What is a "hardcore" gamer?

[Yopaz]

I think it boils down to a simple question. For the games that someone plays:

Can a person who has not played the game or similar games before become competent with the controls in a few minutes?

If the answer is yes, it's a casual game. If not, it's a hardcore game.

If someone prefers hardcore games, they are a hardcore gamer.

While a good example it's not really accurate. There are several games that are easy to pick up, but tough to master. Take Super Smash Bros. It's easy to become a good player, but facing a great player it's really tough. This might not be a good example, but Ninja Gaiden 2 is also a quite simple game, but a lot of people agree that it's hard. I Wanna Be The Guy got some of the most simple controls ever and if you can complete that without swearing once you're either extremely good or got some impressive control over yourself.


I think a harcore gamer is more like this definition:

By my definition? It's a gamer with his/her head stuck up their ass.

Someone who is proud of the games they play, someone who thinks it matters what games they play, someone who enjoys bragging about completing hard games more than they enjoy playing them.

 

[JagermanXcell]

A douche.

Now I love me some Dark Souls, but does that make me this "hardcore"?
No not really, just some dude who Praises the Sun like every other Sun Praiser. Translation: I am gamer. Thats it.

 

[octafish]

Simple...if you have a Flight Yoke, Pedals and a couple of instrument panels you are a hardcore gamer, if you don't then you're just playing games, nothing hardcore about that.

 

[rosac]

A douche who trash talks others?

DO YOU EVEN GAME BRAH?

 

[JudgeGame]

I don't why we still need to go over this but hardcore gamer is just an elitist term to make meaningless distinctions between people who make videogames a part of their identity and people who only play games because it's fun. Playing videogames and calling yourself a hardcore gamer is similar to being a guy and wearing a fedora.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Do you consider yourself a hardcore gamer?

If you answered Yes: Then you are a hardcore gamer
If you answered No: Then you are not a hardcore gamer

I can guarantee that with about 99% of people that it will be accurate.

I made this post previously about this same issue and I pose the same question to anyone who feels like you have to "pass a test" to consider yourself hardcore (this was a "what makes a gamer" thread but the question still works here):

If you force a line to be drawn, where does this line go? My examples in life: I have 80-year old grandmother who plays Angry Birds, my mother who plays Dance Central 3 when I bring my 360 over, my step-brother who only plays FIFA, my Dad who plays only Mass Effect/Dragon Age, and my brother who has a PC and plays Modern Warfare 2 & Skyrim on it. Not one of these people in my life would call themselves a "Gamer" (actually, my brother might) but if they did, I see no problem with it. A gamer is someone who plays games...the end. Is that enough or do they have to be like me to qualify for "gamer" (I own a 360 and a PS3; I subscribe to multiple gaming magazines; I have a giant E-Penis Gamerscore; most of my free time is spent gaming; etc. etc.)

If anyone has questions about gaming in my family, I am the obvious "hardcore gamer" choice for someone to ask but drawing a line in the sand and saying "To be hardcore, you must have at least X credentials" is absolutely silly. I guarantee that someone in this thread will eventually make a list of "hardcore" qualities that I (and many others) will fail.

Pretty much.

Good definition:

Gamer: anyone who plays games. Marketing term useless to the general public, equivalent to "movie goer[footnote]which absolutely is a real term, which is very important to Hollywood because they need to know what the average movie goer likes in order to make those really big money making hits, which in turn fund the smaller ones that directors and movie buffs love so much[/footnote]."

Hard Core gamer: a hobbyist. Equivalent term to "movie buff" or "bookworm." If you self identify as any of these terms, you probably are one.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Simple...if you have a Flight Yoke, Pedals and a couple of instrument panels you are a hardcore gamer, if you don't then you're just playing games, nothing hardcore about that.

Hard core flight simmers are downright scary in the amount of money they'll spend to get the perfect setup, especially the ones who like commercial aircraft sims (passenger and cargo planes as opposed to fighters and bombers.)

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

What those people fail to realise, is that they aren't me, so are inferior by default.

What happened to you, Clarion? You used to be so nice. Lately you've gone all hardcore.

And it is written, Thou shalt not question Clarion, the Daystar (PBUH), for he moves in mysterious, flowery ways. He smells of ginger and cinnamon and is not a mere carpenter, just so you know it.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

A 'gamer' is someone who plays games for a hobby. A 'hardcore gamer' is someone who plays games for a hobby and has a deep-seated and pathetic need to invent an imaginary distinction between themselves and everyone else in a bid to cover up feelings of underachievement and inadequacy.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

I like to think hardcore gamers fall into six categories:

1) Highly competitive gamer (could be professional)
2) Highly obsessive gamer (in a completionist sense)
3) Highly skilled gamer
4) Marathon gamer
5) Masochistic Gamer
6) Dedicated Gamer
(SNIP)

Oh, wow. Giga, you just blew my mind.

That's pretty much a scientific thesis paper on the subject right there.

