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The Only Difference Between Casual and Hardcore Gamers Is...
Jimmy_Scythe
Member CommonPosts: 3,586
Grind.
Today's hardcore is tomorrow's casual. I swear to the Gods that I don't believe in that I saw a review of Quake Live Arena for XBLA and they described it as an “arcadey, twitchy, casual shooter.” But why would Quake be considered casual and not Call of Duty? The reason is because CoD has locked content that can only be made available through experience grinding. Games that don't have achievements or gated content are now considered casual. Maybe I should start by defining what I mean by the term “grind.”
Grind, as it applies to video games, is the pointless repetition of an action long beyond the point of mastery for the sole purpose of gaining some kind of reward. Like killing a relatively weak enemy over and over again for gold and XP that you'll use to unlock game content. The important point however, is that the action has to be something that the player has mastered to the point of being trivial and boring. Hardcore gamers “work” for their entertainment by grinding while casual gamers expect to be entertained and gratified from the word go. So now let's step back a little bit and see how did we got here.
Back in the day, hardcore gamers would spend endless hours playing their favorite games. Back then however, the games themselves were much, much shorter and much, much harder. If you wanted to beat Contra, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads, etc., you had to sink a lot of effort into it and deal with the frustration of dying and starting over. Over and over again. And that was if you wanted to see the ending at all. Honestly, if it hadn't been for the Game Genie I would have never seen the ending of Ninja Gaiden. There is a reason why these games got the moniker of “Nintendo Hard.”
RPG games of the time were no different. To get an idea of what RPGs were like in the mid to late eighties and early nineties, go download Stone Soup Dungeon Crawl. Better yet, find a copy of DOSbox and website with the original Bard's Tale. These games were exercises in cartography and logistics, the likes of which would send Louis and Clark into screaming fits of insanity.
The point of all of this is that hardcore was not a function of time, but of effort. And somewhere along the line, game developers missed the point completely and just started making games that were long. Instead of keeping players engaged by pushing their skills to the limit, game developers chose to simply reward players at arbitrary intervals in order to keep their attention. I guess I can see the logic... sort of. If hardcore is all about dedication to a game then what can be more dedicated than a player sitting through hours of mind numbing boredom to get a meaningless achievement or an in-game item that grants no gameplay advantage whatsoever? I guess that's great for the OCD crowd, but the rest of us are fucking bored.
Then again, today's hardcore is tomorrow's casual. And I recoil in complete horror from imagining the game that renders WoW Raids or Eve Online's Nullsec PvP “casual.”
Comments
Effort.
The amount of effort they put into their favorite game. Putting little effort into the game means you are a casual gamer. Placing a lot of effort into the game means you are hardcore.
A good summing-up of what goes wrong in todays gaming development or better in games at all.
The point is i cant remember one game of the last 10 years, which was not easily beaten,which i could not see the ending of all. And after that i often have the fealing i played a fu... tutorial. So i almost play only multiplayer games, where at least the other human is a challenge.
But then? They introduced grind to get the best equipment or some special stuff. It may be ok in mmorpgs, and even there it is in my mind not the right turn to make games better.
Where are games like Dungeon Master or omg Dungeon Master - Chaos Strikes Back( i dont know even one, where saw the ending there), they should really bring challenge back and kick out the grind. There is no need to see a ending of a game, or to see every area in a mmorpg, as long it accomplish that there is something challenging along the way where i have to bring some effort to reach somthing.
But maybe it is just a old fart like me, who likes something like that, and all other just want instant gratification and grinding to prove how good and how sustained they are.
The problem is that there are far more people who want guaranteed rewards than those who want to work hard to earn them. This isn't a problem with the industry, it's a problem with the consumers.
WoW has clearly proven that by letting consumers know exactly what they stand to gain for investing time you can make way more money because its what more people want. I'd guess that most gamers got frustrated with the 'nintendo hard' games and moved on to another game... thats exact what MMOs don't want. I remember tons of games that simply pissed me off so I never played them again. With so many games on offer these days its easy to be tempted away to play something that doesn;t stir negative emotions. Anger is worse than bordom.
The grind based difficulty makes "Casuals usually have a life outside of game(s) while often hardcore gamers do not" a truth.
Thats why games offer Multiple Gameplay Difficulties, now days. Learn to use it, and stop whining about easy mode being too easy.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Generally I agree with the OP. It is about grind, the pointless repetition of a task you found dull. It is not about the effort. I'm a casual, I play for 5-15 hours a week. I don't mind putting in effort and lots of time if needed.
BUT I don't want to do a mindlessly repetitive task just to get an item/skill/gear... whatever so I can do more mindlessly repetitive tasks. Not fun, not rewarding and not worth my time or effort.
Venge Sunsoar
Subscription based economy models does mess things up tho doesn't it, those companies want people to play the games even when they have gotten tired of it.
While i do agree with most of your points OP i dont agree on some of them as well. I myself am a Hardcore Gamer not a casual Gamer i do have a life outside of games and have kids i have to worry about the problem i see in todays games is the consumers have become Lazy They dont want to work for anything they want either in Life or in games.
Example #1 Everquest to WoW
In Everquest You had to work for everything that means levels it took you a month sometimes to level but was it worth it yes because you did and completed one of your Goals . You had to spend months and months to complete your epic weapon quest's hell it took me over a year to complete mine and i played everyday for 5-8 hours a day. Its was not a easy game to play you were required to group to complete anything you needed to group because doing things solo was near imposible. The End game content was so hard it took the best guilds 6-8 months before they can clear a xpansion.
