Here is my defenition of hardcore (this is shared by 1000+ gamers i´ve met during my 25+ years of gaming):

1. There are no hardcore games or casual games they are all just games with various degree of difficulty.

2. If you put in a lot of effort in a game or alot of time you are not a hardcore gamer, you maybe be a hardcore gamer of that game or that genre which makes you a hardcore gamer of a single game or a genre but not a hardcore gamer overall.

3 An overall  hardcore gamer will play any game even a bad one just for the satisfaction of finishing it. A hardcore gamer will play any system just to be able to finish as many games as possible. A hardcore gamer loves games and lives to play them no mutter what.

Most people here are hardcore gamers of certain games or genres but still call themselves hardcore gamers.

I am a hardcore gamer and I play any game I can get my hands on even games that don´t really appeal to me just so I can see what is appealing to others and the satisfaction of finishing it.

I don´t care what system or what kind of game it is as long as I can master it and to me that is the definition of a hardcore gamer.

Will you quit using a fallacy known as "cherry picking" Both you and rolstoppable are doing the same exact thing. You pull one sentence out of a post and completly ignore everything else that was said. A commonly used tactic by press. He says a whole mess of things, but we will just use this part.

1. I stand by this

2. I stand by this as well. If the game is easy and doesn't provide a challenge then it's casual.

3. There is a difference between playing flash games, and then playing a fully developed game. One concurs with people who just "casually" play to pass the time at work, school, or at least mildly entertain themselves. My grandma plays pogo simply cause her husband died. She has nothing to do. She just sits there and plays mind numbingly. Does that make her hardcore. Not it makes her depressed and bored trying to make time go by anyway she can. While a hardcore gamer plays solely upon the fact that they actually enjoy it immensely. Please once again. No cherry picking so don't go saying. Well my sister enjoys tetris immensly does that make her a hardcore gamer? Go back and read what else i said about being a hardcore gamer. ONE spot on the Bingo card does not mean you get to shout out BINGO!!!

4.  Read 2. Do i have to keep restating this over and over cause no one seems to be getting it in their head.

5. Read 2

6. Read 2 

7. This was a reply to Ghost. He tried stating that you can dump hours in a game and be hardcore.....Absolutly not if you play just a few games that are easily playable, and without being able to really play anything that would actually require you to put effort into it then that is just a casual gamer.

8. Another example of your atrocious sampleing. I said requires time to master not hours waisted. Animal Crossing you can master within 10 minutes. Metal Gear Online will take you weeks. You're not going to go online and kick everyones ass the first playthrough. Also unless your familiar with Metal Gear Solid. It's going to take you a little while to get a hang of everything and whats going on.

Alright to get out of listing and to go into your text. First off.....where did I state that a casual game is one I hate. I have already stated that i love mario kart, i still however consider casual. I love little big planet, I still consider the game to be casual aside from the level creator, which technically isn't a game so yeah....LBP is casual. Hell God of War is casual even. I beat that on the hardest mode available without dying (except for one damn jump i missed) on my first playthrough. I put it on God mode when available. I finally unlock god mode hoping for it to be challenging, but nooooo...same thing. Not a single death.  Here's the one I'm going to have to grab a flame retardent suit, flame shield, and hide behind the great wall of china for. While I hate mario, I will admit his games are fun to play, BUT they're casual.  Anyone can play mario with relative ease, and he's recognizable by anyone and everyone. Don't pull words out of context. I have clearly stated in past posts that i like casual games. I also stated a casual game is not an automatic "bad game" label.

No offense, but do you guys suck at gaming? Wii sports? Tetris? Mario Kart? Yeah you're not going to get it those highscores on your first play through, but after 10 mins of play you should really be able to kick some ass once you're use to the controls.

@Ghost of Rubang B.   Once again another example of this fallacy. I have clearly stated what a casual game is and what a casual gamer is. Fine here is your Fallacy of "begging the question" I will give you exactly what you're looking for. Have fun ripping apart what im about to say.

Casual Game: A game that requires little to no skill to play.

Casual Gamer: Someone who generally plays games that require little or no skill play and/or does not making gaming a major focus point of their life.

