{"id":2275,"date":"2010-03-11T18:22:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T23:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=2275"},"modified":"2010-03-12T18:59:33","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T23:59:33","slug":"what-does-it-mean-to-be-hardcore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/11\/what-does-it-mean-to-be-hardcore\/","title":{"rendered":"What does it mean to be “hardcore”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I read the strapline attached to Anthony Gallegos’s preview of Civilization 5<\/a>, I was stopped a little short.<\/p>\n

It’s not just for the hardcore anymore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not? When was it? Is Civilization a hardcore game for hardcore people? I tweeted my curiosity and was met with a nice chorus of replies from friends and colleagues. Former PC Gamer Editor in Chief Gary Whitta pointed out that Civ gives him migraines, and of course it is hardcore; anyone can pick up a shooter and know what to do. Kombo’s Tiffany Martin said that I was seeing the game from inside my strategy gamer bubble where Civ is positively user friendly compared to, say, Hearts of Iron<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By any objective measure, Civ itself has become more “hardcore”, if what we mean by that is a game that requires more attention and calculation. The original Civilization<\/em> was as user friendly as any strategy game ever made. As great as the UI is in Civilization IV<\/em>, its main purpose is to make the dozens of new relationships transparent.<\/p>\n

But when a game sells hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of copies, is it still a hardcore game?<\/p>\n

Part of the problem with using “hardcore” as an adjective for a game is that a lot of people play apparently simple games in what we would see as a “hardcore” way (Hardcore Rock Band players, as an example) and others will play a complicated game – and enjoy it – on easy settings and never really grok everything that is going on around them. From where I sit, hardcore is an adjective best applied to players – not games.<\/p>\n

It’s also a little weird to suggest that Civilization 5<\/em> will become less hardcore by importing mechanics from Panzer General<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lots of new previews of Civilization 5<\/em> out there. I’ll make my way through the information and report once GDC is over. Not that I’m there. But I do wistfully read the coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I read the strapline attached to Anthony Gallegos’s preview of Civilization 5, I was stopped a little short. It’s not just for the hardcore anymore. It’s not? When was it? Is Civilization a hardcore game for hardcore people? I tweeted my curiosity and was met with a nice chorus of replies from friends and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,134,78,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-AH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2277,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}