forest-spirit on 04 July 2009
| volrath50 said: I think the whole "casual vs. hardcore" dichotomy is grossly overblown and generally stupid. From my experience, both with WoW (where that stupid argument also dominates) and gaming in general, labeling someone boils down to their comparative interest level. If person 2 is less interested in gaming, or has different tastes, person 1 labels him "casual". If person 2 has similar interest and taste in gaming, he's (hard)core. If person 2 is more interested, spends more time, or spends more money, person 1 feels he has no life. In reality, there is no hard and fast "hardcore" or "casual", just different people, with different tastes and differing interest. Yet for some reason, people like to turn them into a dichotemy, with little to no overlap. KZ2 is hardcore. MKWii is casual. X360 is hardcore. Wii is casual. Etc. In reality, I've never met anyone who didn't blend the two "opposites" greatly. My dad hardly ever plays games, and by hardly ever, I mean a few times a year. Yet he beat Mario 3 back in the day, and has beaten Resident Evil 4 (on Gamecube) like 4 times. The only other games he's shown interest in recently are KZ2, L4D and CoD4. Would he be casual (based on gaming time) or hardcore (based on gaming interest). Or me. By many definitions, I'd be hardcore (own every system, have legions of games for all). On the other hand, I've got terrible reaction time, coordination and thus get my butt kicked in games like Halo 3 by people who don't even own the game. And Mario Party (and other "casual" titles) are among my favorite. In short, casual and hardcore are self serving labels to try and boost one's own tastes in gaming, and put down those one does not enjoy. |
This.
