Sadly, this isn’t the case. Most of the other negative comments proceed from your complete lack of understanding of the games industry.

I’m fed up with with seeing the “hardcore games are dead” argument appear here, get shot down in flames yet again by well-informed cogently arguing commenters, only to find the same idea reappear a few weeks later.

Just because you keep saying something doesn’t make it true.

On the subject of Gerstmann, this has probably had the highest profile compared to any similar incidents of the past, and it is bound to change the perceptions of more than a few readers, but you are connecting a lot of completely unrelated dots to think that it will somehow completely change the industry.

Compared to movie and music reviews (i.e. greater than zero), which is to be expected as games are more expensive than CDs, DVDs or cinema tickets.

An effective mainstream media ad campaign for a game will have a vastly greater impact on sales than anything in the specialist press. A compelling premise, an existing fanbase and/or good word of mouth can outweigh any number of sniffy reviews.

But feel free to ignore the comments from people who’ve worked in games publishing and/or journalism for many years if what they’re saying doesn’t fit your argument.

They do, actually, read the NYT link I included. Then again, most of the other negative comments also proceed from a failure to read the included citations.

1. Take any topic.
2. …
3. Teh hardcore gamez are d00med!11

This has to be one of the worst yet. It’s transparent wish-fulfillment fantasy without a shred of evidence or logic to back it up.

Reviews do not play a significant role in the commercial performance of games. Publishers care little about scores provided they get coverage – by the time Kane & Lynch received it’s 6.0, it had been splashed all over the site and teasered with previews and media for months.

Why is Gerstmann’s firing (which you somehow – frankly offensively – manage to expand into the assertion that the entire enterprise of reviewing games is endemically corrupt) going to affect the way that people use review sites or their buying habits?

Do you seriously believe that Gamespot and it’s competitors are going to see any drop in traffic as a result of this? Are you aware that there have been numerous actual and alleged editorial/advertising scandals in the games press in the past? Have you seen the state of US print games magazines recently?

Publishers will keep making games the market demands, and selling into the millions, no matter how many faulty comparisons you cook up to classify non-casual gaming as a ‘niche’. (“Sub-genre”? Oh, please. Stop digging you clown.)

We get it, you’ve figured out that casual games are on the ascent. That is an expansion of the market, not something that is happening at the expense of traditional games. Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 are rubbing shoulders with Carnival Games and Guitar Hero on the Wii and they’re all selling well.

The casual vs. hardcore argument is such a misnomer.

Consider the roots of “hardcore” gaming — pong and space invaders. Those were much more simple than many of the casual games today. What happened? People played those games, became skilled at them, and the game complexity, production value, and distribution scaled as the audience grew and evolved. Genres were defined as there was a specialized fragmentation.

The same will happen with casual gaming. Some players will not cross over into “hardcore,” but large amounts will, especially for the youth female player base. We’re already seeing this happen.

Besides, the logic of “high costs in game development will wipe out that segment of the industry” is faulty. Were that true, we’d not have blockbuster films. In fact, what we’re instead seeing happen are game studios merging into mega-studios, mirroring their film cousins. Blizzard/Activision, EA’s purchase of BioWare, etc. This makes sense — even if one game fails, the company still has enough success on their other titles that they can just consider the failing game a tax write off. But the audience shows no indication of dying niche. There is still a large demand for quality, high profile, “hardcore” game titles, and as long as that demand exists, the market will adjust to provide that content.

So maybe an implosion due to loss of trust in reviewers isn’t the plasma blast to the head Mr. Au describes. But this kind of high price, high cost market is what attracts a lot of smart people to figure out how to break the hegemony. I smell opportunity.