Redefining The Definition of Casual, Core, and Hardcore Gamer

So… a hardcore gamer is only someone, who can afford ALL the things? I'd like to disagree. You're building your definition around the investment of time and money. But the problem is, that unless you're born rich, your available money rises disproportionally to your avalable time: The more you work and earn money, the less time you have and vice versa. So, by your definition only rich, unemployed people can be real hardcore gamers. This isn't the reality though. I would rather prefer to define around the relativity of your spendings of time and money to what you have avalable. For example: If your available, spendable money is only like $100 monthly or so, but you spend around $80 of it on video games, then you are pretty hardcore. Same goes for time. If you have only two hours a day of free time and you spend all of it on games, you can be hardcore. The enthusiast is pretty much the hardcore gamer rephrased to sound more positive, I don't see much of a difference between enthusiast and hardcore.

I'm not sure what I would call myself. I've been playing video games almost my whole life, and the first game I played was Zelda: Link's Awakening on the GameBoy. I had a few other games I would play on the GameBoy, but Zelda was the one I would put the most of my time in. Growing up with my sister who also enjoyed playing video games was a plus. She got a PS2 and we spent many hours together playing a car racing game. We bought a N64 together and played Zelda Ocarina of Time. We only had a couple of other N64 games including a football game which we also played a lot. Then we had a GameCube and played Wind Waker and then as a family we played a lot on the Wii. So I definitely grew up with Nintendo the most. There was a period in my life where I did mostly stop playing video games when I went to university. But when Skyward Sword came out I got back into gaming. I bought a 3DS XL to play OoT 3D and Animal Crossing. Only a couple of years later I bought the next gen 3DS XL so I could play Majora's Mask 3D. I also bought a WII U to play Mario Kart 8 when it first came out (and then later Twilight Princess HD). But lately, I have been investing in non Nintendo games, but I couldn't afford to buy a PS4 just to play one or two games. There is a large chunk of games that I am not interested in; shooters, horror etc. aren't my thing. So I bought a second hand PS3 just to play Shadow of the Colossus, ICO and Journey. But 6 months later I had to buy a second hand PS4 so I could play The Last Guardian and ABZU. And most recently of course I bought the Switch to play Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I have spent a lot of money on all the Zelda amiibo as some were already pretty rare. So I guess I have invested quite a bit into gaming. But I know my limits and I know when and where to save money (like buying second hand consoles when I'm only getting them to play a couple of games).

fair nuff

ok I play 3 to5 days a week. only 1 or 2 hours. I slept in front of the store to get my wife and I a switch. day 1. it was below freezing. I have not beaten Zelda yet.over 120 hours in but I do not play to win I play to relax. I own 4 games for it so far. gaming is a small and amazing part of my life as it is a vice I took up around the time I quit smoking. its saved me so much money and time. many I'm a vice seeking gamer.

Interesting points, I disagree a bit on your thoughts on the hardcore gamer.

While it's true that hard core gamers don't necessarily not care about graphics, I wouldn't say all hardcore gamers care or place graphics as a high priority. I'd say while hardcore gamers are indeed invested, I'd say that a focus (or lack of focus) on graphical prowess be it resolution and fps per gaming is more just a gaming preference. Some people game for the realism/graphics/tech side of it, others for gameplay, others for story, etc, and that that is for the most part, independent of what kind of gamer you are.

I think it's all really a spectrum and it should be based only on how much time and how much money you spend on gaming. It shouldn't be based on preference because there are many preferences in each group.

I am 38 years old and have a wife and two young children. I play video games since 1988. I like Nintendo most, but i own a XBox360, PS3, PSP and PS4. I don't play games on PC. I like to play together with my kids or my wife. What kind of gamer am I? Shouldn't the definition include the whole family?

Actually, a hardcore gamer shouldn't ever put graphics before gameplay. Some of the best games ever made were made in the 90's and early 2000's.

I would say that I'm somewhere between core, hardcore, and enthusiast. I'm a pretty big tech enthusiast as well, particularly a PC tech enthusiast, but I'm also in the category of not having money for everything I like. I also would say that gaming is my primary hobby and it's easily where I spend the bulk of my cash at. I also spend an ample amount of time watching and reading gaming and tech news and coverage.

But, despite all of these things, it's not my only hobby, my only passion, or the only thing I spend time or money on. Even if it was, I don't have money time to get everything. Heck, even if I only played games on Nintendo systems, I wouldn't have the money or the time for everything, though I do strive to build a sizable collection of games and play often when I have the time.

