Blizzard banned/suspended Starcraft 2 single player cheaters lulz

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Dumac

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2005
9,391
1
0
You might not be able to make 60k a year selling shoes if you haven't worked for years as a shoe salesman, but that doesn't mean the shoe salesmen are HARD CORE.

Some people are good at starcraft 2, and can make money playing it. That is cool and good for them, but I have to agree that calling them "hard core" is kinda silly. Playing video games, no matter how good at it you are, doesn't make you "hard core".

They are are more "hard core" than sports athletes. They practice more, and they put more on the line.

Playing video games is no different than playing sports, IMO.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
They are are more "hard core" than sports athletes. They practice more, and they put more on the line.

Playing video games is no different than playing sports, IMO.

I was going to argue further but I decided to look the word up.

hardcore (comparative more hardcore, superlative most hardcore)
Having an extreme dedication to a certain activity; diehard.
He's a hardcore gamer.
(slang) Particularly intense; thrillingly dangerous or erratic; desirably violent in appearance; pleasing or "cool" due to intensity or danger.
That show was hardcore, dude.
Resistant to change.
Obscene or explicit.
(pornography) Of or pertaining to pornography that depicts penetration.
(music) Faster or more intense than the regular style.

So I guess it can apply to gaming, or selling shoes, or picking your nose. If you spend a lot of time and dedicate your life to an activity you are hardcore, apparently.

So you win. Gamers can be hardcore, in the same way that homeless beggars can be hardcore pan-handlers.
 

Destiny

Platinum Member
Jul 6, 2010
2,270
1
0
They are are more "hard core" than sports athletes. They practice more, and they put more on the line.

Playing video games is no different than playing sports, IMO.

I was going to argue further but I decided to look the word up.

hardcore (comparative more hardcore, superlative most hardcore)
Having an extreme dedication to a certain activity; diehard.
He's a hardcore gamer.
(slang) Particularly intense; thrillingly dangerous or erratic; desirably violent in appearance; pleasing or "cool" due to intensity or danger.
That show was hardcore, dude.
Resistant to change.
Obscene or explicit.
(pornography) Of or pertaining to pornography that depicts penetration.
(music) Faster or more intense than the regular style.

So I guess it can apply to gaming, or selling shoes, or picking your nose. If you spend a lot of time and dedicate your life to an activity you are hardcore, apparently.

So you win. Gamers can be hardcore, in the same way that homeless beggars can be hardcore pan-handlers.

I dunno... but I think these guys are "Hardcore" Starcraft players... thank god they are on a seperate server!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
81
So I guess it can apply to gaming, or selling shoes, or picking your nose. If you spend a lot of time and dedicate your life to an activity you are hardcore, apparently.

So you win. Gamers can be hardcore, in the same way that homeless beggars can be hardcore pan-handlers.

Your obvious attempts at insulting while admitting you were wrong aside, you are correct. Hardcore does not necessarily mean it's cool or that others will accept what you do. You can be hardcore at anything, how impressive that becomes is how difficult what you do is, how deep the skill-set required, how much work it takes to get there. It's impressive to be a hardcore mountain climber because you can't do it tomorrow, it takes time and skill to get to that level.

Someone can frown at, say, being a hardcore FPS gamer, simply because you may not sport a 6pack or massive muscles. However in many of the games, the skill set is pretty deep and many, many others will never get to your level. Not only because of time invested, but also because of the twitch skills, the ability to accurately calculate geometry on the fly, and the quick thinking that makes these players great. There is a lot of "controlling the field" that goes on in competitive games which is a common concept in a lot of sports as well.
 

htwingnut

Member
Jun 11, 2008
182
0
0
It's competitive but more like chess is competitive. It's cognitive, but SC2 is much more reflexive than anything else. Learn the macros and the commands, do it quickly and efficiently, and its anybody's game. It takes time and dedication, and requires skill that some people will never have (like me). But I wouldn't say it comes anywhere near competitive pro sporting events like hockey, football, soccer, basketball, tennis, or even golf.
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
81
It's competitive but more like chess is competitive. It's cognitive, but SC2 is much more reflexive than anything else. Learn the macros and the commands, do it quickly and efficiently, and its anybody's game. It takes time and dedication, and requires skill that some people will never have (like me). But I wouldn't say it comes anywhere near competitive pro sporting events like hockey, football, soccer, basketball, tennis, or even golf.

I don't mean to pick on you but...

"It's competitive but more like chess is competitive."
- Exactly. And chess is competitive. The problem here is that some people would have you believe it's not a competition unless someone is risking a broken leg in the process. And regardless of how cool you think chess may or may not be, many people will never reach the level of the good players - or even close to that level.

"Learn the macros and the commands, do it quickly and efficiently, and its anybody's game."
- That is like saying, learn to dunk and basketball is anybody's game. Not exactly, learning the macros and the commands, doing them quickly and efficiently gives you a leg up on the casuals but basically just gives you the right to enter another league of play. When all of your competition knows those same macros and commands you are basically on a level playing field where your actual ability to formulate strategies and out-think your opponent becomes the game winning skills.

"But I wouldn't say it comes anywhere near competitive pro sporting events like hockey, football, soccer, basketball, tennis, or even golf."
- That is because these events are only as big or as small as their following and budget is. Most major sports are about entertainment first, they have to be fun to watch. This is where a lot of video games become prohibitive. However, if you look at say, the Street Fighter 4 community, you would realize what some dedication and commentating has done for it as a spectator sport. It actually becomes a lot of fun to watch when you see people rallying around their favorite player and a commentator hyping things up - you don't even need to know what is going on. It makes you begin to realize what would happen if say, they had actual decent commentators and an actual decent budget. Season's Beatings last week had 9500 viewers, now that is nothing compared to your average sporting event, but it is still a considerable number of viewers for something like that.

There is also a certain mentality that prohibits games from being as big as they could be. And that is this "games are for children, xyz time spent becoming better at them is a waste of time, and this will never be a real competitive sport". That mentality itself, held by so many people, prohibits it from growing to it's natural capacity. If games were embraced as competitive what we would see is a natural life cycle where competitive games breed competitive gamers (and fans) which breed more competitive games and repeat. Until we actually had games so complex that someone would be able to admit that xyz game actually can take 40 years and a lot of skill to master.