a game having a theme aimed at teenagers doesnt make it hardcore anyway :P

thats like saying any game with “cute” graphics is for kids/casual gamers :P

It is just sad that some firms dominate the market and independent creators are left out. If you do not have money, you do not have marketing and there is no financial succes.

Some of the latest that I came across are from Zapak.com.. Zapak is promising to give away free cash to the people who play one of the 30 cash games. (Not cash prizes for winning the game, but to anyone who plays the game) . Just loved the way they have structured the games in this category.

Here is the link

http://www.zapak.com/tgthome.zpk?utm_source=b

Universal appeal has always been the best way to achieve breakout commercial success in games. Just look at The Sims, Tetris, GTA, Madden, and pretty much all of Nintendo’s long-running franchises. I am pointing out that this is not a new development, and that it’s meaningless to divide games into mutually exclusive ‘hardcode’ and ‘casual’ camps.

As for Battlefield Heroes, I take your point, but think the article’s wording is poorly chosen. Halo 3 and COD4 sold something in the region of 7m units each last year (and I assume The Orange Box would be somewhere in the lists above if digital purchase was being counted) – there’s no shortage of an audience for online FPS games, the issue is more that EA have nothing in the category that can compete at full price, especially if it’s going to be full of Riccitiello-ware*.

*(n.: ‘Exciting’ new ways to skim more money from consumers after purchase, via downloadable content that should be included by default, gratuitous advertising and branding, subscription fees and micropayments. Recently used to ruin Hellgate: London.)

Depends on who you are. For a hardcore gamer, yeah, all three games have subtleties and pretty high difficulty ceilings and/or masses of unlockable content to reward that substantial time investment. For a casual gamer, all have pick-up-and-play appeal, either in the gameplay or the aesthetic.

For Galaxy, it’s fun for two non-gamers to team up and play through a few levels on co-op. The main timesinks are in collecting everything, but it’s not required to progress.

For Kingdom Hearts, it’s fun for a hardcore Disney fan to just interact with familiar worlds and characters. The basic combat to just progress through the story isn’t difficult; again, it’s the feats required to complete a collection that appeal to hardcore gamers.

And for Guitar Hero, sure, you can sink weeks of intense concentration while trying to 5-star everything on Expert. But I’d venture that most people playing it are sinking an hour or two a week pretending to be a rock star on Easy or Medium. This is even more true with Rock Band.

And how’d they come to the conclusion that Battlefield Heroes is a more family-friendly game (‘more’ being the keyword here — not necessarily kids, but outside the core male 18-24 demo)? Probably by reading the Battlefield Heroes Web site:
“It’s a fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all skill levels – easy to pick up and play, but with deep character development.”

It’s not aimed at the existing online shooter audience. They want older gamers and less-skilled, time-cramped gamers who value style and value over skill and bragging rights.

The whole ‘casual/hardcore’ demarcation is really only useful as shorthand for explaining games to the less media-literate and breaks down under scrutiny.

I’ve no idea how came to the conclusion that Battlefield Heroes is intended to be “family-friendly”. It is a vehicle for selling ads to the existing online shooter audience.