If I had the time and money for everything I want, I'd be living in a much bigger home with a much nicer vehicle, would be playing the One X and PS4 Pro from a 60+ inch 4k HDR TV, and would have a good surround sound speaker setup for my games. I'd also have a PC with dual 1080ti's overclocked, an i7 6850k overclocked, water cooling, 32GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 overclocked, 2TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD, 4TB Samsung 850 Evo SATA III SSD, a surround sound system setup, a much more expensive gaming keyboard, and 2x Asus ROG Swift PG279Q high refresh rate monitors OR an Acer Predator XB321HK 4k monitor. I'd also have several VR headsets for experimenting. But alas, I don't have anywhere near that kind of money and I have to limit myself.

Granted, don't get me wrong here, I still have a good setup. I have a XB1 One S and a PS4 Slim hooked up to the same 1080p screen I have all my last gen systems, my Switch, my Ouya, my Wii U, my PS TV, and my DC hooked up to using the speakers from the TV. And for my PC, I have a Zotac Zbox EN1070 which has comes with a GTX 1070 and an i5 6400T. Then I added 32GB of 2133 mhz Crucial RAM, a 275GB Crucial MX300 M.2 SSD, a 2TB Crucial MX300 SATA III SSD, an 8TB Seagate USB 3.0 external drive, a Lonpoo 10w mini soundbar, an Azio Levetron L70 LED Backlit Gaming Keyboard, a Razer Naga gaming mouse, and a Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X Flight stick. And I game on 2 different 1080p TV's (one of which I have my consoles hooked up to as well). All of this combined is FAR more then what most people have. But it isn't everything and I don't have the kind of money to go balls to the wall with my setup.

Wow that urban dictionary definition of Hard Core gamer really matches with my own habits and tastes which is so incredibly weird. I am by no means a hard core gamer.

I play obscure titles every so often because they suit my tastes and are generally shorter experiences. That doesn't make me hard core. I won't play a single game for months depending on my schedule and it's not often a priority.

I play stuff that my sister recommends. She's probably what I would call hard core since she plays everyday (especially overwatch) and a huge variety of games. She's got one more year in college studying game development, programming and graphical design.

The point is that the Urban dictionary definitions are really, really strange, and I definitely agree that they aren't very accurate.

I don't give a shit about graphics. With my gamecube, I am having so much fun with the games that I don't even notice the fact that it is running 480 30fps. I have gotten so used to playing 30fps that when I see that I'm playing a game at 60fps, It makes no difference at all.

What if I'm all three?

casual gamers dont care about hardware capabilities switch is a casual gamer console. hardcore gamer care about the hardware and what the hardware can do

Who care about graphics

I play 6-10 hours playing video games, but I only buy a few games a year (due to me being broke and not old enough to work), and I never attend console or game releases

Consumers vs. Nerds.

If I were to be broad about which of those four categories I'm in fourth is Gaming Enthusiast , I'd say I'm a core gamer. Although some games I can play for dozens, even hundreds of hours, just to see all there is(examples include Super Mario Odyssey, Undertale, Terraria, Minecraft, etc.) 🙂

It's really simple. A casual plays games casually. You know, they use games to relax, and don't take them too seriously. It's in the name really, "casual". It has nothing to do with the amount of games you play. You can be an avid, yet casual player. Look at our journalists, for example, they play more games than most and yet are so laid back, and so casual when playing games, that it boggles the mind. That's how you get Polygon's Cuphead tutorial video. That's an extreme example, but I see this kind of thing often: i.e. people whose main hobby is gaming and yet will button mash their way through something like Bayonetta or The Wonderful 101's easy mode without ever looking at the movelist. "What's Dodge Offset", they ask. "Oh, I didn't know there was a counter in TW101?".

Additionally, I buy and play pretty much every fighting game that comes out, but does that make me a hardcore fighting game player like Daigo? No!!! I'm not looking at each individual frame of animation for my character and weighing that against the rest of the cast, right? That's the thing. I really disagree with this notion that playing lots of games makes you hardcore. I think that just makes you an avid player.

Hey I like to spend a lot of time in gaming just like the hardcore gamers and whenever I get time, instead of doing other things, I would just sit in front of my laptop and start playing games like csgo etc. But also I like to know about gaming industry and do a lot of research and gaining knowledge about tech and games. I can't afford every gaming product like the hardcore gamers are willing to invest everything for their gea but I would love to own if I was financially strong. So where do I come in?