I agree completely. In the book I quote a player who loves the challenge of Jewel Quest II because she has been playing Jewel Quest I for 4 years – she is clearly becoming more demanding and, if you will, “hardcore”.

Conversely, several players talk about how having kids and jobs makes it harder for them to play traditional “hardcore” games and want something they can play easily. So there definitely is movement in both directions.

I’ve been working with casual games commercially for the past 2 years and have been noticing the casual crowd gradually becoming more “educated” in the genres they play and demanding more and more depth in the gameplay of casual games. In this sense, they are actually becoming more “hardcore”.

We can see this especially in the Hidden Objects genre, which has become a lot more complex compared to the first Mystery Case File, and now incorporates a multitude of minigames and metagames on top of the core mechanic.

On the other hand, hardcore games are becoming a lot more casual, hand-holding players into the gameplay in contrast to earlier games like Contra, which was impossible to beat in comparison. I’m interested to see if this self-moderation will eventually make the two types of games meet in the middle and lose their original meaning and intent.

It would be interesting if this issue was brought up in the debate, but I can’t be there to raise my hand unfortunately, being physically 19 hours away.