A Hardcore Embarkation
“Hardcore.” It’s an ambiguous term. Everyone throws the word around. Everyone knows what it means. But not everyone agrees. Over the next few weeks (or months), I plan on investigating not only the term “hardcore,” but I plan to create a usable measurement of hardcore that we can refer to when talking about game design.
I won’t delve deeply into it in this post. All I’m doing at the moment is opening this up for discussion and input before I get too deep.
First, a definition of hardcore from Dictionary.com:
hardcore: unswervingly committed; uncompromising; dedicated
That’s pretty clear. Essentially, a hardcore player is someone who is dedicated to playing. What it doesn’t say is how that player is dedicated, or what they are dedicated to doing. Hardcore is a measure of degree. It’s an adjective, not a noun.
What I intend to explore is the how and the what of hardcore. In other words: What are players dedicated to doing (goal)? How are they dedicated to doing it (method)?
For example, a player might have the goal of gaining max level. To reach that goal, a method they will employ is time investment. A player who is very dedicated to investing time to reach the max level is a Time-Hardcore player when it comes to reaching max level.
I’ll work to generalize it even further, however, by taking a deeper look at Richard Bartle’s 4 and 8 Player Type Models. By utilizing those models, we can use hardcore as a measure of degree and method against the player types. E.G. Efficiency-Hardcore Achiever (4 part model) or Depth-Hardcore Planner (8 part model).
So, to sum it up, here are the questions I’d like to answer:
- What methods do players employ to reach their goals? What types of hardcore are there?
- What are some general goals players often have? Is this investigation necessary, or should we use Bartle’s types?
- Are Richard Bartle’s Player Types compatible and useful for this exercise? If so, should we use the 8 or the 4 Part model?
I’m open to everyone’s ideas along this journey, and would absolutely welcome it so we can reach some useful terminology together.
Do you have some kind of psych training or are you pretty much just going to be making stuff up?
Training? We don’t need no steenking training!
I think the problem with “hardcore” is, as you say, that people keep trying to use it to describe the player when it is far better used to describe the player’s methods. Example: you can be a hardcore explorer and a casual leveler, or a hardcore leveler and a casual explorer, or hardcore at both, or casual at both. The only way, in my opinion, to say a “player” is hardcore is if they are hardcore in every aspect of the game.
No psychology training, just a couple high school and college courses. Hence using Bartle’s 8 Player Types instead of trying to determine player motivations myself.
Maybe you think its irrelevant in the scope of things, but (until RL issues killed off my playing time), I’d have considered myself a hardcore Crafting player. I love to craft… adventuring i do a bit because I enjoy exploring, Adventurer levelling is done only as needed (if ever, usually for harvesting)… but i love to craft items, sell the product, discover new ones…. only for crafting to either be ignored by developers, or the crafter products to be massacred (usually by the raiders/’hardcore adventurers’ ) because we actually make decent items. If we work at crafting, and love doing it more than other things, we ought to be able to make decent stuff.
Just for once, I’d love a game where if I pour most of my time into crafting, I can actually make really good stuff to either use, or broker, because I’ve spent my time, my effort, over a long period of time actually getting good at crafting because thats what I enjoy doing.
I think the 8-part model is best and I think that hardcore can be applied to each of the 8.
I also think there is more to the word hardcore than just commitment and dedication. I think you also have to throw another part of the definition in there, which is chronic. I think any of those three words alone do not define hardcore. All three together make up its definition.
Someone can be committed to a goal, be dedicated enough to carry it out, but if there is no chronic activity to meet the goal, then it is not hardcore.
Someone can be fully committed to a goal, not have the dedication to carry it out, partake in other activities in a chronic manner, and not be hardcore.
Someone can be committed to nothing, be dedicated to playing, partake in that playing in a chronic manner, but they are not hardcore.
I think it is only when all three are true, then a player is hardcore as one of the specific player types.
I think this sounds like a great idea. You might consider using Nick Yee’s motivations model rather than the Bartle types. As I recall, he’s done studies that correlate players’ motivations with things like playing time and other indicia of being hardcore. Plus it captures some types of play that don’t map well onto the Bartle types. For example, I know many people who are hardcore roleplayers, never breaking character and acting as consistenly as they can with the lore. What Bartle type are they?
Hardcore is a relative term. A solo or group oriented player may think I’m hardcore because I raid 3 hours a night. I think other people are hardcore because they have a call-list, etc.
Most of the times I see “hardcore” and “casual” used, the main reference is time. Casual players are the gamers who have little time for games (or devote little time to games), while hardcore players have plenty of gaming time and even schedule gaming sessions. I avoid using both terms, but that’s how I usually see the terms used.
If a player spends countless hours gaming but is not strongly goal-driven, focusing rather on relaxed gameplay and impulsive exploration, would you include that person among the hardcore?
@Aaron. Yeah…that’s why time spent, or the chronic part of the definition needs to be in there. But that’s not the only element of being hardcore.
I would say I’m just as hardcore about playing games today as I was back when I was a kid and teenager. I still take vacation days to play newly launched games. Just like I skipped school back in the day. I still tend to think about the game I’m playing while I’m sitting in a board meeting. Just like I couldn’t wait to get home at the end of a school day and play whatever it was back then.
I don’t think you can define hardcore with “availability” of time. I have far less time to play games nowadays, but when I do have free time, you better believe I’m playing something. I still think that makes me hardcore in a way.
I think your second paragraph actually defines “casual” pretty well. Even if you didn’t mean for it to.
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