Are social features blurring the line between casual and hardcore gaming?
- Does my Xbox Live avatar look like a hardcore gamer to you? Not really.
Some years ago you either loved video games and spent hours playing on your console or you just played Snake on your phone. Now the line that divides casual gamers from hardcore gamers is blurring, and social features are to blame.
Or thank.
Wikipedia still has these entries:
Casual gamer: “The casual gamer is a person who plays games designed for ease of gameplay (such as Tetris) and doesn’t spend much time playing more involved games.”
Hardcore gamer: “A person who spends much of their leisure time playing games. As a consequence of the large amount of time spent, these gamers often become very proficient at playing games, and play their games to the fullest potential, playing games online is also a big part of being a hardcore gamer”.
But things are changing:
- Casual gamers can spend as much time playing Farmville as hardcore gamers playing World of Warcraft
- The hardcore gaming platform by excellence, the Xbox, now has upgradable avatars and games for $1
- The iPhone now has titles like Resident Evil 4
- Friends catch up while playing any Xbox Live title. I don’t mind getting a couple of bullets while playing GoW2 so that I can pay more attention to what my friends have been up to.
Most of these changes are happening because we really enjoy sharing our gaming experiences and companies are starting to understand how to make money from casual games.
Will both casual and hardcore gaming disappear in favor of a unique category, social gaming? Have your say in the comments!
Let us not forget the almighty Wii….whose adverts now consist of testimonials from increasingly aged members of the public gushing over how they’ve never even considered anything like it before.
I loathe Nintendo. Once I quivered in fanboy delight at the very hint of a Mario release, now laziness and a hardware gimmick have created The Best Marketing Ploy in History. Project Natal and the Sony Eye Toy haven’t got a hope in hell really. Ninty said they’d be the second console in every home….and they were right.
Nintendo are responsible for the greatest betrayal to their hardcore fanbase since George Lucas decided to make a bunch of prequels.
…or you can’t accept that the Wii simply isn’t for you, and fancy taking things off topic.
Save it for ‘Wii on Trial’ season, fella! I agree, though- It’s turning non-gamers into casual gamers, and casual gamers into Xbox 360/PS3 owners…and hence hardcore gamers. It is making the whole concept a lot more mainstream though…
The Wii appealed to what before were non-consumers of videogames. Now anybody can “play”.
Also, hardcore games, like RE5 or GoW2, are more accessible: they can be played in nuggets of 15 minutes because the stages are shorter than before, there is a now always a very easy mode, and they can be played online with your offline friends.
And let’s not forget Guitar Hero/Rock Band….creators of the 5 minute rock-god.
As a real-world guitarist that gets booed on guitar hero, I always try to forget it
…which makes me wonder whether it’s not our traditional labels of “casual” and “hardcore” that’s changing- it’s the turn “gamer” ITSELF.
Video games (of all kinds) are becoming a normal part of life. Old, young, frat, nerd…EVERYONE has some contact with video games, even if its on their phone or a game of minesweeper. Maybe the whole concept is changing?
I believe it is changing. Now the terms casual and harcore are fading. Next, like you said, is the term “gamer”. Nobody says they are a “TV watcher” becasue it is so mainstream