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CASUAL AND HARDCORE GAMERS ARE NO MORE, APPARENTLY

21/5/2019

25 Comments

 
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Digitiser may be but a blot on the pop cultural landscape, but there's one major contribution we probably made to video game culture: I'm pretty sure we were responsible for the creation of the terms "hardcore" and "casual" gamers.

You see, when I was at school, "casual" was a phrase to describe a stylish, if unchallenging, sort of person - floppy fringe, nice trousers, smart jumper and shirt, shiny shoes; nice boys and girls, basically - so it was part of my vocabulary. However, I had my mum, and her Tetris addiction specifically, in mind whenever I referred to casual gamers. 

Casual/Hardcore has become so ubiquitous now that I hesitate to claim it came from me, but I can't think where else it might've started. Indeed, Digitiser used to use casual rather sneeringly, looking down our noses as those for whom gaming wasn't the be-all and end-all, and implying a certain elitism.

We never really meant it, or even particularly cared, but as the years wore on it became clear that there were those who really took it seriously. For them, there was a badge of honour in being a "hardcore" gamer - and everyone else was in some way deficient.

Even though the casuals were the ones with an actual life and families and that...

So, if we created the casual/hardcore terminology - which has since spread around the world - then I'm sorry. But - hey - it's okay: because now there aren't just two types of gamers. 

According to gaming and esports analysts Newzoo, there are now as many as EIGHT types of gamer! 
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THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE
People love a label - whether it's one they apply to other people, or as a form of identity for themselves. We love a bit of tribalism, and we love to generalise, so Newzoo aims to do the work for you by lumping everyone into one of eight categories, broken down as follows:

  • The Ultimate Gamer (13%) — Somebody who spends all their money and free time on games.
  • The All-Around Enthusiast (9%) — Someone who lives a balanced gaming life in your playing, viewing, and buying habits.
  • The Cloud Gamer (19%) — An early adopter of game streaming services and will only spend money on hardware when necessary.
  • The Conventional Player (4%) — An owner of tons of gaming hardware, who would rather spend their time playing games than watching other people play games.
  • The Hardware Enthusiast (9%) — They keep up with all the latest hardware trends and probably have a $5,000 extreme-build rig with RGB lighting everywhere.
  • The Popcorn Gamer (13%) — They don't play games too often, but like watching others play games.
  • The Backseat Viewer (6%) — Someone who used to play games avidly, but they got older and acquired responsibilities, and now watch esports and let's plays.
  • The Time Filler (27%) — A person who plays games when they have the time. Probably owns a console.

The problem with a list like this is that I struggle to know where I fit into it. It's like a form of astrology; when I look at the supposed traits of the various star signs, I can see elements of myself in a number of them... but I kind of, sort of, begrudgingly go "Yeah, I suppose I'm a Leo"... Because that's what I'm told I am.

With Newzoo's gamer list, I dunno who I am. I'm a bit The Time Filler, I'm a bit The Cloud Gamer, I'm a bit The Conventional Player, I'm a bit All-Round Enthusiast. Even a bit The Popcorn Gamer. And The Backseat Viewer. 

And I'm definitely not The Ultimate Gamer. God forbid.

But this is the issue when you start getting more detailed with your labels; at least casual and hardcore were obviously sweeping, blanket, statements - and it was kind of a given that everyone beneath those umbrellas would be individuals, all of whom had slightly different relationships to gaming.

The second you get more detailed, the second you try to make a definitive list, the labelling falls apart, because it highlights how diverse people actually are. 

Although, according to Newzoo's rather Buzzfeed-y quiz, I'm an All-Round Enthusiast, and my brethren and I make up 9% of the gaming audience...

"Choose which dessert you want to order and we'll tell you what type of gamer you are!"
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MY MOTHER THE ADDICT
If you're going to start getting more specific like this, then where are the people who only play, I dunno, flight simulators - like my mate James? Or the ones like my mum who only play games on Facebook? Or feminist gamers? Or retro gamers? Or people who are in it for the community aspect alone?

