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There is actually no such thing as a REAL hardcore gamer
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
You can't be hardcore in entertainment. You don't watch movies hardcore, you just watch movies for fun and to enjoy them. Likewise, it is the same for MMOs and games in general. Games are just that, games...someone may play longer than someone else, but it is only for fun. Likewise, people may watch movies all day...doesn't make it hardcore.
The definition of entertainment:
1.
the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.
So, that tells me...with actual word definition...that a REAL gamer can't be hardcore. Likewise anyone who calls themselves a hardcore movie watcher or anything else in the entertainment industry.
Hardcore gamers however don't do it for fun or amusement. Therefor they don't actually like games, they aren't getting enjoyment out of them. Some may do it for money (world first and what not), some may do it because it is a huge addiction. But they don't do it for entertainment, which means they force themselves to play.
Anyway, just been thinking about it past few days...and came to the realization, that there is no REAL hardcore gamer. Because they aren't gamers at all. Gamers (or movie watchers or anything else), the real ones, do it for amusement and enjoyment (like in the actual definition).
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Comments
And to add to that. Hardcore gamers treat games like a job, not entertainment. So, they aren't playing the game, but WORKING at the game. That doesn't make them gamers, it makes them WORKERS.
Its like chefs. Lots of chefs say that they used to love cooking, but turned it into a job...and it became just that...a job. A lot less enjoyment.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
But are they doing it for entertainment? Or as a job?
Lets take a hardcore chess player. Almost for sure likely, they go to competitions to win money. That isn't entertainment. That is a job. So, a more correct term would be "worker". Its just, the word is slightly wrong, to hide the fact that they are actually workers.
Take AngryJoe or TotalBiscuit. They play games because that is how they get their money. Again, not to enjoy them...but for an income. Again, that would be a worker, not a real game player, but someone doing it as a job.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
I was a hardcore GW1 player - and a WoT player for a short while. Wouldn't have done it if it wasn't fun. No chance. The fact that you get prizes/money while having fun is that more awesome. You have to be motivated to play in order to become good. I got bored of LoL and GW2. It would probably take me years to get into Starcraft.
The prizes would have to be significant for me to do it just for the money. There's no way you can "practice" several hours a day without enjoying the game.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
You actually made sense, OP.
Good to see that on here every now and then.
Lets take a hardcore chess player. Almost for sure likely, they go to competitions to win money. That isn't entertainment. That is a job. So, a more correct term would be "worker". Its just, the word is slightly wrong, to hide the fact that they are actually workers.
Take AngryJoe or TotalBiscuit. They play games because that is how they get their money. Again, not to enjoy them...but for an income. Again, that would be a worker, not a real game player, but someone doing it as a job.
I think it's possible to be "hard core", but I'm not sure that the definition means what some people want it to mean.
For instance, a hard core horror aficionado will know how many times Jason Vorhees has killed blue eyed blonds. Why? I don't know, but that's the kind of thing a hard core horror aficionado would know. It's not their job, and the only person deriving any pleasure from knowing that stuff is the aficionado themselves, but they are definitely "hard core".
I think "hard core" MMORPG players are like that. Hard core in this context means very engaged by the games, very knowledgeable about the games and they probably spend a lot of time playing to keep themselves up to date on the games. They may have in depth discussions about the games, debating the pros and cons of the games, but they aren't dismissive of the genre itself, because their goal is to be knowledgeable about the genre, not to be the "best" at the genre. Maybe their goal is to be the best and knowing the genre, and that's how they become "hard core".
Then you have the people who use their game time as a measure of their worth. They are "hard core", so they are better and they only appreciate "hard core" games, so they are better and those "hard core" games are better. Someone who's more familiar with sociology will have to come up with the term for that, because I'm honestly not sure what that is. Are there people who are like that about baseball or football? They watched real football back in the day, not like the football we have now, so they are "hard core" football fans. Does that type of thing exist?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
What if you're a hardcore person who also happens to be a gamer?
PS just look at my avatar! It doesn't get much more hardcore than that.
Hax!
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It doesn't have to be a job. You can have a passion for something and love pursuing it. It can be with studies, sports or even games. If you have a passion for something, you obviously want to keep at it and keep getting better at it so that you can try to explore it to its fullest extent possible, and ultimately master it. You can feel that way about anything. It's a totally natural thing.
And games are different from movies (well some games these days basically are movies lol). In games you have to be active, while if you are watching movies you are passive. In any activity where you have to be active and not passive, then there is room for growth and discovery and pursuing that is what having passion is all about. Yet watching movies can be active too, if for example you are studying them, trying to learn or extract something new from them. But I think that would fall under "studies" and not entertainment or maybe studies can be entertaining for some lol. It's about perspective too.
Anyway all this hardcore gamer bullcrap is bunch of marketing nonsense that helps define a particular audience of people who play games so that companies can better sell their products to them. It helps to create a subculture that people (especially young people) would like to identify with (it creates a new market).
