162 réponses à ce sujet

[abaris]

Realmzmaster wrote...

I find it funny that gamers look back at BG1 and games like that and say see that was hardcore gaming. I assume fourtten years from now gamers will look back at the Dragon Age series and say the same thing. What is hardcore or casual is relative.

 

I don't look back at BG1 for a simple reason. I never played it.

I'm looing back at NWN2 and DA:O and compare it to my DAII experience, which admittedly was short lived and restricted to the demo. But that in itself gave me enough of an insight to not buy the game. It featured stupid, not funny combat, enemy waves, materialising like Scotty beam me up, and it featured pathetic dialogue.

That's simply not what I want to spend my money and time with.

[TCBC_Freak]

After having read this topic, I've come to the conclusion that Bioware should just try and make the best game they can, and market it as best they can, because trying to put labels on gamers and base marketing or development on that is impossible. We here on the forums can't agree what makes someone a hardcore fan or a casual gamer so they should just focus on making an awesome game. Most people will base their game buying on word-of-mouth before anything else anyway (hardcore or casual), and sometime a good commercial can sway some folks but both of those are based on the quality of the game, so lets hope they focus on that for DA3 instead of appealing to fluctuating and emotional groups like the "two types" of fans. Just my two-cents.

[Fiery Phoenix]

JimTasty wrote...

 Hardcore fans are here to stay. Meanwhile casual fans come and go

Because what you call 'the casual market' is where the money comes from.

Also, EA. They aren't exactly known for giving a flying gnome about such matters.

[abaris]

TCBC_Freak wrote...

After having read this topic, I've come to the conclusion that Bioware should just try and make the best game they can, and market it as best they can, because trying to put labels on gamers and base marketing or development on that is impossible.

Let's strip that down, because apart from the philosophical discussion about games being or not being art, they want to sell a product.

A product needs a defined audience before it's development. Otherwise you're fishing blindly in a bottomless pond.

[Realmzmaster]

[quote]abaris wrote...

[quote]Realmzmaster wrote...

I find it funny that gamers look back at BG1 and games like that and say see that was hardcore gaming. I assume fourtten years from now gamers will look back at the Dragon Age series and say the same thing. What is hardcore or casual is relative.

 [/quote]

I don't look back at BG1 for a simple reason. I never played it.

I'm looing back at NWN2 and DA:O and compare it to my DAII experience, which admittedly was short lived and restricted to the demo. But that in itself gave me enough of an insight to not buy the game. It featured stupid, not funny combat, enemy waves, materialising like Scotty beam me up, and it featured pathetic dialogue.

That's simply not what I want to spend my money and time with.[/quote]

I look back at my whole history that stretches more than 30 years. I liked DA2. The combat was fine. The waves could have beem implemented better, but wave combat in itself is good. It keeps the gamer from getting complacent and thinking that the gamer can set their mages or other squishes in safe spots, because their are not totally safe spots. The dialogue was no more pathetic than any other Bioware crpg. In fact the dialogue was the same kind as DAO.

Bioware did not make NWN2 that was Obsidian Entertainment and in my opinion the Mask of the Betrayer expansion was better than the original game.

[/quote]

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 10 décembre 2012 - 10:16 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

The simple answer to the OP's question is that the casual market is larger (I'm assuming common conceptions of the terms).

However, Sony Online Entertainment once published a paper that argued that hardcore fans (heavy users) were necessary to attract casual fans, as the existence ofhardcore fans made the game appear more important and necessary to play. The lack of hardcore fans (or widespread derision cast by people claiming to be hardcore fans) tended to drive away casual fans, who were abrigating their purchasing decisions to the hardcores. Basically, the hardcores liked it, the casuals would buy it, and if the hardcores didn't like it the casuals would no buy it.

I have no idea whether this is true, but it would be interesting to measure.

I also expect the truth of this to be genre-specific. In particular, I would expect it to apply more to gaves that were viewed as mainstream games, rather than niche games. I expect vocal hardcore fans of niche games would tend to drive away casual users, but I have no data to support that. Again, that would be interesting to measure.

[berelinde]

Every time I try to come up with satisfactory definitions for "hardcore" and "casual" in a gaming context, I wind up with either definitions so broad that they could be applied to literally anyone or so contradictory that they could be applied to literally no one. And then it hit me.

Hardcore: Player who plays like I do.
Casual: Everyone else.

With that in mind, it makes just as much sense to make the game appealing to the "casual" market, since *everyone* will be on one person or another's "casual" list.

[MagmaSaiyan]

i think the easiest way is to put labels on hardcore or casual, such as im a casual shooter gamer but a hardcore RPG gamer

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
However, Sony Online Entertainment once published a paper that argued that hardcore fans (heavy users) were necessary to attract casual fans, as the existence ofhardcore fans made the game appear more important and necessary to play. The lack of hardcore fans (or widespread derision cast by people claiming to be hardcore fans) tended to drive away casual fans, who were abrigating their purchasing decisions to the hardcores. Basically, the hardcores liked it, the casuals would buy it, and if the hardcores didn't like it the casuals would no buy it.

My personal conjecture was always that.  When I think of the view of TW2 and DA2 pre-release, when basically both games purported to have the same features, there was a massive difference in perception in terms of what gamers wanted each game to be. And that created a totally different narrative. Of course, TW2 had many superior features (though I think DA2 gets too little credit for its innovation).

[Pandaman102]

spirosz wrote...

I'm curious, people who were huge Bioware fans during Baldur's Gate (when they originally came out), did you think Bioware was appealing to a "casual" market or "dumbing down" games with KOTOR, Jade Empire?

I didn't, but for one simple reason: KotOR and JE were not titled "Baldur's Gate 3" and "Baldur's Gate 4".

Exploring new game mechanics and shifting more focus onto certain features is fine and is expected for developers, otherwise we'd all be playing Pac Man XXVII. The problem is when developers call a game a sequel that automatically brings with it a lot of expectations based off the previous game(s); throw in a "save game import" option to supposedly influence the game world and those expectations grow even more.

KotOR started with only lore expectations from Star Wars fans while JE was a blank slate, both games could be judged on their own merits and neither tried to raise expectations by hearkening back to previous (nonexistent) games, then turning around and ignoring most of the imported decisions.

[Bullets McDeath]

There's more of them, they're far less discriminating in their purchases, and they don't start creepy romance threads, that's why.

</thread>

Modifié par outlaworacle, 11 décembre 2012 - 12:48 .

[CuriousArtemis]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that the writers, the artists, the programmers, all the developers, are just trying to make the best game they can. They are even asking for our (the fans') input, and I think that's really great of them.

[Ninja Stan]

Not really DA3 related any longer.

End of line.