The spectrum of casual vs. hardcore gamers

Are casual gamers going to kill gaming? How do you even define a casual gamer as compared to a hardcore gamer?

[GavinMannion]

I hate the term hardcore gamer... and yet I find myself using it often

[ps3_pwns]

casual gamer will say hey look i can play games waveing my hands around like an idiot. or wow i can change tv channels with voice commands herp derp. or i can order pizza from my xbox one and play the inferior versions of multiplats on it while getting achievements.

hardcore gamer will say wow this the most powerful home console hardware that will have superior multiplats and way more and varied AAAA exclusives with tons of different genres. or wow this have free online for all my games, or wow this console allows me to play offline and used games as well with no extra fees.

[moonstormer]

All these terms become so cliche - wonder if people actually know what they mean by them.

[Conzul]

Hardcore gamers are people who made it through Ravenholm.
I....did not.

[Saints94]

I want to have that pic as a GIF.

saved it.

[DivineAssault]

I dont get to play games as much as i would like to anymore but i HATE casual games.. I cant stand phone games or motion control titles.. I need a controller in my hands & a game that requires skill & thinking to complete.. Not just point & shoot or dancing around getting points.. To me, shooters are casual games but to each his own..

[thebudgetgamer]

Well I love games so I can spend hours playing Forza or Uncharted, but I will sometimes find myself playing paper toss on my phone all day.

[coolbeans]

"...but I will sometimes find myself playing paper toss on my phone all day."

http://archive.4plebs.org/f...

:P

[BlackCarrot]

Do you enjoy COD? Do you like that odd game of FIFA? Did you think Wii Sports was one of the best games ever? If you answered yes to any of those questions, well you're probably a stinking casual gtfo trololol how dare you play video games for fun...

[creeping judas]

I hate to say this, and many will disagree with me, but casual gamers rule the consoles!! The majority of hardcore or main stream gamers do reside on sites like N4G, IGN and such. But the vast majority that buy consoles are what we would call casual gamers, and would never visit a site like N4G.So we never really hear from them. Often times we say casual games are killing the industry, they are killing games. The sad truth is that if we only had hardcore gamers, there wouldn't be a console industry, and all the great games would be on the PC.

[thebudgetgamer]

I agree with you for the most part but if it wasn't for people like us the PS4 would have been doa.

Also you can't count on them like Nintendo because they will abandon you very quickly.

[thebudgetgamer]

My bad I meant PS3.

[pr0t0typeknuckles]

i agree with you to an extent,but i still believe that in a way casuals are killing the industry for the hardcore,why,because every developer wants to make a game more assecible for that broader audience and in doing so kills the soul of the game,its the reason for why most games have lost that charm especially FPS games,the only popular ones are the military shooters,but the ones that actually have a soul arent known to the public EX: the darkness,bioshock,dishonored.

And casuals are the people that stupidly buy call of duty every year which is why activision continues to do the same crap,and they are the people that buy this stupid DLC BS that is hurting us even more and more, and most importantly people act as if casual gamers represent us hardcore,c ause i swear everytime some nutcase that plays a shooter,that decides that hell go shoot people up,everyone blames gaming and assumes that us hardcore are all alike.

Sorry for the long response but its true when you think about it, XD.

[ShaunCameron]

Um. No. That one is on the hardware-manufacturers. They're trying to sell their hardware to as many people as possible. After all, they didn't invest billions into R & D and manufacturing just to sell it to a small group. And a lot of developers and publishers end up following suit in hopes to score big.

It's not the mass market fault that the hardcore demographic is small. Always have been small and always will be small.

Um. Wrong. That would make them hardcore COD fans. No truly casual person is gonna buy all that DLC and such.

The hardcore crowd brought it upon themselves. I don't recall casuals bragging about "the hours upon hours upon hours" they spent playing X alone in their room.

[wishingW3L]

I don't want to be touched by a filthy casual gamers either. ;)

[Jovanian]

one thing is for certain 'casual' and 'hardcore' are far too binary of terms, a scale or spectrum of how dedicated you are to gaming or a game is much better

also being labeled 'casual' is a bit stigmatizing and humiliating, when in reality it really shouldn't be because I'd argue very few games are truly 'hardcore'

[wishingW3L]

I'm a casual drinker and people say I'm a puss because I get drunk easily. ;)

[Corpser]

Where you are on the casual/hardcore spectrum depends mainly on the number of platforms you play games on

[Hicken]

There's a lot to it. It's not JUST as simple as which games you play, or how often.

[Trago1337]

People confuse Hardcore to mean something that's realistic, violent, etc.

This is simply incorrect. A hardcore game is a game that requires a good amount of skill to master, a good example are many competitive games that DONT use "perks" or "boosters" to help casual players beat skilled players easily, I'm taking about games that have those set rules and control mechanics, balances etc like TF2 or Counter Strike, or games that challenge the player, which in effect complements how well designed the game is. And NO I'm not talking about games that give these impossible or ridiculous spikes in difficulty when you choose a harder difficulty, I'm talking about games that actually tests the player's skill with what they've learned in the game.

A good example is Metroid Prime. Without spoiling anything, anyone who played the game knows that the Final boss had you, the player, apply everything you learned and gained up to that point in order to beat it.

3D platformers do this well also, like Mario and Jak & Daxter.

Casual games typically don't require much skill and are easy to learn and play like a game of checkers. I've noticed this with a lot of Mobile games, that are very trial and error based, like Temple Run.

Now do I think Casual players are ruining the industry? No. I believe we need casual players in some regard if we expect the industry to grow. Being a core gamer isn't like an exclusive club or anything, we all started gaming at some point and were bad at games lol.

[NarooN]

Casual, hardcore, mainstream, who really cares? At the end of the day, if you're a gamer, you're a gamer.