I don't know what I'm saying anymore, just rambling lol
I don't know... Hardcore to me has a couple of different implications. A hardcore gamer, to me, is:
1) A player who plays as many games as they can, just because they are video games, not because they are good, bad, or indifferent.
2) A player that knows everything there is to know about a game and its mechanics. This would be like the chess player who knows every move and strategy in chess or the movie aficionado who argues with the writers about how the plot, or some small detail is "wrong." These players many times create whole websites devoted to said games or movies. You see these people at Star Wars and Star Trek conventions all the time. Maybe these players could be called "experts" instead, but it seems pretty "hardcore" to me
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Judging playstyles is not constructive. Just because I don't share a playstyle doesn't mean that playstyle is wrong, nor does it mean my playstyle is wrong. I think it would be better to focus on finding ways for each side of a conflict of interest to focus on the experience they want without forcing others to play the same experience.
Hard Core is a term that real FPS team and FFA players that failed in that genre made up for MMOs. There's NO SUCH THING!!
There has been no MMO to support it...so how can there be a "hardcore" player?!?!
Essentially a thread about semantics but I do think there should probably be a distinction between a player who plays a lot* and a player who is extremely into the game in terms of stat minutiae, cosplay, terminology, character progression or pvp status.
* a timeframe that can also be discussed
This argument really fails, as pointed out by most of the response posts.
But what makes this argument particularly faulty is that the main premise actually supports the opposite position. That is, it is precisely that games are enjoyable that elicits hardcore behavior.
Hardcore is jargon/slang for characteristics we all immediately recognize in fellow gamers: long hours, significant effort, peer competition, raging, external forum debates, fanboyism, etc..
The key question of course is why would anyone take games so seriously?
I would suggest that the number one reason is because it is fun (read: entertaining) to take games seriously. Games are almost always better balanced than real life, which allows for more equitable peer competition. They have more robust reinforcement schedules: effort in gaming is rewarded more consistently than real life activities. They come with inherently less pressure so people are not scared to invest time and effort (i.e. people are more willing to give a game a shot and fail).
The author simply does not get that a lot of people enjoy hard work and competition.
See heres the thing. Hardcore is an idea a gamer is a person so hardcore describes something about a person. Their "ideal" game follows a certain logic if you can call it that. Anyone claiming to be "hardcore" is nothing more then an idealist and we all know that the social studies teachers sends those kinds of kids to home ec or shop class!
Lol Idealists .....
I believe there are, different types of entertainment/ games. Go to an amusement park.. want a hardcore thrill? ride the upside down, back to back, twisty loop to loop roller coaster. Want a more laid back entertainment then take the lazy ride of the slow moving train..
Another example, fishing, you got the hardcore fisherman with extreme Baits, tackle-box, fishing poles, coolers... then you got then you got the guy that just goes out there with a cane pole and a bucket of worms, the casual fisherman.
Same thing in Games/ MMo's you got the average guy that just is playing the game, then you got the hard core that want the best of the best at any cost...
Type A's. Achievement and status driven, competitive. Of course they exist. So do the Type B's.
If you can describe gamers in the 2010s in terms of coronary theory->pop psych from the 50's. :heh:Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Hey! I want my free forum posting points too!!
How about this?
Hard Core
noun
noun:hardcore
1. the most active, committed, or doctrinaire members of a group or movement.
"there is always a hard core of trusty stalwarts"
So then. The reason you do not believe that there is any such thing as a hardcore MMO player is actually because you really never had any idea what "Hard Core" (two words, not one) meant. This is probably because you are a hard core forum reader and not a hard core researcher like many other non-hard core gamers.
The term hard core dates to the mid-19th century and originally referred to the interior of a structure, road, or foundation consisting of gravel and other rough refuse material. By the early 20th century, it was being used to refer to something that was tough and intractible, as in this citation from the 12 September 1936 issue of Nature:
WordOrigins.org via Straight Dope (fighting ignorance since 1973, and it's taking longer than they thought LOL)
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=523412
I believe that there is room within the definition posted for a variety of people. Really, it's a relative thing. To a guy who only plays an MMO an hour a day the guy that puts in three hours a day is certainly hardcore. But this is only provided that those two are the only ones being polled. Add a third guy that puts in 40 hours a week (and yes, that does happen) and suddenly the term shifts.
Claiming to be more hardcore than another then is basically just swinging your epeen and requires a list of accomplishments which can then be compared on a one for one basis until the person with the bigger schwag emerges victorious. Compared to all the people who just play MMO's and never come to sites like this to talk about them in their spare time though, we ALL are hardcore MMO players.
Easy way to tell if you are in that group of what could be considered "hard core" is that someone else who also plays MMO's is referring to you that way.
It's no big deal really. People, usually those that are but don't want to be or those that aren't but wish they were, make it out to be more than it is.