I don't have specific cut-off points in mind but it comes down to how much someone invests into their hobby of gaming. Basically it's the difference between someone who likes Lego but only dabbles with it vs someone who has an entire room dedicated to various intricate things they've built with it.

With exclusivity increasingly going away I'd say this part doesn't really work for it. In particular if someone only has a good PC or a PS5 and doesn't care about Nintendo games they're really not missing out on much at all these days. And hell for PC someone can still play most Nintendo games if they're fine with using emulation.

More than anything it just feels strange that a pretty average kind of gamer who mostly plays stuff like COD, GTA and sports games on a base console and sometimes plays other things on their phone when not at home but only plays like 1-2 hours a day would be a hardcore gamer but someone who only uses a high-end PC or PS5 Pro and spends basically all of their free time doing stuff like grinding for platinums and in general invests heavily into their only hobby of gaming wouldn't be.

This. 

I got another word for people like that but I'll keep that to myself :p

I get that since I do think that people like that should diversify their interests and go outside more often lol.

It is, if it is built for that purpose. You don't buy a monster graphics card and super cooling and whatnot to read emails.

Disagree. All platforms get like 90% of the same games and offer some distinctive games on top of that. There's enough variety to get everything you need on one machine. You don't need to play everything out there to be a hardcore gamer.

But ...you can if ya want to.

Or do game design.

Cant do that with my ps2

Doesnt matter if its 90% or 1%. And you dont need to get everything either.

"A casual gamer is one who plays on one platform and likely doesnt play that much in terms of genres or a number of games (i.e. MMO players, people who only play specific franchises on one platform - FFXIV, WoW)

Real life example: Co-worker who plays Valorant only now, has a Switch and only bought Mario, didnt care for anything else - hasnt touched Switch in over a year.

A core gamer is one who may specialize on one platform but plays few different genres of games but not many (i.e. 3-4 genres and several franchises)

Real life example: Forum goer 1 , only has Switch and a gaming PC - plays Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, DK, Kirby but dont care for any other Nintendo franchise. Plays a few games on PC such as Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy XVI, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart - basically the same genres and styles of games they play on the Switch.

A hard core gamer is one who plays on more than 1 platform, plays multiple genres of games with little to no limitations of the type of games. (i.e. almost all genres with exception of couple, plays most if not all franchises - also i.e. PC+Switch or PS5+Switch, etc"

Real life example: Forum goer 2, has a Switch and a gaming PC - plays all of the Nintendo franchises and plays a huge multitude of genres and franchises on PC except for anything like MMOs or MOBAs.

Most people who play video games either fall under Casual or Core, not hardcore on my definition.

People are saying a person who plays Roblox and nothing else for hours is a hardcore gamer. Ok lol.

Sounds like what a boomer would say when they see a kid playing something like Minecraft, Roblox, etc and assume they are hardcore gamers because thats all they play all day. The "Pokemen" type of energy 90s and early 2000s teachers would say.