So when Goslin says about the casual gamer “… you have to get them engaged faster, because their time is limited” it makes sense. You prove this by saying that casual players want what hardcore players have (to be first or achieve) but without as much (time and) effort. So if you remove the time constraints and effort involved in achieving and accomplishing in mmo’s then you appeal more to the casual gamer who cannot or is not willing to put as much time and effort. So in that regard Goslin would appear to be correct. Where he in fact seems to be wrong is in suggesting that if a casual player enjoys elements of a game designed for him/her then it will be fun for a hardcore player. In fact, you would have to include elements for both. Such as in Guild Wars where they have silly titles you can get for all sorts of crazy things like clearing every zone in the game on hard mode… hardcore gamers like to have other players say “holy crap… that person is either a loser, or craZy… I wish I had the time to get that title” ;p

So, in effect I say the fundamental requirements for a hardcore gamer as described by the criteria above is the desire to be “first” which is facilitated by time spent playing.

As an example, I used to play EQ 18 hours a day. Then my roommate would play while I slept (yes no life). The majority of players at the top are usually comparable in skill and all other aspects so time is pretty much always the deciding factor.

So to sum up, yes a casual player may actually play many hours online, but they may not be trying to be “first” in the game. Instead they may be cybering or chatting or teaching n00bs how to play etc. BUT, and this is a guess, I would venture to say its still rare that a player not trying to be first is spending 18 hours online daily. Therefore it is logical to say that hardcore players, the ones who want to be “first” will play the most hours online because they are competing with other players of equal skill and can only facilitate their goals by spending the more time than any other player trying to achieve them. So whereas the casual player is willing to invest enough time in the game to enjoy it, the hardcore player will invest the MOST time in the game to win.

Its tough and ultimately needs proper critera to define terms.

I think the biggest difference between the two, is that a “hardcore” player feels that the reward for playing a game should be equivalent to the time spent playing/advancing. A hardcore player wants to be recognized for the effort they put forth, much more so than a casual player. This is the reason for the “war” of casual vs hardcore gamers.

Coming from a very hardcore gaming background (Played Everquest for 6 years of my life, with nearly 2 years of actual online time), I understand many of the reasons for the casual/hardcore debates; and it’s simple. A hardcore player wants to be better (in more of a in-game status sense) than other players. They feel that if they play 10x more than another player, their character should be 10x farther advanced and 10x better geared.

There was once a time when that was exactly the case with MMO’s. The most hardcore gamers/guilds were known throughout their servers, simply by their accomplishments, and the items they’d acquired. This caused unrest amongst “casual” players because it made them feel inferior. They were unable (or didn’t desire) to spend the amount of effort/time needed to be on par with the “hardcore” players, which lead to lots of complaints. I pay the same amount of money to play as they do, why shouldn’t I be able to experience the same things they do?

And thus the Casual vs Hardcore gamer war began. Unfortunately, for hardcore gamers, the majority of players prefer the casual style of gaming. Money controls the market, and the majority controls the money, at least when it comes to developing games.This lead to much more watered down and easy MMO’s (ex: World of Warcraft). Easier more “casual” games lead to increased sales (WoW most successful MMO of all time, income wise).

Somewhere a long the line, Hardcore gamers were overlooked. Oh, there are still people who are “hardcore” that play. Some because they truly enjoy mmo’s, others because they are more of an mmo addict, than a hardcore gamer (different discussion). The problem these days is true hardcore players are finding it harder and harder to be “recognized” in their respective mmo communities.

Catering to the casual gamers made acquiring good loot easier, advancing easier in general, and pretty much created “equality” amongst the community. Equality is something hardcore gamers loathe. Someone who plays 30 hours a week WANTS to be better known, better geared, better experienced than the person who plays 3 hours a week, but the separation between what a casual and hardcore gamer can accomplish has become very insignificant.

I’ll use myself, and everquest to serve as a better example. A raid in everquest could take anywhere from 30-60 organized and well geared characters and take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours (on average, I won’t get into the 15 hour raids I’ve been on), to receive possibly 4-5 pieces of premium gear. People in my guild had items that many people dreamed of having. The guilds that raided the highest end content, and got the best loot, were known by reputation across the entire server, even across multi-servers in some instances.

I was the 2nd best geared of my class on my server, with somewhere around 6500 hp, when the average character of my class had about 3000 hp. People I’d never met or heard of knew me simply because of the items I had, and the guild I was in. When a new expansion came out and the level cap increased, everyone knew the people who would maximize the levels first.

Now, in Everquest 2, I went at the game just as hardcore as I did in EQ1 (at least for a while). I quickly leveled up and spent countless hours doing quests and getting the best items I could. I joined a pretty decent raid gear and had quite nice gear. The problem was, people who did no raiding at all, still had very comparable gear and stats, furthermore, the long time characters with all the best gear in the game, weren’t that much better than me statistically. There was no real feeling of accomplishment. When an expansion came out, I was simply 1 of 300000000 people who achieved max level soon after.

Raids no longer took mass cooperation. 20 people could get some of the best gear in the game in an hour or 2 of raiding. To top it all off, an infinite number of 20 man raids could be raiding the exact same zone, at the exact same time, and there was generally much more loot to be had, per encounter.

