Just realized - if you're a casual gamer, ideally....

[Yazoo]

Casual player everywere spend much more money. Look at facebook games.
In MMO casual player just spend less time.

[Visch]

Oh lord.

The people actually playing the game deserve to be the ones the game focuses around.

[Carmillia]

To repeat again and again to try to have some people understand it, casual means 'time available to play', why some people keep on thinking that casual equals easy mode?
As a good example, CoP missions (pre cap removal) were casual friendly (did not take hours and hours just for one mission for an organized group of friends) and hardcore due to the high difficulty of some of the fights. This is exactly the type of content that can cater to both casual and hardcore!
But nooooo, some unskilled player just cried that CoP was too hard and it got nerfed... In my opinion, a MMO should set differences in terms of good and bad gamer, not casual vs hardcore which usually ends up (for the wrong reasons I might add) being either 'easy mode' vs 'time sink'. Ideally, none of the laters should apply in a MMOs that could cater to both casual and hardcore.
About my own experience, I am casual (and also plan to play for more than 2-3 years >.>) and the 'easy mode' direction FFXIV is taking does not please me. On top of that, I was kind of happy to 'struggle' the rank46 mission. It took me a few attemps and I was happy to not just beat it by spamming 1,1,1,WS,cure rince and repeat. It could have been even harder that I would still have enjoyed because I finally was facing some 'challenge'.

[Jynx]

Zynga: Creators of farmville are speculated to hit the open market soon at the value of over 20billion dollars. making them the most expensive video game company in the world, much larger than even Activision Blizzard.

That is the sad state of video games. So saying that they don't spend money...well...

[Naqaj]

Oh lord.

The people actually paying for the game deserve to be the ones the game focuses around.

There you go, now you got it right.

[Rinsui]

Actually "hardcore players" are the customers no MMO company *really* wants.
They burn through content far too fast, which means new content has to be
developed before the majority of players even had a chance to fully experience
the old one. So the top 10% layer of hardcores may well "consume" just as many
development resources as the remaining 90%. Which is not really desirable,
because the remaining 90% of your customers will still judge your game according
to the content they are actually able to experience - which means that your
top-end-content is basically wasted in 9 out of 10 customers.

Even though I made up the numbers - did I make myself understood?

[ManekiKanji]

If its a mmo game that they end up enjoying then its a no brainer that they should play it regardless of how slow progress or how little time they can put into the game compared to anyone else, only an indivudual can tell themselfs if a mmo is for them or not.

[Cendres]

I wasn't aware you to pass a hardcore test to be allowed to play MMOs. How silly of me! >.>

OP you ARE trolling. Don't think otherwise. How dare you even imply you have an inkling on how people want to to spend their time and money on their entertainment?

EDIT: As a casual gamer I play for the virtual world aspect. I LOVE the idea of being in a fantasy realm with other people and being able to interact in it. The type of interaction I enjoy doesn't even TOUCH the hardcore gamers, stuff like crafting, housing, exploration and chatting. I do not go on the forums DEMANDING crap like you people love to be doing all the time because it's a lot nicer to SUGGEST things instead, I'm just happy I get a portion of the game available to me.

[AdvancedWind]

Zynga: Creators of farmville are speculated to hit the open market soon at the value of over 20billion dollars. making them the most expensive video game company in the world, much larger than even Activision Blizzard.

That is the sad state of video games. So saying that they don't spend money...well...

I fail to see how this is sad. A company managed to get to a new public that was being mostly ignored by everyone else in the market and got ****tons of money with a relatively simple product. I'd call that being smart.

[Gun_Anam]

My question to all hardcore.
Where do you find time to play 4+ weekdays?
If you are student you have school, extramural activity, sport, homework, study, etc...
If you are an adult you work 9-5 weekdays.
If you are a parent or in a relationship it event worst.
You also have to spend time with family, gf, friends and interact with the world.

So who are you people that can manage 4+ weekday?
I guess you must be jobless or F students or have no life.

I am sorry, I love my mmo but I have to manage my time well.
I have a mission and a goal in life not in mmo.

I'm one of these people. I work a 9-5 job, but in the evenings I play for an average of 6-7 hours a night. I leave my socializing with real life people for the weekends since I like to get home from a day of work to relax infront of the computer. I manage my time well so I am able to do this. However, I still call myself casual as I associate the word 'hardcore' with 'a$$hole' since the majority of people who say "I'm hardcore" I've encountered have been.

As for the casual market, I fully support casuals playing MMO's. It's totally not an issue of how much time you play for but how you use the time that you are in the game. I can't even imagine going back to a console game where you only interact with NPC's and get no chat, so I wouldn't expect anyone else to have to put up with distancing themselves from people in the same way.

But really, saying casuals shouldn't play MMO's is like saying that part time workers shouldn't work because they're not getting the full benefits of a full time employee. Or, to put it into a better perspective when paying for a service, that someone who goes to the gym only 3 times a week shouldn't have a membership because they're not getting the same value for money as someone who goes 6 times a week. Yes, they won't be as fit or as strong as the person who goes 6 times a week, but they'll be able to achieve their own personal goals within the same setting.

I can't even begin to imagine how dead this game would be if it were only the players who spend 5+ hours a day playing left.

And now I'm going to bring in the most important point about paying for a game regardless of how much it is... How much fun and enjoyment do you get from the game in the time that you play? I must say I see a LOT more of the 'hardcore' players bitching and moaning about the game, yet see mostly casuals saying they enjoy the game. This leads me to the conclusion that 'casuals' get just as much, if not more, enjoyment from the game over the month as the 'hardcore'.