Hardcore vs Casual Gaming in the Gaming Industry

I came across a interesting letter in the February edition of the NAG magazine and it got me thinking. How does casual gaming and hardcore gaming affect the gaming industry?

Well, after seeing something similar in an episode of Entourage, where someone explained a few things about the movie industry and how it works. I then formed this understanding.

Having said this, we will not start off similar to the movies, with their types of films.

1) The Blockbusters – These are usually the money rollers/cash-ins, call it what you like to.
2) The Indies (artistic ones) – These are usually the more interesting ones that have the deep plots and good twists, etc.

For a studio that wants to survive they would need to be able to produce both movies. The blockbusters (Spider man, Harry Potter) are the ones that make money and allow these studios to stay open, now because they got the finance they can take a risk and make artistic one.

The artistic ones are usually the risky ones.

So, anyway, back on topic. Gaming is the same, and I think that any new gaming studio that wants to stay open in these economic conditions should first create a franchise for money, and then try and fund a masterpiece.

Every new company on the market tries to find their own little ’indie’ concept , but they soon run out of money and end up closing down. So rather then starting of with a ‘indie’ concept they should try rather and make a franchise game. Now that they have the money from the franchise game they can now try and make a ‘indie’ game that will be a masterpiece. So, this basically means that casual gamers will end up funding studios which can go on and produce better, more hardcore games.

So in conclusion, next time a casual gamer asks you what to buy, you should suggest a franchise game which could make the game you buy an  awesome ‘Indie’ masterpiece.

“It has been said that up to ten casual gamers ask a hardcore gamer for advice when buying” NAG editor-Michael James.