Doraemon.

Came to a stunning realisation this morning.
This year is the 10th anniversary of The Matrix.

...whoa.

Can't believe that I was just 11 when it first came out.
and you know what?
The movie is still delicious.

Nowadays, most people equate hardcore games to games with stuff that blows up, racers....etc ie... the traditional audience. However, I refute that claim. This is the age of console gaming and by that association, you are all casual gamers.

Why do I say so? The simplification of gaming controls to adapt to the simplicity of the console controller. Legacy games that used the old qwerty keyboards used to have access to hundreds of combinations of keys (alt, shift, ctrl, alt-shift-ctrl....etc) and each and everyone of them served some purpose (useful or useless either way). Old rpg's with huge character charts and game menus, space sims (divert power to shields!), flight sims (Jane's ATF), RTS, MECHWARRIOR...etc. For example, flight sims, old style hardcore people would be the crowd who plays the flight simulator series that comes out from microsoft which aims to map control for control for flying a plane and try to emulate real world enviroments to totally kill you. Juxtapose that with something like Ace Combat? its become a point and shoot game with more emphasis on blowing stuff up as a plane rather than try to make you feel like an Ace pilot.

You are gamers that are probably frustrated by trying to get stuff to work on the PC and just prefer stick to a pop&play games that you can just pick up and murder some dudes and with that, rather skip stuff like customization and game changing source changes. Another example, a friend of mine(a ps3 owner) just bought Prince of Persia,  infamous and prototype and finished it all in ONE WEEK and is already complaining about the lack of stuff to play (fuck him). Have traditional gamers been turned into consumerist woodchip machines that keep requiring new games that totally play like the old one but with just a different graphics engine to placate them? YOU SHOT HIM IN THE FACE MAN, MAN? WORD!. The hardcore crowd are the people need their inch-thick manuals that you must read or you will fucking die.

So for gamers who just want to game, I believe they are the casual group, it's just that you have different purchasing tastes as compared to the other 'casuals' ie...wii shovelware group( The Super casuals?).

However, I still think games that require an individual to hone their skills down to a knife's edge on the multiplayer level like fighters or maybe even shooters (only for the most hardcore shooter fans ie the CS crowd) can still be considered hardcore because their the fucking crazy guys you see with 50 kills to 1 lost.

I'm probably gonna get flamed for 'not getting it' but this is what I staunchly believe. All console gaming is casual and its killing old control-heavy genres to fit the game into 8 buttons and four directions. All that differientiates you are purchasing habits.

2 weeks to go before I take my last paper, advanced macroeconomic theory.
2 weeks to go before I fly off to Japan for a wedding. Hopefully I can see this beast.
2 weeks to go before I get to switch laptops with my bro (hes the one with the desktop) so I can try sims 3.
2 weeks to go before I get to touch a TV again (I got a plastic box in the place I rent)
2 weeks to go before life starts again.

Exams, exams and exams.

I don't think new games should be put up for used game sales. Economics 101, a 2nd-hand purchase is just a change of ownership and is unproductive to the market (assuming you ignore the middlemen ie...gamestop(which i always do)). Thus, the developers aren't able to get their due reward for their tasks. However, as most game sales are usually within the initial sales period(whatever they may be), I feel its okay to buy discounted/pre-owned games after the said period.

Another example is like how you purchase a 2nd hand car, Although you get it cheaper, its probably manufactured years ago but the game is printed like just 1 week ago and getting it used for a 5 dollar discount? I'd rather just buy a new one (of course unless you can get it REALLY cheaply).

Which brings me to my last suggestion. New games should be scented. Like that new car smell we love/hate, opening a box should just give you a whiff of flowers or something and it dissipate immeadiately into the air (thus this should counter all the stories i hear about people buying repackage games as new). Well thats all folks.