It seems like every few months, someone wants to reopen the question of what a ‘hardcore’ gamer is vs. a casual gamer. This time, the culprit is Ryan, who ends up where most other pundits seem to. But I’ve never felt comfortable with that direction of thought, which always seems to end up with the games industry making games for other gamers, while making light-weight fluffy crap for anyone else. When I think about the terms ‘hardcore’ vs ‘casual’, these are the thoughts that ruminate through my head:

All successful games and genres have hardcore players and casual players.
My mom is a hardcore solitaire player. I mean, she looks at a screen with Spider on it the way that Cypher looked at the Matrix and saw blondes, brunettes and redheads. Mom just sees things I never saw as there. She has an innate sense of opportunity. When she plays, cards light up for her as if she were the main character in A Beautiful Mind. She’s damn close to being able to move the cards telepathically.

There are also hardcore Sims players. Game industry people like to think about ‘hardcore’ as if it’s only relegated to gamers who like Quake or Starcraft. These are just ‘hardcore players of traditional gamer games. Hardcore vs. casual should always be considered in relation to the game that you are making and the genre you are exploring – not the games market as a whole.

Thinking about games being just ‘casual’ holds us back.
Why? Simple – because those of us in the industry look at the Sims from the eyes of a ‘casual’ player, and as an end result, we don’t see or appreciate the depth or subtlety that is in the Sims, that appeals to the Hardcore Sims player (and by extension, why we call Will Wright a genius). If you aren’t a hardcore fan of the genre you’re building for as a designer, it’s easy to make a shallow game that fails to satisfy the hardcore fans of that genre. If you start off by saying ‘this is for a casual market’, you’re doomed before you begin.

Successful games must appeal to both audiences.
Blizzard describes this as the Donut principle, I call this double-coding – you must have a central experience which appeals both to the hardcore gamer, as well as a more accessible experience for the casual gamer. And they score a direct hit on this, every time. On the flip side, plenty of games meet one or the other, but fail to hit both. Shadowbane and Second Lifeare both hardcore games, with limited casual player appeal. On the flip side, Asheron’s Call 2 was very casual gamer friendly, but put off a lot of hardcore fans by not being like the game it was a sequel of.

Breakout hits occur when hardcore players feel comfortable evangelizing the game to would-be casual gamers.
I told the story recently about a coworker who realized that, even though he had sixaccounts himself, he was unwilling to recommend the game to anyone he knew in real life. On the other hand, I happily urge those with an interest to give WoW a shot. In my mind, this is the fundamental reason why WoW won. If you don’t know why, go reread The Tipping Point.

Almost everybody is hardcore about something.
We call these somethings ‘hobbies’. Stop trying to say that there’s a stereotypical casual person with no hardcore tastes. Even Joe Sixpack is hardcore about beer and football.

Hardcore is a measure of a player’s investment and devotion, not his play patterns.
The question ‘how can you identify a hardcore player vs. a casual player’ can often lead the player to point to specific play patterns. I disagree. Some examples:

  • If you mathematically figure out your most powerful spell, you’re not necessarily hardcore, you’re just a min-maxer. You’re hardcore if you build Thottbot.
  • If you beat the game, you’re not necessarily hardcore, you’re just an achiever. You’re hardcore if you beat it 3 times, including every quest.
  • If you raid, you’re not hardcore. You’re hardcore if you’re actively angry when your Cleric skips one of your 3 raids nights in hopes of getting laid.
  • Just because you like dancing and socializing doesn’t mean you’re not hardcore. THIS is hardcore.

On the other hand, my own quick-and-dirty notes read dangerously close to an unfunny version of ‘You might be a redneck’.

  • If, when bored, your default play choice is the game or genre in question, you might be hardcore.
  • If you know the game mechanics better than the designers posting about it, you might be hardcore.
  • If you pursue advanced systems and functionality (such as the Rep system in WoW, competitive ladders in Starcraft or making and distributing skins in the Sims), you might be hardcore.

The key to these is that they are relatively genre-agnostic, and work for both the Sims and MMOs. The key for any would-be designer is to ask themselves the following:

  • What is the casual market for our game, and how do we appeal to them?
  • What is the hardcore market for our game and how do we appeal to them?
  • How do we ensure the balance between the two is appropriate?
  • How do we ensure the hardcore evangelize to the casual?

As an example, I think that Second Life is too hardcore (so to speak). On the flipside, I heard people talk about multiple Second Life killers at GDC. I’m not optimistic about most of them, because they’re mostly shallow experiences designed by people who don’t get or appreciate what SL is all about. By this, I mean the sex — and I’m not joking or ragging on them this time. Flirting, socialization and the seamy underbelly of ‘total freedom’ is a core tenet of what Second Life is all about, yet most of the would-be competitors seemed hopeful to actively avoid the seamy side of the experience.

So they want to walk away from where the core audience is for that genre right now. The question is: can they find a new hardcore audience? And will that hardcore audience be engaged enough that they will evangelize their experience?

Original comments thread is here.