Trust me. It's in the thousands. Maybe 10's of thousands, but that's it. If you guys were a considerable number of people, Bungie would... consider... your interest! 💡Think about it💡 To be fair, Bungie wants casuals to play more than USUAL casuals. Buy more than USUAL casuals, too💲💵💰. However, that is an effort that takes a year, or two, to get going. We are only 5 months in. Give it time, these guys aren't going anywhere. ⏳⏱ The only ones still salty these days are playing Monster Hunter anyway, so who cares. Go play that great experience! 🕹📺

Really only 10's of thousands worldwide are hardcore gamers?! LOL man your age and lack of gaming is really showing with that statement. Gamers and hardgamers as a whole are a much larger player base then just casual gamers. Here's the other issue. No AAA game company is going to try and cater to casuals which is a small player share over the gamers and hardcore gamers, unless they want to see their game fail and fall in disrepair. Case in point is Destiny 2 current state of affairs. There is a very good reason why D2 player base is so low and lower then D1 ever was when D1 was at its worst. Not gonna play monster hunter waiting on another game to come out. But in the mean time I'll play Warframe you know what Destiny 2 should have been if Bungie and Luke Smith knew what they were doing.

I appreciate your post, as you sound intelligent and make complete sentences... unlike most on forums. So, thank you for that! 🤗 I've been gaming for 35 years, and have been a part of gaming reviews and testing for over 20 years, working with Sega, Nintendo, Atari and Microsoft. I'm saying things that are true, but they are not popular in forums... which are made up of mostly hardcore gamers. So, I understand my audience. I also count them differently than you do, probably. The hard core gamer by my definition... is one of three people... and you will see why the numbers are not there when you see who they are. Everyone else is a casual gamer. Hardcore Gamer list... which are you? 1) Loser who lives with parents/ roommates over age 25. 2) Streamers who rely on monetization of their stream. 3) Content creators on YouTube If you're not one of those 3 people, you are a casual gamer. Strictly because you COULD NOT AFFORD TO BE HARDCORE any other way. I guess I could include a #4... and that would be rich people who have no life, but there are SOOOO few of those, do we really need to count them? Thanks 🤗

Well the best way to debate or defend a point of view is being intelligent. I've been gaming for a long time as well, not as long as you since you got me beat on the age. But I have been around since the start of the first consoles from the big two current manufactures: Sony and Nintendo. I've also worked in the field as a tester for years and did my fair share of testing for free on some other games with invites given to me well before they even thought about doing open betas. Unfortunately your definition of hardcore gamer is jaded and clearly filled with bias. So let me explain to you what a hardcore gamer is. Hardcore gamers are people that will find ways to make time to play their favorite game or games. This means they will do whatever they can to get off work on time or early if possible. To them playing games is more then just a hobby its a way to relax and enjoy a disconnect from the real world. It's a place where you can for the most part forget about your problems and just have fun. They also have a loving relationship with specific game companies and genre of games, they are heavily into game mechanics, game lore and end game content. They are gamers that will find ways to farm for gear in a quick manner or find new ways to play their class or game. Generally these players will push the limits of the game in a way that can at times break it and force the Dev's to revisit parts of the game to fix issues that those players were able to expose by playing it in certain ways. As for your first point of who is a gamer. That's a very toxic view of seeing anyone that either is loving with others or still at home due for who knows what. Since you know a lot of people that game or buy games either live with a roommate or parents as well. Your second point about streamers that play games to make money, only a handful of streamers can be called hardcore gamers. The big streamers that are doing it as a job aren't considered hardcore gamers, since to them it's about making money by using their skill set of being good at a specific type of game or playing off their status of being famous from other games like for example Shroud or Summit1g. Lots of streamers tend to play games that they know will give them viewers and people to donate money to them. As for your third point for who you think are hardcore gamers the same argument that I applied for point number 2 would work here as well. Since those people are simply making content they know people will watch will in turn get them views and ad revenue along with donations. It seems to be that you've fallen out of touch with what gamers are as a whole and it's also making your point of view either misinformed or out right jaded. Casual gamers aren't the way for a company to stay aflot and make money when it comes to triple A companies. To those companies they look at Core gamers which contains your hardcore gamers and gamers. These are people that will play games they enjoy and put many hours on end into them. Many more hours then a casual player will. These players will play daily on games they truly love and enjoy. This is the massive miscalculation that Bungie took and it's not paying off from them which we can see from the numbers of players logging in to play each today. They've recently hit an all time low in players playing in a day for the entire franchise. Bungie needs to take a good long hard look at why people liked them and what good games are like. I mean if a company like Digital Extremes with only 170 employees can release a game like Warframe for free and continue to put out update after update since 2013 then something is clearly wrong with Bungie. Bungie needs to address the following issues: 1. Lack of incentive to play every day. This ranges from login rewards, daily missions, daily quests, professions, grinding for gear and so on. 2. Needs to get rid of the current two primary weapon system and place snipers and shotguns as secondary weapons not power weapons. Currently there is no reason to use anything but a Curtain Call or a Sins of the Past for damage in PvE content. 3. Gear and weapons truly needs to be different each and every time you get a drop. The fact that there is little to no variation in the gear is pitiful for a game that claims to be an MMO looter. Items should be different on each drop. Your first Better Devils should be different each and every time it drops for you. 4. Exotic weapons need to be well powerful, currently most exotics are underwhelming and don't feel that strong at all compared to your legendary weapons. 5. End game content needs to be worth while and actually a challenge of game mechanics and not silly puzzles or horde modes. Case in point look at World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy raids. 6. Make us feel powerful, we're basically demi-gods that can't die as long as we have the light. With strong powers that we can draw from the elements. But currently our supers feel meh. Only thing their strong against are your lowly peon enemies. 7. Talent trees for the different classes need to be actual talent trees where we as players can spec how we want and tailor our character to the play style we have. Not the way Bungie wants us to play.

You make some valid points. My analysis of a hard core gamer fits with yours, I am just being crass about it. Sure, there are exceptions, but I don't bother with those, because the numbers are just not there. Hard core gamers are the ones who post all the hate. That's my point, and the ones who post all the hate have a bias based on my list of 3 main hard core gamer archetypes. They are a loser, they need the money, or they need the game to be deeper, so they can create content, to make more money. I can appreciate your words about the old school gamers you write about. Those are called casuals today, my friend, as I am one of them. A casual had the feel of a hard core, but does not live or die based on publishers decisions. These days, these new "hard core gamers" are the toxic ones. They are awful to play with, and awful to watch. Twitch is becoming a joke. Content creators are too. I'm a bit cynical about out all because I see patterns that are developing, and I don't like what I see. Too much hate. I think we all need to be more casual gamers. The ones you describe as being hard core... but without the bias and toxicity. We are actually darting a lot of the same thing, but are using different words to describe them. Kudos to you, sir!