Hey everyone.

My name is Anthony Perez and I'm the co-founder and publisher of Gamer 2.0 and a freelance reviewer for GameSpot. I'm currently working on a feature for our blog that basically highlights the most memorable or hilarious Christmas stories from gamers, preferably with a focus on gaming related presents.

Anyway, I'm just visiting multiple communities and hoping people will share their stories with me. If you end up in the article, I'll shoot you a message with the link.

You can just reply to the thread as I'll be visiting it regularly to check on the stories.

Thanks!

I think the market is big enough to support both, and it is getting bigger all the time. I don't know if the job force is there however. I'd imagine we'd need more programmers, artists, designers and directors to accommodate both markets, and I don't know how many folks looking to get into game development want to be stuck working on Horsez and Brain Age.rragnaar

Well, I like to subscribe to the idea that it'll work itself out. The talented developers who have real talent will end up working on AAA quality titles, while the D students will continue working on Barbie's Horse Adventures 3.

I don't have too many problems with the casual movement though, there are neat, fun games for that market that I even enjoy to some extent...

Casual gamer = someone who has one or two platforms (either a single handheld and console or one of the two), has a very select few modern games, doesn't take gaming very seriously (calls it a "time-waster" and doesn't spend much time or money on it) and never spends time researching their purchases at all (they buy what they think they looks like fun).

Hardcore gamer = someone who has more than three platforms (many of which are not modern at all and can span multiple generations and types), has a large collection of games (many of which have not been played), takes gaming very seriously (calls it their "main hobby" and invests a lot of time and money into it), always spends countless hours researching purchases and takes a big nterest in the gaming industry itself.

Those are the fundamental differences between the "casual" and the "hardcore" gamer. No game can be defined "casual" or "hardcore" since a gamer of any "type" can play any game, enjoy it and be successful at it.foxhound_fox

...Which is why I agree with this breakdown. I am, by definition, a hardcore gamer but there are a lot of casual games I actually find fun, as I said.

I never "clamored to be accepted". I hate how everybody is a "gamer" now, and how its cool to be "a gamer".

Fredrick2003x

Note, I didn't say all gamers wanted that acceptance. Me for instance, didn't give a crap. But I did have friends that didn't like how he had to almost hide it from girls he met until they got to know him better. Then once they knew he was cool, he'd bring out the gamer side hehe.

There is definitely enough room for both despite the enthusiast backlash to the heavy focus on the casual market. For a long time many gamers clamored to be accepted and not reviled in normal everyday society, but the only way that could've came about was with the expansion of the market. Gaming has officially reached the mainstream; gaming is at critical mass.

There is plenty of room with casual games selling a lot of copies, but the epic "hardcore" titles are still pulling the biggest revenues. There is a particular source I would cite for that where an analyst or someone was talking about this very issue but I can't quite find it.

Hey everyone, I think it'd be pretty nice to have a thread posting links to E3 Podcasts that dissect the E3 conferences. This could serve as a respository of sorts. I'm just going to post links to the usual suspects, as well as two back-to-back episodes of my 30-minute podcast that I hope you guys check out. The Minority Report is a very different format than the other two. If any of you watch ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, it's closer to that.

I don't know the other podcasts but they popped up in Google so might as well give them a little exposure. I haven't listened to them though so they might not be any good but whatever.

Gamer 2.0: Minority Report: Special Microsoft Press Conference Edition (28:59).
Stream Here: http://www.gamer20.com/features/338#podcast
Download the podcast here.

Gamer 2.0: Minority Report: Special Sony & Nintendo Press Conferences Edition (30:30).
Stream Here: http://www.gamer20.com/features/338#podcast
Download the podcast here.

Giant Bomb Day 1 Recap
Stream Here: http://www.giantbomb.com/2008/07/14/giant-bombcast-07-14-2008-electronic-three-edition/
Download the podcast here.

Giant Bomb Day 2 Recap
Stream here: http://www.giantbomb.com/2008/07/14/giant-bombcast-07-14-2008-electronic-three-edition/
Download the podcast here.

1UP Yours E3 Recap:
Stream here: http://www.podtrac.com/PodtracPlayer/podtracplayer.aspx?podcast=http://www.1up.com/flat/Podcasts/podcasts.xml
Download the podcast here.