I understand Newzoo's aim with this, and that it's an impossible task... but it also seems like a completely pointless task. 

What worries me is how this seems to be a reflection of the tribalism that the world appears to have descended into.

You're either left, or right, or a centralist, or with us or against us, and there's no room anymore for nuance or any shades of grey. Gamers can't be broken down into eight types! I mean, aside from anything, I don't even identify as a "gamer". I just play games as part of my life, same as I listen to music, and eat food.

I don't go around calling myself a "muso" or a "foodie". Why are some gamers so desperate to label themselves? Why are they so proud of being a "gamer"?! Again, it's that us-and-them, manufactured, tribalism, but it also seems to be something to do with identity.
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LEND ME YOUR ERAS
I was talking to one of my kids the other night about the various "tribes" at her school. It feels like individuality is less valued than ever. Now it's all safety in numbers. At the same time, I've never really felt like I fit in anywhere - so the problem here feels like it might be with me

In this sort of second era of Digitiser's existence, I've found myself on the fringes of the retro gaming community, but I don't really identify as a retro gamer. Just as I always felt like I was lurking at the edges of 90s games journalism, an unwanted, uninvited, and disruptive guest at the table, here I am once again kind of an outlier in retro gaming YouTube, not really feeling comfortable in any sort of box.

For me, it's not even something I see as a good thing. I take no pride in how I feel unable to categorise myself, and I'm not sure I like not feeling like I belong.

I've got that instinct to be a part of something, the same as everyone else, but the only real tribe I feel a part of is my family. I don't have a need to belong to another one, even though part of me envies those who can fit into those boxes.

And yet, tribalism and belonging aside, there's still something depressingly reductive in trying to place all people who play video games into one of eight categories. 

I'd genuinely be interested to know what you think; do you fit into any of the categories comfortably? Do you feel like you're part of a tribe, or a community? 

You know what to do: comment. Comment hard.
25 Comments
Matt
21/5/2019 10:07:19 am

Turns out I'm Hufflepuff

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Jim Leighton (Future World Darts Champion) x
21/5/2019 10:19:59 am

I don't fit into these either.... am I a gamer afterall? Or are we all just in the Matrix playing Final Fantasy VII?

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S Hawke
21/5/2019 10:31:32 am

There's always been a bit of a social stigma surrounding gaming, so perhaps taking pride in identifying as a gamer is an act of defiance

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Chris Bailey
21/5/2019 10:44:51 am

I guess because it's the 21st century and everything has to have a multitude of labels this was bound to happen ..

I am most definitely the time filler now.. it's either that or watch coronation street.

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Grembot
21/5/2019 10:48:31 am

I’m definitely more a “conventional gamer” but I think another term for it could be “old man”; I’m still playing games in the way we all did pre-internet because I don’t want to play online with anyone. I don’t watch other people play either, I had that much time I could be playing myself...I do like videos about games though, they’re like a magazine without the effort of reading.

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HdE
21/5/2019 10:57:53 am

FANTASTIC read, Biffo. As usual.

I've long been of the opinion that trying to identify folks (or folks identifying themselves) as a subset within a hobby based community is a reductive step. I don't see how it really serves anyone.

I mean, SHOCKING revelation here coming from a guy with a gaming channel on YouTube, but there are some weeks that fly by where I never pick up my controller. Some days, I'll look at my stack of things to play and think 'Eh. Not interested.' And then, another time, I'll think 'it's about time I played Horizon Zero Dawn all the way through again, even though it takes up a month of my life every time.'

So, where am I on this arbitrarily defined spectrum that Newzoo have come up with?

It's weird to me how some folks are so keen to pigeonhole others and allow themselves to be categorized in return. I mean, there was a period of a good five years or so a ways back when the prospect of playing a video game just did not interest me at all. And here I am today, getting a real buzz out of writing reviews of whatever I can get my hands on and picking apart their game mechanics.

