What is your idea of a hardcore gamer?

[Gamerpalooza]

To me Hardcore game branches into various aspects due to genres and possible objectives.

In overall the essence of a hardcore gamer to me just means constantly committing 20hours+ a week of gaming. If you have enough dedication to your hobby then you're hardcore.

Now if we go into objectivity we have have the hardcore collectors, competitors, completionists, grinders, and explorers. Feel like I'm forgetting something else but oh well. All these types of hardcore gamers are still hardcore but in their respective ways due to the games respective genre. You aren't limited into just 1 subcategory though.

 

[Keoul]

Guides are about as far from hardcore as you can get..."i can't do it...better get a guide and cheat my way to the end".

if you use guides then your a filthy casual. Lol just kidding. But seriously, hardcore gamers don't use guides. The closest thing to a guide i've ever used was maps.

Guides, not walkthroughs.
Guide books as in books that just contain information about the game, not necessarily how to cheat past the hard parts, I was thinking of something like DnD guidebooks, you can't expect someone to memorize all of that information right? if they did then they'd have transcended "hardcore".

I don't care so much about how much they achieve on their own since they all gotta start somewhere, I care more about how much time and effort they're willing to spend on games.

 

[Darkcerb]

Someone who demands others have fun there way or not at all.

 

[Lieju]

It's not really a term I use.
I guess I use it the same way I use 'casual', to differentiate within gaming genres where a person's focus is, rather than how much they play games in general.

In that a person is a casual RTS-fan but a hardcore fighting-game-player.
Or a hardcore COD-player, a casual COD-player, etc.

There's more use for those words for me like that.
To communicate how knowledgeable and competitive a person is within a certain genre or game.

 

[Nazulu]

To me it's always been someone who's very invested in the hobby, spending lots of time perfecting their skills to over come the challenges or to become great in PvP/teamplay, while casual is the opposite. So if you master Flappy Bird I guess your a hardcore gamer.

 

[bishopzz]

Alright, here are the requirements to be a hardcore gamer.

1. You have to play video games frequently.
2. Hmmm well.... Welp, this seems like enough requirements.

 

[likalaruku]

Someone who plays for at least 8 hours a day, for at least 5 days a week. You have to be able to name 200 games. If you can't, then you're a midcore gamer. & if you can only name a handful of games, only play a few hours a week, then you're casual, which is unfortunately interchangeable with softcore gamers who only play mobile & facebook apps.

I know someone else who insists that being a hardcore gamer is all about playing triple A games in hard mode, or whatever is the most difficult. He also believes that the games have to be shooters & that RPGs are for sissies. Why yes, he is 13, how did you ever guess?

 

[Aedrial]

If you play video games for more than 10 hours a week on a console/PC.

 

[The White Hunter]

A hardcore gamer is someone who takes gaming more seriously than I do.

A casual gamer is someone who takes gaming less seriously than I do.

Only one bear?!

Scrub, should be a full family of bears and a Walrus in heat.

If you're not fighting off a pack of raptors while beating two discrete instances of Dark Souls 2 (on PC, you scrub!), then you are a casual.

Pl0x Bear > Raptor.

You should also be fighting laser sharks during loading screens.

 

[Molinism]

I guess someone who has a large dedication to video games and plays all games off all genres, no matter what difficulty.

 

[Lightknight]

Merely someone who is passionate about the gaming experience and dedicates no trivial amounts of time to them. Not someone who just plays them because they're bored or just casual games, but a real fan of the media.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Guides are about as far from hardcore as you can get..."i can't do it...better get a guide and cheat my way to the end".

if you use guides then your a filthy casual. Lol just kidding. But seriously, hardcore gamers don't use guides. The closest thing to a guide i've ever used was maps.

Guides, not walkthroughs.
Guide books as in books that just contain information about the game, not necessarily how to cheat past the hard parts, I was thinking of something like DnD guidebooks, you can't expect someone to memorize all of that information right? if they did then they'd have transcended "hardcore".

I don't care so much about how much they achieve on their own since they all gotta start somewhere, I care more about how much time and effort they're willing to spend on games.

It all seems like cheating to me. Once you've beaten a game then fine, go back with a guide or walkthrough and do the things you've missed but to do it before finishing a game is basically an admission that you aren't good enough. With the state of modern games and the lack of worthwhile difficulty i find it hard to believe anyone would need any assistance finishing a game once without outside help.

Being hardcore isn't really about how much you do something but the level at which you do it. It is quite telling that so many people think it's about how long you do something and nothing more. I consider it an oxymoron to be a hardcore gamer that is shit at games

 

[TheGamerElite33]

The one who criticize modern casualization and consolization instead of blindly except it.

lot of games bieng dumbed down to apeal wider audience.

 

[Irick]

Guides, not walkthroughs.
Guide books as in books that just contain information about the game, not necessarily how to cheat past the hard parts, I was thinking of something like DnD guidebooks, you can't expect someone to memorize all of that information right? if they did then they'd have transcended "hardcore".

I don't care so much about how much they achieve on their own since they all gotta start somewhere, I care more about how much time and effort they're willing to spend on games.

... I... memorise all of that information...
I might have a problem...

So, I previously stated that I pretty much consider anyone who spends 20+ hours a week on games and games media a hardcore gamer, but I also said there is a difference between being a hardcore gaming and identifying with it.

Anyway, I might posit... is hardcore gaming as an identity an extension of the hardcore punk subculture[footnote]To be clear I'm not saying that Punk doesn't have these same values (it does) but it seems a lot more emphasized in the hardcore subculture[/footnote]? And... hear me out.
So, for the longest time gaming was kind of an anti-authoritarian thing. It was demonised and to this day violence in video games is kinda a big topic, even if the academic world no longer holds violence in video games to be a big deal. So, these core game genres tend to have kinda buck the authority roots.

Additionally, the focus on authenticity is big in both subcultures. In punk sellouts and posers are labeled as such, and now we seem to have similar reactions in the hardcore gaming market to studios 'dumbing down' games for broader appeal and 'casual gamers' appropriating the gamer label.

"You're not a gamer just because you play the fucking sims, angry birds and nintendogs."

This seems a lot, at least topically, to the hardcore punk movement that splintered off from punk when it started hitting mainstream success. I must admit i'm not steeped enough in the hardcore gaming subculture to really comment on the other aspects and whether or not they are represented. Specifically, I am curious as to how individualism and expression are considered, and just how deep the anti-authoritarian streak goes.