Hard-Core Game = ???

The term "hard-core game" is superfluous without some clear lines drawn as to criteria for a hard-core game.

The more time I spend on system wars the more baffled I am by the words people use to define their games, systems, and themselves.  What most people labeling a game as hard-core will tell you is that a hard-core game is not a casual game.  This is a bit confusing when many extremely popular games are classified as hard-core.  This seems like a huge contradiction because for a game to be extremely popular it has to appeal to the casual market which makes it a casual game.  If we say any game that sells well is casual, then are hard-core games only the sleeper hits?  Or is any game that sells poorly, even if it's a poor game, hard-core?  Generally, it's only the die hard fans that can get passed bad or difficult mechanics and enjoy a game that the casuals would stop playing in minutes (example: Arcanum on the PC).

With that said, it can't be the difficulty of gameplay that makes a game hard-core.  Just today I've seen many fairly simplistic games touted as hard-core within these forums.  So either the people are wrong or the definition doesn't hold true.

So what makes a game hard-core?  Is it simply a bunch of "hard-core" gamers get together an decide that a game is hard-core because they enjoy it?  Can another group of gamers veto this hard-core decision?  This sort of fits because it seems a "hard-core" gamer says things like "This game which I like is better than this game which you like because this game is hard-core and that game is not."  This usage only makes the word hard-core a popularity contest.  Which, you might as well just throw up a poll to prove that game x is more well liked than game y based on n people who participated in the poll.

So, unless a better definition is provided... hard-core game = well liked.  Game x is more hard-core than game y because people like it more.

Ikaruga is the only hardcore game in the industry as for today. In the future, there will be more of course.

Hardcore is just what the gamer elists use. I've never heard one consistant or agreed upon definition.  it's really just what they like and feel that many others don't like.

it reminds me of "hardcore" music fans that will say a band suddenly sucks once it's popular or your band sucks because they don't like that type of music.

hardcore can be described as diffivulty.

also, hardcore are games which have better graphics, story line, physics, ai, level of skill required to play well,  anything that makes the game have more depth.

for example. forza is a more hardcore game than excite truck. its pretty easy to see why.

Hardcore game in my view = A game with tons of depth that can be found the more time you invest into the game.

People tend to label games hardcore because, "Well, I liked it and I'm hardcore, therefore the game MUST be hardcore."  In my opinion there are no hardcore games, just players.  What is hardcore for me (Yoshi's Island or perhaps Pitfall) might not be hardcore for you.

in my opinion, a game is harcore if it has depth, difficulty and originality.

I also think that hardcore games must have some kind of artistic quality that cannot be found anywhere else, be it art-style, technique or scale (i.e. sotc)