As for me, I'll pick and tick

[X] 1) Highly competitive cunttrumpet (I gots things made of wood and metal, engraved with my name on it, blood)
[X] 3) Highly skilled anal-retentive dominatrix of maps and borderline psychic (I know what you will do next, sister!)
[X] 6) Dedicated person that will give an utter crap title at least an hour or two before hating, finishing games they don't like, putting lots of man hours into games they really, really like

OT: My approach is not as well thought-out and ready to print as what GigaHz just coughed up in a fit of Einstein, but, yes, I am currently under the impression that Dark Souls really is a free litmus test to separate people into two groups:

Those the love it and those that hate it. That completely ignores the fifty-thousand shades of grey inbetween, but, hey, we live in a black'n'white world.

Oh, yes, almost forgot: My collection of 'trophies' or 'achievements' is - on average - about just 5% to 10% the size of that of other folks who consider themselves to be hardcore gamers. From where I stand, they are master consumerists, maybe even have black belts in escapism. However, pretty much every game they finish eventually feels like a chore to them, they just have to do it and playing alongside them feels like workout or your average day at the office. It's not fun. Also, the majority of them sucks hairy moose balls when it comes to coop, as they are a narcissistic, autistic, selfish bunch. Sorry, folks. You know who you are and I still love and respect you for other qualities you have. I do not (want to) consider myself to be hardcore, but I am. That's the way these things go.

 

[kommando367]

It used to refer to people that played games 25% of the time or more and were really good at them. Since then, more people have started labeling themselves as hardcore gamers and have effectively changed the meaning to:

"Someone that plays games for more than 3 hours a week and is a total douche about it"

You see, in the 6th console generation, normal difficulty was what we now call hard difficulty and hard difficulty was what we now call games like DMC3 (when first released) and Ninja Gaiden: Black.

If you were good at the average action adventure games and could play games like JAK2 and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin monks without dieing a lot in the later missions, then you were hardcore. That wasn't a label you could just give to yourself, you were given that label by others.

Back then, if you beat an Action-RPG where the difficulty is largely based on your equipment and level and said you were hardcore, you'd get laughed out of wherever you were at the time.

 

[Joccaren]

Because those are casual games. They don't take weeks or months to get really good at. Now compare this to games that do require a high level of various different skills, like Starcraft, CS, Dota etc.

By your definition those aren't hardcore games. Starcraft has got plenty of tutorials that it would take an idiot not to understand how to play it on their first time.
CS is the same. Its a classic FPS, its just got a buy mechanic added in that takes a grand total of 0 seconds to figure out thanks to the "Press [x] to buy" icon showing up on your screen.
DotA was also easy to pick up. Same controls as RTS, seeing as that's wear it began.

Really, going by just controls these games are, by your definition, casual. The controls aren't hard. They're easy. My grandmother could learn them in her first playthrough. She might not be good at it [Motor issues as opposed to how hard they are to become proficient at], but the controls aren't hard to pick up, and that was your criteria.
Really, according to you the only games that are hardcore are the shit games that don't come with a manual or with a tutorial, and expect you to figure out how to do the most basic things in game yourself. Far as I know, few of these games exist and they are universally hated for their poor design.

OT:
This really depends on what you're talking about. Hardcore game, or Hardcore gamer.
A Hardcore gamer, at least by my definition, is someone who puts a lot of time and effort into their gaming. Its not just something you sit down to do for fun every now and then, something that you'll just play through on normal occasionally, or something that you'll just play through casually. You pick up the game and the second you start playing you start to analyse it, figure out how to play it, how the game works and what systems you can use to become better fast. You have a full plan for the game by the time you finish the first level, and often spend extended amounts of time playing the game. Simply finishing the game isn't enough, you must become at least better than average at it. Practice your skills, spend plenty of time coming up with strong tactics, and then using them against higher difficulties after your first playthrough to make the game a cakewalk against your superior tactics/skills - or at least try to do so. In short, someone who thinks a lot about the games they play and spends a lot of time in learning how to play them to a high level.
A Hardcore game is a game with complex mechanics that generally follow the "Easy to play, Hard to master" ideal, but not because its hard to gain the required level of skill [As there will exist people who have that level of skill innately for every game, and need do nothing to get to the required level of skill to play well]. You need to learn the mechanics to be able to play the game well - you can play through on easy well enough without it, and the start of normal [Though later on it becomes a challenge], though hard is nigh impossible if you don't understand the game's systems. The system's aren't necessarily hard to understand or pick up, there's just a lot for you to take in and think about if you want to maximise your potential. Games that fall under this category are generally RPGs, 4X games and RTS thanks to their focus on understanding mechanics as their difficulty, with skill coming in secondary [Though games like Starcraft do exist where skill and speed effect how good you are at the game by a massive amount], whilst games like Mario are more casual thanks to only having to understand a lot less to play it well.