In World of Warcraft it requires no skill anyone can pick it up to play it has zero learning curve. You work for nothing everything is given to you on a silver Platter your basically spoon fed with a silver spoon the whole time. The End game is a joke you can aruge all you want that its hard but the fact to the matter is when a guild can clear a expansion in 2 weeks there is a problem there. Casual gamers want all the rewards without working for them and WoW is what gives them that.
Example #2 Call Of Duty Vs Quake 3 Arena or any older MP FPS Games
Call Of Duty requires not much skill at all sure you will have to grind as the OP put it to unlock things but the skill of the user is nothing. If call of duty you needed so much skill to play why dosnt most all of the top gaming comp use it instead of games like Painkiller or Quake because there is no SKill Involved in it.
My Point is there is alot of diffrence's between casual and Hardcore gamers the casual crowd thinks they deserve what the Hardcore Gamers Have without haveing to work for it. The Hardcore Gamers dont want the Casual crowd ruining there games and that is what has happened thease companies cater to the casual crowd because there is alot more now playing in the MMO Genre then ever before because of how easy the game is. When they try the harder games they cry nerf or epic fail because they cant deal with the difficulty of things.
As A Hardcore gamer i can see both points because well i am older now but i still think if you dont wanna raid to get something you want then dont raid and never get what you want if you think you deserve all the toys that people earned that worked Hard for it your dead Wrong you want it work for it. That is when i get well im paying blah blah blah a month for this game i deserve all the rights to the best items as well no you dont if you pay for the game and pay for a sub your paying to play the game not to have everything given to you without little effor4t it sickens me when the casual crowd crys nerf on MMO's when things are to hard for them if you cant deal with it then dont do it. The thing that gets me the most is you have a Expansion in WoW right now that the endgame is harder then the previous expansions and people cry nerf it please then they go around and say its a failed expansion because they cant complete the endgame.
Actually I found everquest pretty easy, and about half the classes could solo to cap without any problem, Monk, bard, druid, necro, ranger, beastloard, sk...
It wes long yes, it did take awhile to level at times, but it wasn't difficult.
Venge
edit: and I don't think that casual players think they deserve what hardcore players do without the effort. As I said we are willing to put in the effort. But effort is in no way synonymous with dull repetitive and particular pointless things.
Look at Istaria - a grind if there ever was one really. But I want to fly and I want a lair, that means months and months and months of crafting, and fighting to get these things.. but to me the reward - free flying, and a lair for my dragon makes it worthwhile. So there is a point to the drudgery.
Of course I would ratherthere be interesting things to do to get that reward.
umm just wonder: is there nothing in between very hard & very easy?
why game must be or easy won of all or hard long grind?
why nobody create something which asking you some efforts without being extremely hard or hyper long? just game where you can measure you efforts, not very fast at progression, but avoiding quest type *kill X* or *gather Y*.
why not making more short quest just to make it different?
my best fun was GW, but less 1st game as start was too long and dependant on grouping for lot of stuff.
Factions was fun as it was hard but short, only now GL to find party as game became old & guys left it.
Nightfall made game bit more long, but may be less hard too, except the end game content which is not at all for casuals.
WoW IMO made huge mistake by boosting XP and making whole game way too easy, except end game content which is relative hard ( plus very hard compare to the rest of this game), and very long & boring.
For myself I don't feel fun by doing raids hours long, means 2 hours of common efforts is maximum I can support without being tiered of it & mega bored.
Killing boss for 2 hours is not fun for me, even if I'll get mega reward out of it, I would better craft or discover something.
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
If casuals were really ok with the same difficulty minus a grind then I'd think you'd see more games with permadeath, or content you only get one shot at and if you fail, you don't get that option anymore. This would reward players that play more intelligently without a need for repetitious grinding of content to excel your character. Of course this would require much lower level cap if it was level based and there'd need to be a way to keep capped players from being able to powerlevel characters that weren't capped.
Regardless I guarantee you that casual players would never stick with a game like that.
haha very true, beside I guess game is just a game, so must be for fun.
hard full time job IMO should not be considered as fun, so if you guys feel like fun of extra job, why not better take one? you gonna win money twice out of it. =D
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
Your right casuals wouldn't, and neither would most hardcore. Permadeath = more grind. You died, so now you have to do it all over again, thats not less grind, that more.
And a staple of rpg games is learning from mistakes. If all you get is one shot, what a pointless peice of content for developers to make. If I fail, than sometime I want another shot at whatever it is I failed at. That isn't challenge or anything, it's just bad game design.
Venge
Interesting ideas. But I think people's attitude and interest in gaming is reflected in the types of games they play, and how many hours they put in. As such, I've always used "hours per week" as the standard assessment of whether someone is hardcore or not.
I'd say casual is anywhere from 3-15 hours a week. Anything 15+ would be "hardcore", imho.
Where do I get such numbers from, you ask? Well, I consider other hobbies and interests and jobs, and compare:
Someone who works a full-time job 50 hours/week is far from 'casually' employed, obviously.
Someone who goes to the gym 3-4 hours a day after school/work does not 'casually' work out. They're considered hardcore.
Someone who goes swimming, plays soccer, or any other team sport, 1-2 hours per day, 7 days of the week, is not 'casually' into sports.
Someone who jams with their band 2-3 hours per day, every day of the week (perhaps in hopes of making it big!) is not at all casual, and probably takes their music very seriously.
Someone who watches 4-8+ movies per week is probably very serious about their movie-watching hobby. Most "casual" movie watchers watch 1-4 movies per month.
Someone who takes their bike/car to the track every day after school/work, and most of the day on the weekends, is not considered a 'casual driver'.
I'm sure we can add hundreds of things to this kind of list. But compared to all other similar things, I'd say anything more than 10 to 15+ hours per week would put you way beyond the realm of being casual ANYTHING.