The Gamer's Quarter

daphaknee · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:44 am Post subject: HARDCORE GAMER

does anyone know where this phrase came from? when the hell did people start saying this dumb shit? dess and i were talking about it for a couple days, and alice wants to kill whoever invented it

im thinking somewhere in pc gaming, maybe counterstrike? but counterstrike seems so new and 'hardcore gaming' must have been around beforehand

cycle go through your pc gaming magazines and find the first use of HARDCORE

or hardcore gamer
or hardcore gaming
but i think someone probably first described some game as hardcore nad then people
goddamnit i really hate all uses of this word now that i think about it

parkbench · . Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 145

Yeah. I've been doing tons of reading for this paper on MMORPGs I was doing, and I kept coming across this and realising how out of place it was. I mean, seriously, "hardcore?" It was trying to delineate the difference between a game like Tetris and a game like Morrowind but even so it's still pretty much a bullshit delineation.

In a way it makes sense because anyone can "pick up" Tetris, but then the description is at odds with itself--it was in a sentence that was like "actually, women gamers play shitloads of non-hardcore games like Tetris." So if they're playing Tetris a shit ton, aren't they being "hardcore" about it? Morrowind is maybe "higher-brow" or "more convoluted" but you can play it just as perfunctorily as Tetris if you weren't "XCORE."

In the end though I wouldn't get too worked up about it. It's just industry lingo I think.

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Well some players have had to go through some major trauma in their lives. The ones that make it through and continue to play games have hardened up at their essential core. These gamers are, of course, relatively easy to distinguish from the casual crowd. Women, in particular, undergo far less pre-gaming trauma than their male counterparts, probably because women are mostly all secretaries for other women. The overwhelming majority of men fight for a living, so they game scarred.

This distinction first became clear and documented in January of 1993, and the term was widely circulated by the (Northern Hemisphere) fall of 1995, around the time the Atlanta Braves won the World Series.
_________________
Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

The first time I noticed the distinction between 'hardcore' and 'casual' gamers being drawn was in the letters page of the legendary Teletext games magazine 'Digitiser' in about 1999 / 2000. The editor would tell anyone who wrote in using those terms that they were idiots.

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I was just reading an issue of Computer Gaming World from 1998 that used the term Core Gamer. I'm pretty sure PC Gamer was using Hardcore by then, but I'm not sure if it was before or after. That time period seems about right, as I remember hardcore being used when people talked about the Sega Saturn. This could be one of those things where I'm really off and it was used in MUDs since 1980 or something.
_________________
Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Hardcore is not a word that JUST the videogames use. It can be applied to many things and is considered, basically, a die-hard fan or fanatic. It was entered into the dictonary in 1940, so it's not a new word.

Main Entry:
hard–core Listen to the pronunciation of hard–core
Pronunciation:
\-ˈkȯr\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1940

1 a: of, relating to, or being part of a hard core <hard–core poverty> <the hard–core unemployed> b: confirmed, die-hard <hard–core rock fans> <a hard–core liberal>

Then you have the noun entry which is even older:

Main Entry:
hard core
Function:
noun
Date:
1936

1: a central or fundamental and usu. enduring group or part: as a: a relatively small enduring core of society marked by apparent resistance to change or inability to escape a persistent wretched condition (as poverty or chronic unemployment) b: a militant or fiercely loyal faction
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

daphaknee · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:38 am Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

You don't have to be bitter
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dhex · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:58 am Post subject:

sorry you can't fuck with hank. hang up and try again.

edit: my bold counter-hypothesis. the issue is not with "hardcore" which we have seen is a common usage modifier that works in dozens of contexts. the issue is with the term "gamer."

double edit: unless you were talking about happy hardcore then yeah fuck those blowjobs.
_________________

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

That's pretty hardcore right there dhex.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

DaleNixon · . Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 179

sediment · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:03 pm Post subject:

Wow Hank looks like a crazy person with long hair.
_________________

daphaknee · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:15 pm Post subject:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

dhex · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:29 pm Post subject:

daphaknee · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject:

i never thought the whole hardcore/straight edge/whatever thing was funny
its just a goddamnnother clique being all uppity about how their cause is so fucking right

at least happy hardcore people are too etarded to try to have a message
but that doesnt make them okay

and yeah, aderack you totally called it MAN THATS SOME HARDCORE SHELL SHOCK! FLAPDOODLE!

Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:43 pm Post subject:

Man, fuck hardcore gamers, fuck 'em. I am a crossover gamer.
_________________

daphaknee · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:44 pm Post subject:

what about hardcore casual gamers?

MAN IVE BEEN PLAYING BEJEWELED SINCE I T WAS CALLED DIAMOND MINE, BEFORE CELLPHONES EVEN EXISTED

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

I got paid for saying something about this, sort of, a while back.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8024&Itemid=50&limit=1&limitstart=3
_________________

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Just substitute computer for books/etc.

Nerdrage comes from the core.

Kasualz don't feel it.

Olde skool 4 lyfe 1111

_________________
I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

ee_emm_ecks · . Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 98 Location: St. Louis

that word really isn't worth losing any sleep over

daphaknee · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:21 pm Post subject:

alice wants to find them and punch whoever invented the phrase in the face
that was the point of this post at first, but it appears that alice is going to have some very sore knuckles

dhex · Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:16 pm Post subject:

ee_emm_ecks · . Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 98 Location: St. Louis

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Anyone remember Next Generation? They had a multi-page feature full of reader "hardcore" stories, and around that time the word was all big and fashionable. They ran a few "what makes you hardcore" and such, and I'm pretty sure they referred to themselves as a magazine for the hardcore. Oh man, they had two page spreads in each issue which said "GETS IT." or some such, with subscriber names in small writting. I circled my name!

They really went downhill not long after that.
_________________

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

captaincabinets · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:52 am Post subject:

Sometimes, harveyjames, I get the feeling you have experienced all that humanity has to offer.
_________________
Why am I being boiled into a bright red lobster by this little kid?

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

That's not 100% true.

dhex · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:11 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Yeah, and going to Helter Skelter and getting off his tits on whizz, presumably.

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Hardcore Gamer
_________________
I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

Intentionally Wrong · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 12:37 am Post subject:

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

It's a card from the Steve Jackson board game Illuminati!, in which players compete to create secret conspiracies that decide the fate of the world behind closed doors. The arrows indicate which group controls others.

So, for the sake of an example, Gamers could be controlling the Boy Scouts, all while working under the steely gaze of the ACLU.

Anectode time: one of my relatives worked for Steve Jackson Games back in the 90s and when asked how Steve had reacted to the success of Wizards of the Coast, he said:

I imagine every day starts pretty much the same for Steve. He wakes up, remembers who is, remembers how much money WotC has made, rolls over, opens up his nightstand, pulls out a pistol, puts it up to his head and then says "Nah, that would be too easy."

parkbench · . Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 145

dhex · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 12:09 pm Post subject:

also we have not enough love for second wave american hardcore here. youtube is not helping me with finding hilarious life of agony videos. however now i need to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XHPHbyKm4k

while we're at it let's hang the guy who came up with "metalcore" as a term to describe anything but the center of something made out of aluminum or iron.

man now i gotta spend the rest of the afternoon watching vod vids. thanks guys.
_________________

captaincabinets · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:46 pm Post subject:

daphaknee · Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject:

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

dhex · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:25 am Post subject:

as a former high school jock i resent being lumped in with straight edgers.

we only beat people up because of who they were, not what they did.
_________________

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

FortNinety · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:31 am Post subject:

bleak · . Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 258

From what I've seen the hardcore/ESS ECKS EEE scene kids are pretty preachy but that's about it. They had people rallying behind them for some pretty cool stuff, like smashing homophobia and whatnot. preaching tolerance is something everyone can get behind, right? I know I can.
_________________

captaincabinets · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:06 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Thanks!

I really need to get one of those internet compliment ---> blowjob converters in my house.

daphaknee · Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:25 pm Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:38 am Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636