Those are my definitions for them anyway. If you put a large time investment into becoming actually good at your games, you are a hardcore gamer and if a game requires you to put a large time investment into becoming actually good at it, its hardcore, as the most basic principles behind each.

 

[Comocat]

For me, hardcore implies intensity. For example, I play a lot of video games, but I dont consider myself hardcore because I don't care much about optimization. IMO, someone could be a hardcore angry birds player, an arguably casual game, because they have immersed themselves in the study of the mechanics. In essence I think being HC is how you approach video games, not the games you play.

 

[hermes]

Its a god awful word used by people that want to see themselves as superior in something without actually making any arguments. Its the guy that wants to win a dick measuring contest without actually pulling down his pants.

 

[Kinitawowi]

The problem with "hardcore" gaming is the assumption that the gaming spectrum only has the two levels, the hardcore and the casual; then hardcore can be defined in terms of its opposite.

So, who is a casual gamer? Someone who more usually plays casual games. Cyclic, I know, but at least that has a small definition; casual games are those that can be picked up for a few minutes and then put down or walked away from (someone mentioned playing while standing in line for lunch earlier, and they were dead on). Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Farmville, anything and everything for iOS and Android; games that don't inspire the general masses to invest large amounts of their time and energy developing and exploiting strategies because, for most part, there aren't really any. Scratch beneath the surface and there's no significant depth to the gameplay, no characterisation to explore, etc.

I can hear you coming right now, and I have one word: STOP. I said "general masses". So you spend seventy hours a week maximising your production methods in Farmville? You speedran Mario? Congratulations, but you're not part of the general masses. Specific people playing casual games in a hardcore fashion don't alter the fact that it's still a casual game. Hell, the ultimate casual game is Guitar Hero; it's pretty much built around spending half an hour playing a few songs and then saying "okay, I'm bored now, let's do something else".

Hardcore gaming, therefore, is that which seeks to do more to engage. Plots are the easiest way to do this; Mario hasn't got past "save the princess" since the original Donkey Kong, but most competent games will have at least a token plot to retain interest, and RPGs rely on doing it right. The other usual approach is depth of gameplay; this is the bread and butter of the RTS world, and artificial inflation of depth by way of multiplayer works out for CoD. The best games do both.

So a hardcore gamer spends more of their time on games designed to engage for a period of time. Casual gaming is about pick up and put down disposability. Very narrow and piffling definitions, and there is still scope for overlap. Hardcore gamers can play casual games in a hardcore manner; casual gamers don't usually want to play hardcore games at all. That's the difference.

 

[Adam Lester]

It's an empty title used by people with no self worth in order to feel better about themselves or an insult, depending on how you look at it.

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

First off, I play games. A lot.

I've been playing games for as long as I can remember. Atari, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, these have all existed in my household at one time or another. This isn't even mentioning the huge amount of PlayStation, Xbox, Gamecube, and Wii titles that I've played at friends houses. Gaming has always been a hobby of mine.

But, in my own opinion, there is no such thing as a 'hardcore' gamer. Generally speaking, whatever else people might say alongside "I am a hardcore gamer," the crux of the statement basically comes down to 'I don't just play games on my iPhone or on Facebook or on Flash-based websites," etc. 'Hardcore' gamer is a term that some people (and they're often quite aggressive) use to differentiate themselves from what they would call the 'casual' gamer.

You can think of them as along the same line as PC or Console elitists, only on a bit of a broader scale. Basically, they take gaming extremely seriously, and think that anyone who plays smaller (read: casual) games is a stain upon the community.

In another time, before 'casual' gaming became so widespread, they would likely have been referred to as the 'core' audience. You know, the audience (some people say) Nintendo abandoned when they released the Wii, or the audience that (some people say) Microsoft seems to be forgetting about as it tries to make the 360 a full multimedia centre. They would, at one point, have been the people who actively followed the release dates of the big upcoming titles, because they were acutely interested in perhaps purchasing them, rather than just being one of those people who would play a game if it were available, but not actively track which games are coming out when.

Basically, in the 80s, 90s, and (arguably) early 2000s, when video gaming was just picking up speed as a medium of interactive entertainment, today's 'hardcore' gamer would have just been referred to as a 'gamer.' Probably with a little bit of scorn.

But since there are so many smaller titles out now, and so many people who have consoles/PCs only to play a couple of games a year (this is where someone might spit the word 'CoD!' with a venomous hatred), the (often snobby) gamers who have a wide interest in video-gaming as a whole feel they need a word to separate themselves from those who view the medium in a narrower scope. This is your so-called 'hardcore' gamer.

I don't think the term should exist. I don't think the term 'casual gamer' should exist, either. The idea of hardcore vs. casual is like East vs. West: you're splitting into two categories what, in reality, is actually a much more diverse and multifaceted grouping of people.

TL;DR: it's an elitist term, at least in my view, because some people can't stand the idea of the 'casual' gamer, and feel the need to make a distinction for themselves.