I guess this is me. I'm not really hard core or casual. I like Angry Birds and other smart phone games, though my most played game on my phone is Picross. I also play a lot of console games from shooters, to adventure, to both Western and JRPGs, to survival horror. But do to the amount of time I want to dedicate to each game I usually play a game on Normal or Easy mode. Very rarely I will play on hard mode. I don't like to talk smack about any gamer hard core or casual, because I think we should be inclusive to enlarge and improve the comunity.

I don't really like the term hardcore. It has meaning, in terms of how much time and energy a particular gamer devotes to playing a game or games in general. Hardcore/casual games have some meaning too, but meh. Both these things are opposite ends of a spectrum that in reality is a bell curve (like most every other thing in existence).

I use the term traditional gaming more than anything else. What turned me off this gen, especially for both Nintendo's gaming offerings, was the turn away from traditional gaming. I don't enjoy motion gaming, it just does not work for a large majority of games. Almost every game that has motion controls that i've tried, on all 3 consoles, could have been better without them. The DS irks me for other reasons, and by extension the 3DS, but i've harped on that too much in other posts.

So far all the non-traditional games i've tried and seen has been a major disappointment.

People who are core are not necessarily elitists. I see that generalization a lot and I find it kind of childish. Many core players actually play and like casual games just fine. I think what bothers most core gamers about casual games is the opinion of some in the casual game industry that core games are going to die.

The kicker today though, and it is what I get on the videogames industry about, is that the budgets are so large, and the risks so big, that you end up having the industry playing it safe with what works, and studio after studio, going bankrupt trying to make an FPS or so on.   What ends up missing is big budget, with great production values, and new.  No one wants to risk it.  Back in the arcade days, that is what was done, and you had them having to do new.  Even if a game was like a top game, it because a genre, and did things different.  Compare that to what everyone is trying to do with FPS.  It is all everyone as Wolverine, and set in grey worlds, on the Unreal Engine.

As far as old stuff and emulators, I end up trying to have every legally to own emulator I can, to play above board (I own older platforms as a result).  I do play with them, and have played around with MAME also, to check out stuff.  I also have the CADERS group which is now on Facebook, dedicated to forms of play that are older, even if in new content.  So it brings together casual and retro gaming.  The community comes out of people who had been into Game Room.  I also picked up a portion of players who have played Pinball FX2.  It came from seeing what people into Game Room wanted as far as things to do, plus an interest I had in having a more general gaming group than what I had with IAGO (abstract strategy games).  One big thing with CADERS, is what I call a "PGA for Pacman".  I would like to organize retro style play (include likes of Geometry Wars) into esports.  Also would like to get hardcore players together into what is deemed "casual" games and organize tournaments in that.

Hardcore gamers are casual gamers without much of a life and little interest in spending their vast amounts of free time on anything productive; so they spend way more time playing videogames than people who play games at more healthy levels. The only people who think "hardcore gamers" are "hardcore" are other people who sit there and play videogames for 8+ hours a day. Everyone else realizes that the "hardcore" label is silly and completely inaccurate for any kind of a couch potato.

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as a "hardcore gamer". Just couch potatoes who want a label that sounds cool.

I actually don't find this to be the case at all.  When a "casual gamer" that plays the Sims and Farmville sees how much that I excel at certain games, they don't say that I'm wasting my life on games.  They are just thoroughly impressed at my incredible game playing skills.

It's the same way hardcore and casual sports fans are... the hardcore know every stat about their team, the entire roster, etc, while the casuals only follow or watch a certain team due to the popularity of their stars like Tom Brady or Kobe / Lebron.

That's because you're James Bond.

Casual gamers buy games due to their name (EX: Madden) or what their friends play (EX: CoD or Halo). Hardcore gamers buy a lot of games in a certain genre or tons of games. And they generally spend a lot more time in the day on the games.

A lot of self-proclaimed hardcore gamers do not know what a casual gamer is. Some of these "hardcore" gamers think I'm a casual gamer. If you see my games list here and what I've played and am playing, I do not think you would say I am a casual gamer by any means.

"They" (self-proclaimed hardcore gamers) think casual gamers are people who play this or that game or like this or that kind of game, or like iOS/Nintendo games.