The definition of hardcore gamer?

[Andir]

Bodhesatva said:

Andir said:
Personally, I think it boils down to the amount of time you will sit per session and play. I think casual games are the quick and dirty, less than an hour (maybe upwards of two, but most likely little puzzle games.) Whereas, the hardcore gamer is someone that dedicates a large portion of their week to gaming. This could be in the form of 2-3 hours (or more) on week nights and 6-8+ on Saturday and Sunday (averaging about 20+ hours a week) MMO players could very easily be placed in the hardcore territory mostly since they pay to play most of the time, but also because of the time needed. There are, however, those that play MMOs that I place in the casual realm simply by the play time per week. But when you talk about MMOs, your treading a very gray line.

MMOs have got to be the most hardcorest of hardcore by your definition. I don't understand how it can be viewed as gray? The whole point of MMOs is to spend more time. The more time you spend, the more powerful your character becomes. I don't know of any genre that gets people who play 10+ hours a day consistently the way MMOs can. There's a reason why the terms "Evercrack" and "World of Warcrack" came into existance.

I would agree if it were for Everquest alone, but WoW has opened MMOs to those with only an hour or so a night. Sure, there are those that spend more, but in WoW you can actually be a casual gamer and still play it. You aren't going to be real famous with the guilds or have the top tier equipment, but as a casual gamer your most likely not going to really care about that. The game is simple enough to pick up and play in tiny amounts without requiring heavy play times. I know alot of people that I would consider casual that wouldn't dare pick up EQ, EQ2, etc. because of the almost required heavy online time (time sinks), but they feel perfectly happy with WoW since they can play it easily (really no time sinks, and the skills in game are not that tough to figure out and with all the interface add-ons the game virtually plays itself.) They also don't need to spend a lot of time on it. My Boss is a prime example of someone interested in games, but doesn't want something that takes hours a night to play. He logs into WoW about 3 times a week. I'd consider him casual and an MMO player.