What is casual / hardcore player?

[MeowMeow]

Also touching on something in one of your earlier post I think it's hardcore gamers who look down on casuals. MY "no life" post are all a result of people bashing casuals. I was once someone who spent a lot of time playing games but now I have more stuff to do. The only ting preventing me from being a "hardcore" player is lack of time to play.

Trust me, there is NO WAY at all the "Casual gamers are noobs" argument sprung up before the "Hardcore players have no lives because they beat things before i do, and already have all the gear before i even know how to equip it."

Casual gamers have always looked down on hardcore gamers in general with this same sort of attitude. The hardcore hate on casuals is relatively new in comparison. Don't believe me? Ask your parents what they thought of the kids who played arcade games, or atari/NES for 10+ hours a day. I bet they'd say something along the lines of those kids being losers back in their days. Now go ask one of those "losers" what they thought about the kids who didnt play video games as much as they did... Bet they wouldn't call them losers. The hate started with the casual and non-gamers.

As a gamer i find people who do things like paintball, airsoft, gokart racing, R/C operating and similar hobbies to be quite odd. I don't like any of that stuff. I like games. Why get hurt playing paintball when i can just kick peoples ass on a FPS game? Why race a gokart when i can drive a Ford GT? Does that mean i think people who do those things are stupid? No... They do what they love, and so do I. Gaming makes me happy. Except when I get my ass kicked, then I get mad.


Btw, roughly 70% of all Americans and Europeans play video games. I can't find statistics on marriage in Europe as a whole, but 48% of Americans are currently married. That stat includes kids and widows as unmarried, pushing the number of married down in comparison. In other words, about 1/3rd of all American gamers are married. American gamers also log nearly twice the hours online than any other online gamers. I'd say another third at least are dating. I wish there were more stats on europe as a continent, though. I don't have time to go through and add it up country by country. As a European I can vouch that most people aren't as likely to game 8+ hours a day here as they are in America, but it certainly isn't rare. And it definitely isn't rare for them to be dating or married (usually to another gamer).