A few of my favorite blogs, The Fickle Corebear and Stylish Corpse, have been discussing the meaning behind Hardcore and Casual. Their posts basically discuss, how hardcore people detest casual and how that all translates into different labels, for example casual is often thought of as stupid, lazy players, while Hardcore is often more learned and educated about a game because they play every aspect intended by the developers and in their minds, they are the superior player.
Labels are never a good thing, especially in an MMO atmosphere. It breeds pure stupidity, nothing more. What people don't understand is that no matter what kind of player you are, hardcore or casual, your a vital part of each others world. If all games did was attract one type of player, then we wouldn't have so many MMO games to choose from right now or game companies trying to craft new and interesting content. People wouldn't be trying to create the WoW killer or improve on what has come before. Someone got smart and said, "We need to design games for all kinds of players, because eventually, if we design for one type of player, they will eventually get bored with MMO's, because our ideas will become stagnant and then where will we be?"
We need each other because it makes a better game for everyone involved. It keeps the creative juices of the developers always looking for new stuf to add to the game so people won't get bored. It can also turn causal people into hardcore and hardcore into casual, but in the end if you adapt your game for both, you won't lose anyone to another game. I know this because a friend of mine was once a hardcore raider, but now, since the new expansion, he's decided to slow down and give life a try, but he's still playing WoW because it offers stuff for the casual as well as the hardcore. If WoW was just hardcore, then they would have lost a sub and losing money isn't something Blizzard had in mind when they developed WoW.
So, all I'm saying is why bitch about each other? There is no need to place labels. I mean, in the end we are all just gamers, hardcore or casual and our subs help keep the game running and forces the developers to come up with new creative content so everyone is happy.
Isn't that a good thing?
Here here!
ReplyDeleteI read Ysh's post after Makk's post, and kind of had to sit and wonder if I could even find a workable definition for the terms... I couldn't.
I mean, am I hardcore? I design games for fun, that's got to be hardcore right? Except I've never been on raids, don't usually stick around for more than a month or two, and never hit level cap... So I kind of figured out that, yep, they're just labels people put on people to make them feel special/like crap.
I think the hardcore/casual label has become downright damaging now, in that it defines almost nothing anymore (except in the head of the person using it), nobody really agrees on what the terms mean, and therefore as a descriptor it's pretty much useless.
ReplyDeleteI'd say let's get rid of boxes altogether, but we're a label-applying species. Besides, there is *some* use in categorisation, as long as it's not blind or dogmatic.
I don't think I can expect the world to change, we are way too comfortable with labels and placing them when and where we want. But I figured that in gaming community, where labels like geek, pencil neck, nerd, delinquent and loser get placed on us so often by others in society, might be less likely to use labels on each other.
ReplyDeleteI know it's too much to ask for, but one can hope that those who often get labeled by those outside the circle might be less apt to use them inside the circle.
We are gamers, a society unto ourselves and we should be more respectful of others like us.
Us against the world, remember?
I'm with you guys. Get rid of the labels. I wrote that post as a way to give reference to a time when those terms gained popularity and weren't really negative. But even my somewhat innocent recollection of what those terms meant can be offensive in some ways.
ReplyDeleteI like your take, Oak. We are gamers and we belong to a community that is going to explode significantly the next couple of years due to all the new games coming down the pike. We should be encouraging and not deprecating.
If a hardcore player wants to feel like he's a better gamer than me, he can feel free to do so. Maybe he likes that feeling of superiority. Doesn't bother me any, might just be his way of enjoying the game more. In this country, I think words don't really mean that much, it's when people start trying to kill each other, that's when we need to worry.
ReplyDelete...I'm weird.