Comments on: Maybe being hardcore is a particularly human talent

By: Stabs

Stabs — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:11:58 +0000

I don’t think reading EJ is not casual any more. These days EJ generally has a dummies guide for every spec that can be digested in minutes. Following the arguments is non-casual but just glancing at the cookie cutter summary – that’s perfectly casual. It’s like looking at the TV guide to decide what programmes to watch.

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:31:18 +0000

True enough. And it does cast the hardcore/ casual split in a different light, because maybe one of the triumphs of MMOs has been making a huge game in which really obsessed players can play alongside ones who are barely obsessed at all.

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:27:52 +0000

On the other hand, people are fairly used to paying for entertainment without ending up with ownership. So maybe it will just be that the slot machine model of gaming will catch on even more.

By: Wilhelm Arcturus

Wilhelm Arcturus — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:40:04 +0000

You saw that article a while back… I think Lum linked to it… about Zynga having a special store front for their “big spenders,” right? There are people who spend in the thousands on their games.

People get attached obsessively to things, some more than others. There was a story in the news a couple of years back about the dentist who was so into Star Trek: TNG that her office was entirely in theme and she wore a Star Fleet uniform every day. It came up as news because she insisted on wearing that uniform at jury duty as well.

And lets face it, we all know some obsessive sports fans. I have friends who spend thousands every year on season tickets to home games, travel to away games, and all sorts of extras. And yet I am the odd-ball because I spend nearly as much time (and a tiny fraction of the cost) playing computer games as they do focused on the local sports team.

Who are we to judge what is obsession worthy and what is not? We all seem to be hardcore in some aspect of our life. It if happens to be little virtual farms, so be it.

By: Tonk

Tonk — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:22:04 +0000

Spending more effort and caring more about the outcome than is warranted by the activity is what playing means. If you look at kids playing un-self-consciously, they’re often very serious about what they’re doing until they realize they’re being watched, at which point their attitude changes.

The hardcore/casual split is a result of people being self-consciously defensive about over-investing themselves while playing.

By: ironyca

ironyca — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:08:54 +0000

“Why would anyone care about being hardcore on a game that is so obviously casual?”
You phrase it as if people want to be hardcore in order to be able to call themselves hardcore. I could turn your statement around “why would anyone care about being casual in a game that is so obviously hardcore?”. Does it matter to these players what category they fall in?
I also feel like adding here that you can easily be hardcore in Farmville without spending any money.

By: xJane

xJane — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:30:13 +0000

It’s math. And psychology.
http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/

By: Goodmongo

Goodmongo — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:22:04 +0000

There were millions of pet rocks sold. Just sayin.

By: tonyp

tonyp — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:59:53 +0000

It’s because no two people are the same.

That is because no two peoples’ brains are wired the same. Nature expects that no two creatures are exactly the same. That is what drives evolution and natural selection. There is a bell-curve that applies to every higher-order creature, a distribution of physical and behavioral properties, and it is a fact. That is what makes ‘casuals’ and ‘hard cores’.

And there are large groups of people that have similar behaviors, and can be grouped by those behaviors. Again, ‘casuals, and hard cores’.

Unfortunately, the average human has a really hard time understanding and accepting the fact that ‘everyone is not just like me’, or ‘not everyone thinks like me’. Which is one of the reasons people choose to associate with people that behave like them. The reason they choose the friends and mates they do. That is also human behavior. We like people who are like us, and don’t like people who are not like us. ‘Hard cores’ don’t like ‘casuals’ and vice versa.

It’s just the way the human animal works. Which is actually just like how all the other animals out there work – but humans don’t like to think they are animals too.

By: smakendahed

smakendahed — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:39:56 +0000

I think there is some merit to the theory Gevlon posted, I don’t entirely agree. I’m also not entirely sure we’ll see continued success in ‘social games’ markets because they were a mistake. And people do learn from their mistakes.

What do I mean about mistake?

I think once people realize that they’re not owning anything from the large amount money they’ll spend, they’ll move on and avoid future games or purchases like that. Kind of like the whole dot.com bubble.