Kap’s Log: Are You Hardcore?

INGAME: This needs to be a word already, M-W.com!

The casual set enjoys talking to new players. If the person is genuinely asking for advice, these are the social folk that relish the chance to talk to a player that hasn’t been hardened by the coarseness of other people’s personalities and the game’s most glaring faults. They go where the people are. This includes moving to entirely new games to play with friends. The guild they choose must have mature leadership and a mellow vibe. They like a group that gets humor, and that can be fun to communicate with. Loot is a pleasant surprise when it appears. They logon with a, “sup” and logoff with a, “later all.”

The more focused will not bother even reading the general chat channel. They despise newbies, sometimes ridiculing them for their innate lack of experience with a particular genre. Usually, they’re very polite about it, but they see you as someone in their way. They play to win, and don’t have time to hold anyone’s hand. Simply put, they do not have any barrier between their brain and their tongue when trying to coordinate a difficult mission. Hardcore MMO players do not play for any social reasons, and only join guilds if it is required for advancement. They usually don’t say anything when they logon, and logoff with even more brevity by just slapping ALT-F4.

REAL LIFE: It exists outside of MMOs, that’s all I know.

This is where I’m supposed to explain how casual gamers have lives. Yeah, right.

They’re not all that different from hardcore gamers in this respect, but there are very dissimilar ways in which they occupy the rest of their free time. They sometimes let their infatuation with video games spill over into normal everyday banter, but try to keep their mouths shut at work and around girls anywhere. Their personal computer is about two or three years old. It has good hardware, and runs almost everything pretty well, however it gets mostly used for other non-gaming related endeavors. They definitely have an X-box 360 by now, and if they can afford it, they own every console worth getting.

In general, the casual gamer has more things occupying their time, and thus has less to shake their Wiimote. They probably don’t get eight hours of sleep every night. They don’t read any information about the game they’re playing while offline, and they generally know very little about what is being added. They don’t spend any of their real life creating forum signature graphics, or printing out maps of dungeons, and even though they might have thousands of screen shots, they’ll likely never look through them.

Do the even bigger misfits even stand a chance?

Sometimes this immersion in the game can be so complete that game-speak subconsciously becomes acceptable for bars, parties, and other social outings. This isn’t a problem, since they will most likely hang out with friends who also play. Their computer is no more than two years old, and they upgrade parts regularly. It is used almost all the time for gaming related tasks. While they might own a console, it’s going to be the one that has the most games they are looking forward to playing. Of course, they own all three if they can afford to.

Hardcore gamers fall asleep when they’re done playing, and sleep as late as they possibly can. It is not uncommon to dream about the game they’re playing, and anyone who has experienced this knows it can be a very visceral experience. These are the players that read forums and patch notes all day long, gathering information on boss strategies from spoiler sites, posting constructive strategy comments on the guild forums, and in general reading everything they can find on the subject. They capture gameplay footage and post it on Youtube for recognition, and they don’t even notice the slow down when recording anymore.

GAMERS ARE GAMERS

While some may implement more serious means in order to attain their goals in their game of choice, we all identify as gamers who would sometimes like nothing more than to escape for twelve hours straight. We make our own choices and create our own experiences within the time that we have available. Thankfully, developers are meeting the demand for all types of play styles, and the best next-generation titles are letting gamers truly tell their own story. It is a wonderful time in the industry, but somehow all the popular media can garner from this is that people are getting fat, stupid, and violent.

The concepts of role-playing games and sandbox environments are completely lost on folks who would compare World of Warcraft to a line of cocaine, so I thought I’d contribute to the discourse by providing a comparison among extremes in the general gaming public and their habits — between what the media has coined the “casual gamers” and the more “hardcore”. I hope this will illustrate just how small the differences are between all types of gamers, and perhaps help the rest of us reconcile with the labels we’ve been given, justly or unjustly.

Nic Stransky - “Kap”

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