Hardcore vs Casual

Oh yes. I’m going there.

As though it weren’t bad enough that I had decided to side in defense of ‘gamer’ as a moniker for our subgenre, I’m now going to tackle the concepts of ‘hardcore’ vs ‘casual’ gamers. Do I think they should be dismissed out of hand? No; fire up your email programs now. Unlike ‘gamer,’ though, I certainly don’t think they’re necessary. Occasionally useful, perhaps, but they play the throw pillows to gamer’s blanket. Lest you think I’m playing the role of Dan Conley, Corporate Tool, though, I will say that while their occasional, recreational use is acceptable, I think that the terms themselves need to be redefined.

Traditionally, to be ‘hardcore’ means that you spend a certain number of hours per week playing video games, and optionally spend a certain amount each month on the games you play. A casual gamer, meanwhile, doesn’t play as much or spend a comparable amount of money on games, and probably spends most of their gaming time playing Bejeweled or Wii Fit. Then, a few years back, someone decided that these distinctions weren’t silly enough and devised a bunch more, leading to silly terms like ‘Casualcore’ and so on. I assume that one of these was the ’softcore gamer,’ who plays as much as their hardcore counterparts but turns the screen so that you don’t get to see what they’re doing, and always stops before the final cutscene.

The interesting thing about this stratification is that, for many years, by their terms I was a casual gamer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but this is the second generation where I’ve owned all three major consoles, and a DS to boot. I just had them in case a game I wanted was exclusive, though, and didn’t buy many new games: especially once Halo 2 came out, that was all I used my original Xbox for, and my game purchases were confined to a DS game every now and then. Even though I didn’t play many games, and those I did play were generally limited to Friday nights, I still ate, slept and breathed gaming.

And so, I’d like to take it upon myself to unilaterally redefine the boundary between casual and hardcore gamers. I am positing that it is not the execution but instead the intent that defines us. If you’re sufficiently interested in games that you read about them online? You’re hardcore. If you walk into a Gamestop and can recognize the bullshit that the clerks tell you for what it is, you’re hardcore. If you play three hours a month, all of it Insaniquarium, but know who Ed Boon is, I don’t care what other people tell you: you’re a hardcore gamer. By my definition’s first tenet, everyone reading this falls under the blanket, so congratulations. I made you a card you can carry in your wallet, but I eated it (actually, all of my graphic design-inclined friends were away and you deserve better than MS Paint).

So, what makes a gamer casual, then? I’d say that it’s someone who cares about nothing but the game itself. No community, no news as it develops, only the back of the box proclaiming that this g ame contains something called a Quick Time Event. Is that a bad thing? Of course not. Not everyone can be as invested in gaming as we are, nor should they necessarily want to be. It’s an important distinction, though, because I’d say that something as serious (and silly) sounding as ‘hardcore’ means that you should be as into this hobby as it is physically possible to be, and someone who spends five hours a day playing Halo and Madden but doesn’t know who Bungie is simply doesn’t fall into that category, in my opinion.

Interestingly enough, by these definitions casual games may not be hurting the industry , but casual gamers may be. Voting with our dollar has long been what we tell ourselves at night will save what we love: don’t buy the horse armor if you don’t want it, and if enough people act similarly, it will all go away and then they’ll make that sequel to Kid Icarus that you want. Casual gamers, by their (my) very definition, however, care not for your silly standards. While I’m not going to say that they’re all horribly uninformed nincompoops, I’d wager that you could take a generic kart racing game, slap Master Chief’s nonface onto some of the poorly rendered textures and have a game that sells like hotcakes. Shovelware is the child of the uninformed masses.

In the end, of course, this is nothing but self-indulgent bickering over semantics. I do write for a video game site, though, and love the sound of my own voice (as I print out my editorials and read them to people on the street), so this should be expected. My Bold New Vision for the distinction between ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ (and my unfortunate inclusion of ’softcore’ into the mix, because it made me smile) will be promptly forgotten by the rest of the world, but know — and know ye well! — that when I use these terms on this site, I’m using my definitions. Dag nabbit.