Gaming is a hobby which absolutely adores labels. We love them so much that we keep inventing new ones every time a new gameplay model pops up.
Sometimes it means adding extra descriptors as if that explains anything (what even is an action RPG these days? The Witcher 3 or Diablo? They are completely different games!), sometimes it’s clever portmanteaus (Metroidvania), and occasionally we dive headfirst into the depths of sin to come up with puns, like “Rogue-lite”, when a game is only sort-of like Rogue, but not quite. Rogue-quite.
Of course, the labelling goes beyond that, and involves even things like slapping a name on people’s playstyles and attitudes towards gaming as a whole. That’s what we’re going to talk about here. Specifically: we’re taking a look at what makes one a hardcore or a casual gamer based on several aspects.
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It’s not as simple or clear-cut as it may seem, but since definitions ebb and flow with the tides of the hobby itself, it’s as good a time as any to take ideas under scrutiny and, perhaps, maybe even learn something about the kind of gamer you are?
So, let’s dive into a brief dive which will tell you…
How to know whether you’re a Hardcore or Casual Gamer? (in several easy steps)
Motivation
The first aspect is already contentious, but bear with us.
A significant difference between hardcore gamers and casual ones is why they play games in the first place.
Hardcores tend to play to see everything the game has to offer, take it for themselves, and perhaps also shove it in their friends’ noob faces (more on that later). While it is fun for them, to a casual (get it?) observer it might look like an extra duty. It’s a military-grade completionist mindset that isn’t limited just to clearing the map of question marks.
On the other hand, casuals play for a a bit nebulous idea of “fun”. They’ll launch a game to unwind after work or school to do something that seems interesting and engaging at the moment. It might be visiting a new town in Skyrim, making voxel art of Handsome Squidward in Minecraft, or putting in some work towards the next level in an MMO. The important point is that they might change gears the moment the play session starts feeling like a chore.
Frequency
That should be a no-brainer, right? A hardcore gamer has exactly one time frame for playing: Whenever-They-Can o’clock, each day, every day. If that’s impossible due to duties like work or school, well, that’s too bad for the duties, right?
Casuals, on the other hand, are, as the name suggests, much more relaxed about it. They might play nothing for two months and then spend hours, each day, all week playing something… as long as they feel like it. Not-playing isn’t an aberration, for them, it’s the default.
Mastery
Now let’s look at what Elden Ring players would call “skill issue”.
If you’re a hardcore gamer, you probably care a lot about mastering the ins and outs of any game you point your John Wick-like focus at. Perhaps it’s learning how to do Bloodborne no-damage runs or figuring out the optimal path to victory in Europa Universalis even with the weakest country. What is a hardcore gamer, if not someone who strives for attaining perfect understanding of the game’s systems and mechanical nuances?
“A hardcore gamer is someone driven to master every aspect of a game, pushing for perfection, and treating every challenge as a mission to conquer.”
It’s the kind of player who works out the math behind a game’s convoluted critical hit calculations, or figures out the exact sequence of events which need to happen to get a niche performance-boosting item for an extremely specific build.
On the other hand, a casual player might be fine with being just good enough to get by. If it means tanking twenty Mega Potions and carting three times in Monster Hunter, or grossly over-turtling their base before venturing forth in Age of Empires, they are usually happy to be able to get further into the game, inelegant through their methods might be.
Their choice of abilities in an RPG might be less about getting their DPS up by 5%, and more about trying out an ability that sounds cool, and their gear choices might be less about stats and more about fashion alone (the true endgame). If synergies happen, they are as likely to be just the most obvious ones, as they are to be purely coincidental.
Of course, it’s not uniform by any measure, there are untold thousands of games with all kinds of playstyles. It’s fully possible that a World of Warcraft hardcore will have a casual fling with Civilization VI, for example. A one-turn-stand, if you will.
Multiplayer
The attitude towards multiplayer might be one of the key aspects of deciding whether you’re hardcore or casual.
For many hardcores, multiplayer might be the most important thing, and they take their online responsibilities seriously. If their guild has an 18-hour raid scheduled, they’ll have an IV of energy drinks and a conveyor belt of snacks ready to go, and they won’t leave their post. If that also involves getting up so early that birds are telling them to chill out, that’s fine. Teammates need their tank, and sleep is for the weak.
If that sounds like work rather than a good time, it might just mean you’re leaning towards a casual attitude on that front. Perhaps you’ll pop into multiplayer only when it has no strings attached, like a quick deathmatch in a shooter you like, or schedule a friendly game in a private lobby for you and your friends to just shoot the breeze.
Competitiveness
It’s connected to both the mastery and multiplayer aspects. Sometimes the community and getting better at a game are the point. Sometimes, however, the point is having some people to beat the living… HP out of in a game they thought they were good at.
They might have been, but for hardcore gamers it’s a point of pride to prove that their opponent might be good, but they are better. What happens when two hardcores collide? This is how legends begin and clips start circulating online, like the famous Evo Moment #37. Hardcores are ready to rumble in PvP at a second’s notice, because if you don’t spend time dominating the leaderboards, do you really have a good build?
Does that mean casual players don’t compete? They do, but they are more likely to pursue friendly matches, often play unranked, and the stakes are rarely more personal than deciding who’s paying for pizza. Win or lose, results are not the point, so not getting a good K/D ratio or ignoring the objective isn’t a big deal.
A secret third thing
Although the format of this text might suggest that there are only hardcores and casuals, there is in fact another label, because… come on, of course there is, it’s gaming, it has more labels than definitions. That secret third thing is good news for everyone who plays like a hardcore in some aspects but also feels strongly casual about others.
It’s called being a core gamer. If you’re core, you probably try to get in as much gaming time as you can without it being the most important thing in your life, and you’re fairly serious about a few games, and quite casual about many more.
It’s a category many people settle into if gaming is just one of their favourite hobbies. Equally often, cores are in their thirties or older, and used to go hardcore back in the day, but had to tone that down for one reason or another. Perhaps they have a family they prioritize, or simply don’t have the energy and spare mental bandwidth to care that much about games anymore.
They still care, and are happy to buy and play them when possible, gaming just isn’t essential anymore. And as any trainer will tell you: working out your core muscles is very important and healthy.
Does it matter?
Here comes the kicker: these labels, core, hardcore, casual? They don’t really matter a whole lot, not really. They can be helpful when you’re looking for teammates, a casual and a hardcore probably wouldn’t play well together, while a casual gamer vs core gamer match might be more even. Sometimes the cores might be the connective tissue between the two extremes.
However, in the end, whether you’re the type to just dip your toes, go for a swim, or immerse yourself fully in the gaming ocean, what’s important is to enjoy this hobby in a way that gives you the kind of fun you’re craving.
The best moments come by when both sides (Core players are golden, don’t you ever change) can push aside their petty Hardcore vs Casual disputes and talk about the games they love.
Yes, even if one can’t scrounge up enough souls to improve anything up in Dark Souls, and the other has a trigger-finger for the Push-to-Talk to yell at somebody for being 0.5 DPS behind everyone else in Castle Crashers.
Now go forth, and play. After all, isn’t this what’s all of that was about in the first place?