We’ve had a flood of interest and feedback over our Midcore Manifesto posted last week. and much of it has been very positive. The idea of Midcore has filtered out to places like Kotaku, Joystiq, RockPaperShotGun, NerdNYC, Destructoid, GamePad, Expertologist (who I think misunderstood #2 on the list, but Gold Bless them, they also called us ‘mad men‘ which is not too far of the mark) and many others, mostly due to posting from Simon Carless at GameSetWatch.com . Many of these sites allow feedback and comments, and most have been favorable towards the concept of a Midcore Gamer demographic. To be perfectly honest, this has come as a complete surprise. Our web site is dedicated to free tutorials for making Flash games (a very small but fierce demographic). We only blog on topics about “playing games” when we feel the urge to do so.

We’ve also noticed that our assertions about Midcore were not the first time this subject has arisen. We were not aware of the “HardCasual” or “HardcoreCasual” movement that has sprung-up in places like GamerVision , LevelUp and TenTonHammer. While I’m not a big fan of the term “HardCoreCasual” (a bit of an oxymoron if I do say so), if the community decides that term (or any other for that matter) is more palatable than Midcore, that’s fine with us. We are in this for the (rolling) contents of the Midcore Manifesto and the process of trying to get game companies to recognize and produce games for the demographic, we are not in it for the label. Furthermore, as far as the term Midcore goes, it seems to have shown-up first on a Karen Chu’s blog at 1up.com in Nov 2007, so if there is ever an argument of the “origin”, that is probably the first use in the context of gaming. However, it looks like we were the first to use the term Midcore Gamer, so we are going to run with that one.

One other thing I do want to point out is that the concept of “Midcore” has evolved for years and continues to evolve, but it was just recently that a “term” has been associated with it. I think that Andrew Bub at GamerDad.com was probably one of the first purveyors of a similar concept, although his was more “hardcore family gaming”, but still within the same realm. Since I used to write reviews and stories for Mr. Bub and his site, it’s obvious that some of his ideas might have rubbed off us.

We are now in the process of putting together a community for Midcore Gamers so people who identify with the idea of Midcore Gamers can have a place to discuss and debate the elements of the Manifesto, track its origins and evolution, and identify games, themes, companies, etc. that fit the Midcore Gamer demographic.

To that end, we have completed several tasks.

1. We have placed the term Midcore Gamer under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This is the least restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses. This will allow anyone to freely use the term for commercial or non-commercial use, but will not let any one entity trademark, copyright it, or try to keep others from using it. We felt this was the best way to protect a Midcore Gamer community because it allows the community to grow, and no one can claim full ownership of it.
2. We have started a Wiki for Midcore Gamers here at http://www.midcoregamer.com/wiki. This is for the Midcore Gamer Community to decide among itself what it means to be a Midcore Gamer. Please sign-up and help us define and expand the term.
3. We have registered the domain name http://www.midcoregamer.com. We will use it as a landing page for Midcore Blogs, Midcore Forums, the Midcore Wiki, and for a software reviews of Midcore games. This will allow us to retain our own views on the term Midcore Gamer and act as an entry-way into the Midcore Gamer community.

-Steve Fulton