I actually had an angry message from somebody on YouTube not so long ago from someone who told me 'I like your channel, but why are you reviewing this crap game about robots on a train for the Nintendo Switch, which is crap? YOU SHOULD ONLY REVIEW RETRO STUFF, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I SAW YOU REVIEWING IN YOUR OTHER VIDEOS!'

I mean... who is that guy to put me in a box? Can't I decide what I want to do and how I want to enjoy gaming for myself? I wasn't aware there were rules to this stuff. Weird.

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Rockyeahh
21/5/2019 11:07:25 am

Well this is a load of marketing toss. I'm sure they all think they did a great job on it with it spreading round the internet but it just reminds me of similar catagory rubbish I've seen for Film and TVand how it only ever manages to be partially correct due to it's broad scope.

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RichardM
21/5/2019 11:12:44 am

Load of old crap. No such thing as a type of gamer: we’re all unique, and consume media on a different way. ‘Retro gamer’ gets me: I very much doubt there’s anyone out there who plays retro games exclusively, or who has a definitive description of whether a game is retro or not.

The only time I’ve ever felt part of a ‘community’ is as part of a fandom around a certain game or games company (any PDark.com or Rarecentral.com veterans around...?), or when regularly playing a certain game online consistently over a long period of time (Quake 3 and WoW come to mind).

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Joseph Candela
21/5/2019 01:28:15 pm

What a bold statement, my friends brother( Ruben silkk) would definitely class himself as a Retro gamer.

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David W
21/5/2019 11:42:44 am

Can we have Digitiser's very own "What kind of Gamer are you" quiz? Pretty please?

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Bruce Flagpole
21/5/2019 11:53:46 am

We're all in the 100% of people.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
21/5/2019 02:24:59 pm

A lovely sentiment, but basically useless to the marketers that this analysis is targeted at.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
21/5/2019 12:22:26 pm

A load of toss, of course. Reminds me of the PC Master Race vs console peasants (a prime example of why being too witty can result in cretins taking a throwaway joke too far and in the wrong direction).

People live to categorise and tribalise. It helps angry oldiewonks blame an entire generation for being young with “millennials”. Websites love doing Myers-Briggs tests (one has even added its own made up sub-categories to each type, along with cute little illustrations and profile cards like those gamer types above).

I wonder if all this is a reaction to what is a far more diverse hobby than ever, both in terms of the people playing and the types of games available.

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Bilstar
21/5/2019 12:28:35 pm

The government's gonna use this when they round us up.

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Shish link
21/5/2019 02:06:25 pm

> casual and hardcore were obviously sweeping, blanket, statements - and it was kind of a given that everyone beneath those umbrellas would be individuals

I love your optimism, but I fear people might actually be terrible; in which case 8 tribes might at least make people too confused to fight each other compared to the simplicity of two tribes...

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Geebs
21/5/2019 03:13:00 pm

The group who supposedly like "high-quality" free-to-play games should have been called the Oxymorons.

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Omniro
21/5/2019 03:14:37 pm

I suppose if I had to pick any of those it would be "The Conventional Player", with a bit of "hardware enthusiast". I play games regularly but I have no interest in watching other people play. The modern phenomenon of watching gaming streams etc is baffling to me, I find it completely uninteresting. The only time I watch recorded video of games is looking at reviews, or if I'm stuck on some part of a game and need to see a solution.

There seems to be an emphasis in this chart on watching games, which makes me wonder if this company has a vested interest in some sort of game streaming malarkey.

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RG
21/5/2019 03:14:52 pm

Nope, I'm none of those. Or bits of all of those.

Those categories don't take into account gamers who don't esport or watch video game content online. Gamers of a certain age who prefer single player story based games. But those gamers are of little interest to a "Games & Esports Analytics and Market Research" site...