Many of you I have a feeling are just getting butt sore because I'm calling a game you like Casual. Once again for the third time. Casual does not label it a bad game. My argument is not on the Wii itself even, simply the matter that Animal Crossing is indeed casual. Something I know you all read, but the way you're all reacting seems as if you havn't. Everyone has a tendacy in here to read what they don't want to hear in this forum and act like someone just attacked their integrity.

seems casual to me because there really isn't a point to the game except do all the things you could be doing in real life.

but then again, there really isn't a point to any game is there? I dunno, it just doesn't like a game that I could play more than casually. As in once a week or so, but I'm sure it has its fans.

I had the one for gamecube, and it is really fun, but I think harvest moon games are more fun.

So it seems to me that your whole argument lies with your opinion that these games require little to no skill.  If that's the case, that's a bad argument for 2 reasons:

1) How do you define skill and decide which games are hard and which games are easy?  That's subjective and different for everybody.  Tetris pros don't have to be Mario Kart pros and FPS pros and RPG pros.  There isn't a way to define skill for every game and every genre.  I have a friend who is completely unstoppable at Street Fighter but I can kick his ass at Mortal Kombat.  Skills don't always transfer between games and definitely not between genres.

People can play any games they want with any amount of dedication they want, for any amount of time they want, and they don't need these stupid labels.  If you really must, you can call somebody a gamer, a game enthusiast, or a game fanatic, or a "game buff" like we do with movies and music.  The word "hardcore" is juvenile and pathetic, and the word "casual" shouldn't be an insult, but it's become one since it's been used in a derogatory fashion by every stupid game critic for years.  It's a way to pretend the Wii doesn't exist because it's in another universe, the imaginary "casual market."

2) It takes more than 10 minutes to master Wii Sports, Tetris, or Mario Kart.  If you think Wii Sports is casual, come play me with your hardcore skills.  I have over 2000 points in tennis, and there are even a few users here who can do that at boxing.  If you think Mario Kart is casual, go play Rol.  And if you think Tetris is casual, let us know if you can do this:

The title of the video is "Japan Hardcore Tetris."  4 minutes in it gets really crazy, and then at 5:10 everything is invisible.  There is a difference between "getting used to the controls" and doing the superhuman shit the guy does in this video.

So I guess a casual gamer is just about any gamer, and a hardcore gamer is somebody who says "I am part of an elite squadron of gamers that are so skilled we need a new name so people can know how good we are, as opposed to the casual gaming trash."

Why do YOU feel the need to draw an imaginary line in the sand between yourself and the majority of people who have the same exact hobby you do, and why does that line need to be a way to say that you are more skilled than the others?  Why not just skip the pointless jargon and say "I am one of the best gamers around" ?

How would you classify chess, or other games with the old "minutes to learn, years to master" type of gameplay?  It's pick-up-and-play for boys and girls and people of all ages, so does that make it casual?

Come on now. The title is full of casual.

Animal
Crossing
City
Folks

Now, each of those 4 words are themselves implied casual.
And then you combine all 4, that's 4x more casual than it already is.
I'd call it "casually casual".

(I think they also implied cross dressing animals there, too. Nintendo is perverted.)

Well whatever, I stick by my definitions.  Perhaps we shouldn't classify games themselves as hardcore or casual.  If so then ill just use the longhand everytime, which is again: easy games which don't require time investment to gain mastery or to advance in the game, games which you can pick up and play.

By your definition, would it have to suit both those qualities or just one?

One is really just a way to simplify the other: 'pick up and play' is implied by the 'games with don't require time investment to gain mastery or to advance'.  The easy part is subjective, though a consensus can be reached based on age group.  The varying degrees by which a game might or might not reach these criteria is why again I use a scale with these two goal posts as markers.

I'm sorry, I don't really understand your definition...

For me, pick up and play means that it requires no dedication or time to enjoy, have fun with. That would not really have anything to do with mastery or advancing. It simply means it's accessible. Accessible games can have depth, just as the games that are not accessible can be shallow. 

If your pick up and play definition does not have anything to do with accessibility, only depth (takes time to learn and master/advance), then you're missing a key ingredient. If it does include accessibility, then I really cannot see how you use it.

I don't get all this mumbo jumbo about "pick up and play." There was a time when almost all games were pick up and play. If you put a game in an arcade that wasn't pick up and play, nobody would put a quarter in. Chess is pick up and play, and if anybody calls chess casual I'll never read another one of their posts.