Everyone pretty much became equal, no real separation in status. And it’s that exactly that puts so many “hardcore” gamers in an uproar. The amount of time and effort they put into the game is no longer equal to the reward gained. Every casual player can pretty much get the same rewards, while possibly waiting a tiny bit longer.

The goal of a hardcore gamer is to achieve more than other people. Casual players want to be able to achieve the same things hardcore gamers can, without having to wait or put in as much effort.

It’s impossible to please both sides, thus the war “Hardcore vs Casual”

[...] Definition Wars: Hardcore vs. Casual @ Nerfbat.com [...]

[...] to be implied when Damion talks about his mother playing Solitaire. But Damion, Ryan Shwayder (whose post Damion is responding to), and Richard Aihoshi (whose article Ryan is responding to) are all [...]

For me the difference between Hardcore and Casual is very hard to pin down, and applies differently to different games in different ways. Hence we will no doubt be discussing this again on another blog in about 3 months time lol.

For me though, this is how I see it

Hardcore
They can invest a substantial amount of time into one game, and here’s the key point, in one sitting. Meaning, they can play for 4-6 hours uninterrupted in one go.
They generally have a number of like minded players they will group with often, and will burn through content very quickly, again, in one sitting.
This invariably means that for a Hardcore player, 4-6 hours gametime will generate a lot more advancement/cash/skills than for someone who invest 4-6 hours in 2 or 3 sittings.

Casual
They can invest up to 2-3 hours in one sitting.
They often do not have a regular group wlaways on at the same time, but are often either solo, or part of a large group of players who drift in and out depending on the time.
Because fo this, unless they ‘maximise their efficiency’ they invariably spend a significant amount of time, not advancing (LFG, Skill grinding, Trading etc). Doing the thigns that a Hardcore gamer will do to pass the time until their core players come online.
This invariably means that only 60% of their time is used well, and because it is in short sittings, they do not advance as quickly as a hardcore player.

I am of the latter. This is in no way a complaint, I enjoy being a Casual gamer. I find it frustrating that I cannot do high end content, or get the top rewards, but accept that they are for players who can invest the time/dedication to get them.

What I would like to see is a way of a casual player gaining access to rewards which can be comparable to top tier rewards, but achieved in a different way.

Classic example – A Raid will often take 20+ people 4-5 hours to complete, giving a large proportion of them a shot at some very nice loot. Hence this is the equivalent of 100 Hours game time for these players.
I would like an option for a casual gamer to do a quest, which takes as long (100 hours), but has regular break points, so that they can pick it up and put it down as needed. It would be an epic quest, and should giev you the same sense of achievement as finally taking down the Boss Mob after a 5 hours of raiding.
This also applies for quests which require groups. If it will take a group 2 hours, then make a solo version which will take 12 hours. Give people the option, and maybe make it a series of steps so each step has the option.
I know this leads on to the old debate of Solo or Group Orientated. But with todays MMOs and the wonders they have achieved so far, I see no reason that content cannot be built with different styles of play in mind.

Anyway, thats enough from me!

[...] Definition Wars: Hardcore vs. Casual @ Nerfbat.com [...]

[...] question of what a ‘hardcore’ gamer is vs. a casual gamer. This time, the culprit is Ryan, who ends up where most other pundits seem to. But I’ve never felt comfortable with that [...]

A typical casual game like Bejeweled requires a significant time investment if you want to play skillfully. I believe this is always applicable to all games where the player has not already have mastered the pattern of the game system. A master player of Counter Strike can import knowledge about the game pattern and quickly master many parts of Battlefield, but still need several weeks of training to get anywhere noteworthy in Bejeweled.

Something that definately can differentiate a casual from a hardcore in some dimension is the willingness to put up with downtime. This is where the mmorpg genre really screws up because almost every player will be ready to advance to a higher level of mastery long before the game gives them access to more advanced game systems. Some types of casual players put up with the downtime because they dont play the game mechanics, they might be doing other things like learning game data, looking at art or reading lore.

If you look at games like solitaire you will find that a lot of the playing habits are similar to those of a WoW player, but the probability of a player fitting a specific pattern differens noticeably between the game, however the time axis has similar min and max values. The willingness to put up with downtime when comparing the two types of players will however differ a great lot. Following this discussion I definately agree that the “hardcore-casual” debate might benefit from mapping players (or game designs) in a pokemon-style matrix with some well defined axis.

The ones I come up with without much further thought might look something like these:

Art (casual art accepts programmer art, hardcore art demand crysis)

Skill (casual skill like random systems, hardcore skill prefer chess)

Process (casual process like linear puzzles, hardcore prefer clever computer brain challenges)

Data (casual Data like checkers, hardcore prefer Thottbot content)
Abstraction (casual Abstraction like point and click, hardcore prefer complex linked game systems)

Tempo (casual Tempo like an optimal learning curve, hardcore prefer long term challenges)

Note that the Tempo axis becomes the Downtime component. Any game probably maps within this type of system, but I dont think its right yet. The axis in most need of better definition are probably Process and Abstraction, since I think most people will read these as being roughly the same thing where they are not.

[...] Blog &middot MMOs &middot Links &middot Forum &middot Login &middot Register Nerfbat – Definition Wars: Hardcore vs. Casual http://www.nerfbat.com/2007/03/20/definition-wars-hardcore-vs-casual/ "There’s a good article [...]