Casual vs. hardcore defined by convenience of play?

Casual versus hardcore gaming is a relatively new discussion among gamers, ousting such classic favorites as “Which platform is better?” That’s because as games grow in complexity, and as game libraries continue to expand, the options available to gamers climb accordingly. As humans, we’re inextricably drawn to differentiating ourselves from one another, and what better way to do this than by categorizing the opposition? At Kill Ten Rats, Ravious points out that Turbin’s Vastin has a refreshing take on the issue, especially when coming from an MMOG developer:

When I’m making a piece of content, I’m generally thinking of more specifc [sic], objective concepts like ‘group’, ‘soloist’, ‘combat-heavy’, ‘roleplaying/story’, ‘challenging’, ‘easy’, ‘grindy’, ‘short’, ‘long’, etc, and mixing those tags up in various combinations. NONE of those tags package and apply readily to as broad (and ultimately meaningless) a category as hardcore or casual. I’ve seen ‘soloists’ who are absurdly ‘hardcore’ by any reasonable interpretation of the word, and decidedly casual players who only ever play with their kins. The distinction is useless for determining what KIND of content a player likes.

With this thought, Vastin has summed up a key gripe we’ve had with the general assertion that players who want to solo are inherently on the “casual” spectrum, whereas those who want to group are naturally “hardcore” players. We have examples to illustrate exactly this misunderstanding, such as with our one friend who cared little for gear or learning the intricacies of class specs in World of Warcraft (WoW), but generally enjoyed grouping instead of grinding through solo content. Similarly, when our WoW-time was limited, we tended to solo more out of convenience, even though we remained steadfast theorycrafters and tried to tighten up our gameplay as soundly as any end-game raider would. To expand on Vastin’s point, the issue isn’t merely a preference for content type, but also in what content is available to the player because of real-life concerns, such as time constraints.

The only place where I find a very broad approach useful is in convenience of play. What is a player’s overall tolerance for inconvenience and delay of any sort? … A hardcore player will put up with [a] less refined UI, buggier content, long travel times, and other things that basically delay or degrade the play experience. A casual player will quit after fairly little irritation of that sort.

With this in mind, is it fair to define a “casual” player as one who seeks to maximize their limited gaming time with meaningful action? This would suggest it’s “hardcore” players who are okay with grinding mobs and repetitive content to get ahead, whereas casuals are unwilling to invest their time in such endeavors because the rewards are trivial compared to the investment required. Maybe that’s why so many WoW players burn out after reaching the level cap and running a couple end-game dungeons; the diminishing returns on gear and character progression do not warrant the continued time investment at end-game, because the incremental skill advancement pales in comparison to the character’s skill evolution earlier in the game. Effectively, we said something similar last August:

Let’s get one thing straight from the get-go: a casual game is one that can be jumped into, enjoyed, and ultimately turned off approximately 30 minutes later. After those 30 minutes, the player should still feel a sense of progress. A “hardcore” game, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the game’s complexity, graphics, story, control scheme, etc. Rather, a hardcore title is one that cannot be picked up by a player for merely 30 minutes, if the player expects to make a fair degree of progress.

In other words, what makes non-raiders casual in the common MMOG verbiage is that these players see little value for their time by attempting to raid. They would rather do dailies to collect tokens than attempt to form a raid group, because the perceived benefit of earning a guaranteed token is far better than “hoping” for the raid’s success in earning a sought-after drop. It doesn’t matter if we’re looking at 30 minutes, an hour, or five hours; “casual” gamers are more likely to seek out the quick and likely gain by taking less risks, whereas their “hardcore” counterparts are less bothered by raid wipes because they place less real-world value on their gaming time (or rather, prioritize it differently). But remember that this definition is limited to convenience of play, as Vastin proposes, not in intended playstyle. And that’s the problem with the generic casual/hardcore labels: when used, do most people refer to time-limited players, the seriousness a player places in their character and in-game accomplishments, or a player’s tendency for one type of content over another? Depending on the accuser, the definition varies, though we stand behind Vastin in his interpretation.

In the end, the community ought to throw these terms out the window entirely, else be very specific about what they mean when describing a player. Only then is the accusation of any merit, because it’s in understanding why two given players may be incompatible that we can build games that successfully cater to both without diminishing the entertainment of either.

Tagged as: gaming, mendax.org, mmogs, warcraft