ll try and give a concise definition.

“A hardcore gamer is someone who sees himself as a gamer. It sounds simple, but ironically it’s the best way to define it. Your mother is a gamer, and yet she does not see herself as one. Your father probably played racing games with you (or at least mine did) but he does not see himself as a gamer. Your brother, if you are of a certain age, does not see himself as a gamer.

And yet, all these people play video games. Ranging from the insipid Farmville games to “hardcore” titles such as Civilization, people will often claim to not be gamers despite having played video games.

Yet, the crowd that plays halo for thousands of games in a row, the people who have days’ worth of game time ranked up in Call of Duty multiplayer or those who spend hundreds of hours making Great Britain conquer the world in a 4X game, these are the people who will identify as gamers.”

That’s essentially a hardcore gamer. There will be people who argue against this, but then no matter what definition I chose to use, as there was more than one I could have written, people would have argued for or against it.

Admittedly, this definition is broad, but it more or less codifies what you need to be a hardcore gamer. By this definition, I was a hardcore gamer, and as are/were most of my friends.

Now that we’ve got it defined, what exactly is the Fallacy?

The Fallacy

HAHAHAHAHA, No.

The fallacy is perhaps the truest expression of no true Scotsman you could ever hope to hear. For those not familiar with no true Scotsman I’ll give a brief example.

Person A: “No British person dislikes tea.”

Person B: “I’m a Brit, and I dislike tea.”

Person A: “Well, no true British person dislikes tea.”

Basically, the condition of being “hardcore” is one of constant shifting and evaluation. For instance most gamers will say that Farmville games are casual games (If they agree to call them games at all). Pretty much anyone who would claim the title of gamer would agree with this. However a further subset of gamers would then go-on to say that anyone who plays Call of Duty or Battlefield is a casual gamer. Another subset of gamers then would claim that anyone who plays Team Fortress 2 or Counterstrike is a casual gamer.

This will likely continue for great long while, and this is only within the Genre of shooters. If you bring in other genres you’ll find the RTS crowd claiming that people who like shooters are casuals. While the 4X crowd will agree with them, they will then further claim that the RTS crowd are casuals along with the shooter crowd.

I have seen, and interrupted, many arguments that eventually devolved in circular self-pleasing sessions where people would proclaim their hardcoreness only for other people to join them in self-congratulations cycles.

There’s a more crass way of saying this and I will give a game away for free if you can guess what the more common term for this is.

The ultimate conclusion is that if you enjoy game X, and people enjoy game Y, then you will find some way of justifying that game Y is the more “hardcore” of the titles and thus more deserving of respect and prestige for being fans of it.

Perhaps the ultimate example of this is Dark Souls, not to offend those who like the game, but I find it’s common on the internet to see its fans place undue attention on the fact that you don’t like it then you are probably a causal who should go back to Call of Duty. Don’t believe me? Enjoy this link and the many wonderful results and comments it brings up. (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Dark+Souls+2+Easy+Mode)

The Flaw

is the violence that makes a game Hardcore? Or is it the challenge?

The fallacy itself and the fact you’ll never get a consistent definition of what it means to be hardcore would generally dam the title from the outset. However that’s not really the biggest problem. The problem is that, impossible to make definitions aside, gamers place a measure of goodness in the title of hardcore.

To be hardcore, is to be worthy of respect in gaming. It demands attention that is derived from the fact that he or she devoted time and energy in order to plumb the depths of the specific genre. Gamers place an irrational value upon the title of hardcore.

When something has no defined definition and is a symbol of prestige, then it is possible to define everyone as hardcore. And much like the practice of selling noble titles for money, once everyone can be a noble, then no-one is.

Once this is established, it’s almost a forgone conclusion that you’ll see people defining hardcore to include themselves and their friends, while excluding those they see as scourges upon gaming as a whole.

Hardcore then, much like the noble titles is built inherently upon its basis of being discriminitorial. To be a noble (or in this case, hardcore) it is to be better than everyone who is not a noble (or in this case, the filthy casuals). And much like nobility in the real world, they sought to distinguish themselves from the average noble and created royalty, which again derived value from the basic fact that if you were a royal, you were better than nobility and peasantry.

Can anyone tell me exactly why most people consider feudalism to be a really bad system that really only furthers those at the top in real life? Why Europe actually saw a renaissance after the Black Death collapsed the system?

It all comes down to this; there is no inherently greater value in a noble than there is in a peasant. That peasant, if not prevented from doing so, could match and beat a noble if given the same advantages in life that the noble had.

Bear in mind this is in real life here, where things actually mattered and the nobles so stacked the decks against the peasants it’s honestly surprising some of them actually lived. In an industry that is primarily designed to provide entertainment this is not just insanity, this is a full on delusion on such a grand scale it boggles the mind.

Conclusion

Pic Related,its the same game collection from a few images up.

Let’s bring it back down to Earth and away from the peasantry/nobility metaphor I was using and back to the topic at hand. The article points out that the concept of the hardcore is fundamentally flawed in how it’s executed. It is based on the fact there is no one accepted definition, cultural or otherwise, which opens it up to the no true Scotsman fallacy.

These two facets combined, along with the fact that the title of hardcore is meant to be a positive thing, means that everyone seeks to obtain the title while also changing the definition in such a way as to place the title out of reach of another group. And almost every group does this, from the shooters crowd, to the strategy crowd and to the RPG crowd.

When all of this is put together, as well as the fact that gaming is primarily designed to entertain, then the division of hardcore/softcore is not only fundamentally flawed, but also seems petty in the extreme.

Which leads to the final conclusion, that hardcore is not a title one should aspire to. It is not something that is, in fact, desirable when considering that you are entering into a hornet’s nest of flame wars and trolling attempts.

Ultimately, just say no to the hardcore.