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Steve
21/5/2019 06:50:12 pm

I own numerous Commodore 64's, all Nintendo consoles from NES to Wii, all Sega consoles from Master System to Dreamcast, the PS1 + 2, all XBOX consoles and a PC. Obviously "gaming is in my DNA" but I don't spend all my money on games and I don't watch other people playing online. That being said I would watch a Digitiser live stream or a Let's Play, but that would be more for the banter by the people involved rather than watching for the game itself.

In the current times it's more difficult to define gamers as there's so much more choice and variety. I know someone who has never picked up a joystick or controller in their life, but they've happily played crap time-filler games on Facebook and on their phones.
I think in the mid-90's there were three clear categories:
Gamers - They'd played games for years on whatever their system/s of choice were.
Non-Gamers - They had zero interest in video games.
Casual gamers - Those who didn't own a system before, but were swept up in the hype and 3D graphics so they bought a Saturn or Playstation to play every now and then. (I know a number of people who were in this category who then went on to buy a console every generation as they became a "gamer")

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The Pirate Captain
21/5/2019 07:03:21 pm

I'm skeptical about the existence of keen gamers who will only play games in the cloud. That's not a thing. Is it?

I'd like to posit a different category, the Franchise Gamer. People who play a huge amount of one particular game (FIFA/COD mainly, but possibly GTAO these days too), but are curiously unbothered about the wider vistas.

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King of Sass
22/5/2019 05:22:12 pm

You can run PS Now on a PC. There must be at least one person who does that as their only game-playing method.

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James Walker
21/5/2019 11:33:49 pm

When I was a kid (7-14) I deffo was proud to be a “gamer”. Taking an interest in what was new and actively getting new games etc.
As I’ve got older it’s like music, there are a number of bands and tracks I like and I’m not really arsed about discovering the next big thing as it all seems like it’s been done before.
Same with games really, I know what I like and I stick with it (pac man, space invaders, sf2).

So yeah, it’s all bollocks really.

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Rocksmore
22/5/2019 03:53:00 am

What wiffley piffel, not the article.. beautiful vowel work, but the continued catogrisation of computer games in to smaller and nicher pockets of revenue.
I class myself as a gamer, but I don't define myself as that. It's bad enough bringing up a kid and showing them it's ok to be who they are, as they are discovering it for themselves, only to be confronted with divisions within the entertainment that is supossed to be distracting them from the outside world for an hour or so!
The comparison with astrology is apt too!
I've done my spreadsheet and I'm Fallout 3 with Chuckie Egg rising.

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Mr Whinge
22/5/2019 08:46:58 am

Hello. Perhaps this has been covered elsewhere but I'd just like to comment on how much I dislike the new layout of the Digitiser 2000 home page. I know longer know at a glance what is the latest post, so that's a UI fail right there. That's pretty much it, really. Have a good day.

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Nonlittle Boris
22/5/2019 01:52:33 pm

These days, gaming's absolutely just a time sink for me. Yeah I enjoy, but not as much as I enjoy thrashing my car round a backroad or sinking a few down the pub with my mates.

Which is funny because when I were a wee bairn, gaming used to be pretty much all I ever wanted to do. When I wasn't playing, I'd probably be thinking of what I was going to do when I next switched the PC on.

Funny how people change, hey?

If anything, the tribalism thing's even more interesting. I'm personally privileged enough to have a very wide group of friends. What's sad is that I know some of them absolutely despise everything the others stand for. I reckon if I got everyone I love spending time with under the same roof there'd be at least three shouting matches broken out within the first hour.

I think part of it, idk if anyone else agrees, is that morality is much more important to people than it has been for quite some time. Sure that sounds like a good thing on paper, but in fact people have a wide spectrum of moral beliefs, and so the fact that they matter more now makes people less tolerant of people from different ideological backgrounds than they were a decade or so ago.

Be easy to say this is down to the internet, but I think it's probably more complex than that. I'd say it's one for the sociologists, but academics seem just as tribal as anyone else.

Strange times, man.

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