Others (Unknown Sources - Found via Google)

Gamers Corner E3 2008 Day 1 Recap:
Stream here: http://gamerscorner.mypodcast.com/2008/07/E3_Day_One_GC_Coverage-125269.html
Download the podcast here.

Radio Free Nintendo E3 2008 Day 1 Recap:
Stream here: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/podcastArt.cfm?artid=16360
Download the podcast here.

Can someone please explain the draw of twitter to me? It's mildly cool to know that fred has abdominal pains, but it seems like more of a chore than setting my away message on aim already is. I just do not get this one.

For something like E3, or the mars rover one they have, I can understand. It just seems like for a normal person this is work and not really fun in any way.

OneWingedAngeI

I definitely had the same problems adopting Twitter. It seemed completely stupid and of little value. I also follow tech stuff so I read blogs like TechCrunch and they post about it constantly. So I said "Ok, I have an account so let me try a desktop app" and I must say it is pretty nice to see what my friends are passively thinking or doing pop up on my desktop throughout the day. They've received 20 million in funding that they'll probably never make back since business wise they have no real way to make money, nor do I think they'll really find one aside from sparse advertisements sent to you as messages or "tweets" as they're called, but it is nifty. Obviously, it's not for everyone though.

Yeah I guess, but I loved the twhirl program :lol:

But I guess I have to check out the others aswell

TheForgotten0ne

I was skeptical of how it was going to work out when we decided on creating that Twitter feed but it turned out great. I had a lot of my friends IMing me commenting on the speed and fullness of the Twitter updates right to the desktop via that Twhirl program. There are other clients like Twitterific too.

Hey everyone,

I know a few mods and I've been around GS for...damn well 9 years actually. God it's been longer than I remember. I respect the rules and no spamming, so I'll keep this discussion here on GameSpot. I just wanted to let everyone know that Gamer 2.0 has just published our first official podcast entitled "The Minority Report," a pretty fitting title considering we're a minority voice in the gaming media and perhaps the astute listener can pick up on the subtler reason.

Anyway, the point of the show is to entertain and inform listeners in a short amount of time with a focused format in which our hosts are under the clock on various questions regarding various topics. Our hosts have 1 minute and 45 seconds to jump into a topic, spit out the relevant info and their opinion, and then move on. This format strays far from most podcasts and keeps the listener moving rather than listening to some idle talk and drawn out conversation. There's nothing wrong with that format, but we just want to be different and believe many will find this format interesting.

We also have a couple of other segments. The first being "The Showdown" where we take on questions like "Who do you got in a fight, Phil Harrison or Reggie Fils-Aime?" and "Who will finish second in the console race? PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360?"

The final segment is entitled Buy or Sell where we take potential situations or a general questions, and either "buy" into the idea by believing it will happen or it being true, or "sell" it thinking it won't happen or it being false.

Again, in the interest of not spamming but rather getting feedback I will not link to my publication in the post. So you canlisten to podcast here. You can also download it by right clicking and saving this link location.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing what you all think.

Hey everyone, just wanted to key you in on some breaking news.

"This just in from a tipster who forwarded us a Microsoft press release in Italian prior to Microsoft's big keynote at GDC. After running the press release through an online translator, we uncovered the following, "For Xbox 360 arriving in 2008 and announced the launch of "Gears of War 2" for next November." While we weren't sure whether they meant November 2009 or 2008, the press release continues, "The developers world more important to prepare the way for an exceptional year, full of songs by the first plan as 'Gears of War 2', 'Fable 2', 'Ninja Gaiden II' and many games available on Xbox LIVE ARCADE."

Oh yeah, and Ninja Gaiden II will have video recording and land in June 2008.

http://www.gamer20.com/features/317/

Hey everyone,

Our Amadeo Plaza braved the cold, balmy lower Manhattan yesterday to check out the latest build of Bully: Scholarship Edition. The gist: There are 8 new missions, 4 new classes (Biology, Music, Match, and Geography), the new Mad Doc engine looks great for the 360 version compared to the Wii and PS2 versions, and one of the new missions we saw was called Rudy the Red Nosed Santa, where you have to help a whiskey breathed St. Nick restore his workshop of sorts which apparently has a hilarious ending.

I hope you all enjoy.

Bully: Scholarship Edition Impressions