Hardcore and Casual don't exist, at least not in the ways the words have been applied lately.

There are the informed and the uninformed.

Be careful when you woo the uninformed masses that you don't just sell them shiny new things. Uninformed doesn't mean stupid, you can only hawk baubles for so long. The Mii-toos of the music game genre are one example of paste sold as precious jewels.

Don't repeat 1983.

The craze for anything with pixels left a jaded mass-market in its wake and for decades afterwards the videogame industry struggled for relevance. The buzz is that we've arrived? We've been here before.

Am I trying to be an alarmist? Maybe just a bit, although some ringing in executive ears won't stop this sort of thing. I can only hope they keep up the greater creative effort rather than standing at the base of the money-tree and collecting the dollars that fall. E3's opening pitches this year are not a good sign.

There have been some great examples in recent years of delivering solid gameplay to the masses, but the next wave seems tired.

I've heard complaints that this or that game is too hard. These are games I've found relatively easy and I'm not exactly Mr. Über Superman Gamer.

WTF is wrong with hard?

Geez, most games are all too easy. People complain constantly that they're bored, but then bitch that something is hard? What is wrong with you?

I want more challenges. Sure, I don't want it so hard I'm giving up on it all, but I want it hard enough that I've hit a wall and had to learn how to climb it. Some of it, I can even accept that I can't do it, that's it's too hard for me. Stuff that gives me real and tangible goals.

It's a GAME.

Games need challenges. If you can click through to beat it all mindlessly, what fun is in that exactly? Just go watch a movie instead, or browse websites if you just want a basic level of interactivity.

Now I know everyone has a different skill level, but that's why games should have a variety of difficulties: Different tasks that are harder than others, while some that are easy. Maybe a curve as you go along. As I mentioned, I'm not super skilled myself, but I actually appreciate something that's too challenging for me, that requires me to improve or even if it just plain makes me think "Wow, I wish I could attain that, someone must be good at it".

If it's made to be easy for those more casual than me, well ugh that's gonna suck for my gameplay, of course I'd get bored. Some of it should be too hard for them, some of it should be too hard for me.

I like a challenge. I want games to be harder. I think this whole catering to 'casual' gaming is a falacy, it's making people rip through content at a blinding rate and they're getting bored.

What we've been getting lately as a substitute for hard, is a grind. Ugh, tedious isn't difficult, it's just a barrier.

No wonder PvP is becoming more popular, it's becoming the only serious challenge.