[Claudz]

this has been on my mind a lot lately.. a lot.. so i decided to make a thread about it..


does it bother anyone else that, alot of the gaming community use the term "casual" in a derogatory manner, and often even use to to refer to some form of inferiority?

if i had a nickle for everytime i have seen on various gaming forums "Game svcks because of Casuals" or "it works that way because casuals don't know better", I would have enough money to buy out both Apple and Microsoft..



now, it may be because I grew up and went through school before "nerd culture" was as accepted as it is now (reading a comic or Manga on the front lawn at lunch at your school? Outcast! sitting at home on a weekend playing through a new game rather than out partying? Outcast! want to discuss world politics or current news stories? Outcast!), but the way a lot of gamers have been using the term "casual" as of late is the exact kind of things gamers and other nerds/geeks were dealing with for many years by their peers. people acting as if they are superior simply because of how they do things and their interests..


now, I may be alone on this one.. but as a Gamer, and self proclaimed Nerd/Geek who went through a lot of discrimination in my younger days because of my interests and how i tackle issues, I see a direct parallel with the way alot of gamers have been using the term "casual" to the way Nerds, Geeks and Gamers had been treated for years..

i think, as people whos interests had been considered "inferior" for many years, we really should be more accepting of our fellow gamer-peers.. we should stop talking down to and implying we have a sense of superiority when it comes to casuals simply because of how they like to play a game is different than how we do, or what kind of games they personally enjoy.. the way I see it, if they play a game to have some fun in their spare time, they are just as much true gamers as we are..

i really think we should stop things like "it svcks because of casuals", can we not just admit that a studio decided to take a development route we do not personally agree with without having to put the blame entirely on other consumers?


who knows, maybe I am just an idealist..



does this bother anyone else?

[Gill Mackin]

Yes and no.

I really dislike the use of "casual" as a derogatory term. I mean, there are times that I might indisputably be called hardcoe, but even then there are far more hardcoe people than myself. I play WoW. Unless you're raiding in a world's first mythic guild, there's a good chance you aren't that hardcoe. Just because people enjoy a game differently than you, or don't feel the need to devote their lives to a video game doesn't make them inferior. Often, it's quite the opposite. I know many people that are far better players than myself who put in much less time. They have their reasons and different priorities for not going hardcoe. There are many players who are awful, but who don't demand that they be rewarded for their terrible play or who make an effort to get better. There's no reason to criticize them. This should be lauded. Hell, these days you could probably (hopefully) throw me in with this lot.

The problem is that I can also understand where the anti-casual sentiment derives from, and it's only indirectly related to the casuals themselves, and that's game publishers. There have been a great many cases that could be described as games being changed to appease the casual market, resulting in a decided lack of reward or content for putting in greater time and effort. I don't want to make value judgments. Let me just say that in WoW, things like daily profession cooldowns, Raid Finder, Dungeon Finder, solo-focused leveling, and so on have radically changed the nature of the game, though for better or worse is up to you. Personally, I'd prefer that there was particular content locked behind a skill wall, as that rewards those who do play hardcoe and might actually bring new people into raiding, but that's just me. Furthermore, where the games market now has a decent range of games with different levels and styles of difficulty, we are moving out of a very long time where video games were glorified sight seeing tours outside of PvP. If you have a single player game, then it's fine if the dev decides on a particular route. There's a lot of competition in the single player market. For every Skyrim, there's a Dark Souls. In the multiplayer community, not so much. We put a great deal of money, time, and effort into these games, and while there should be content that casual players can enjoy, there should also be content or rewards for more hardcoe players. Games like WoW grew precisely because they had appeal for both groups. To change it midway to swing the pendulum one way or the other while using a business model that encourages emotional investment is problematic.

Personal [censored]ing here. There is a problem with a certain subset of casual player that caused this: An extremely vocal minority that either can't or can't be arsed to learn and improve, but feel the need to [censored] and demand that they be rewarded for, frankly, nothing. If a publisher decides to design a game for casuals, that's fine, but this bunch comes into an established game and demands that it be twisted to cater to them. This has a radical impact on the game. I didn't want to make controversial statements above, but take WoW. These days, the raiding scene has stagnated, since there's a huge lack of incentivization to raid. Where before, screw gear, just getting to see Illidan was a huge incentive, now, you can spend 15 minutes in LFR to do all of the end game content. This devalues the game, since you have a huge majority of players who cap, get their LFR gear, and unsub, since they've "beaten" the game. Where leveling once required teamwork and social skills to do group quests, now you can autopilot. No one ever talks to one another outside of trade chat. There's no incentive. This has gone from being one of the most challenging and social games ever created to being one of the most surreally anti-social. When people speak, it's vicious, because the only reason to speak is because someone broke your little bubble by screwing up somehow. The point of this little rant is that the attitudes of other consumers do have an effect on your own experience, and the developer pandering to these people has eventually eroded the culture and experience of the community as a whole.

The problem isn't with casual players. The problem is with an extremely vocal minority of casual players and the publishers who listen to them. And yes, this does have an observable effect on the experience of other gamers. However, while there are legitimate criticisms to be leveled at these people, there are ways to do it and not be a dike about it. Unfortunately, that's something we gamers have traditionally been awful at.

[Unstoppable Judge]

It used to bother me, but not anymore. I've been insulted with that name for so many years it doesn't matter anymore.

[Danny Blight]

100% this, I think you literally took the words directly out of my brain and into writing. I honestly don't think I could add anything else to the conversation that you haven't already.

[Ross Zombie]

It's become a derogatory term now, it just use to mean someone who gamed now and then and wasn't that much of a fan, but that's what happens with the internet nowadays isn't it!.

[Karine laverre]

The second I see that word in a complaint from someone they immediately get disregarded as a whiny dimwhit. If a person has to tesort to cop-out buzzwords like that I simply dont care about the rest of the post.

[Blackdrak]

Like any word, the way the word has been used makes it senseless. Games are made for buyers who just play the game as it is; that's what irks many "hard core" players (another of those words) because they feel that something is missing in their game that would make it more to their liking if... People are used to stick labels on others; there's nothing to be done there I'm afraid.

[teeny]

I find it rather irritating, but you find that sort of snobbery everywhere and I guess gaming is no exception. I guess I just need to be less irritated as it's a social phenomenon that's as old as the hills...

[[ becca ]]

There are times when "casuality" annoys me. There is lack of really hard games. Or like when Souls series came around, and 9 out of 10 players on the Internet were screaming "this game is insanity itself, it will [censored] you and your whole family for generations", and then I got it, played, and was scratching my head while recalling some of the statements I read.

But yeah, that kind of labeling is plain stupid. I love it when the game fists me for months, and then when I finish the game, or some specific hard part, the feeling of achievement is incredible. At the same time someone else loves to have godly weapons that he/she can use to faceroll hundreds of enemies with infinite AoE spells, without thinking about advanced tactics or whatever. Is that person wrong? Absolutely not. Everyone should play games they like, the way they like, and no one gets to judge.

That being said

#KillTheCasual, #PCmasterRace, #CatsRuleDogssvck

[electro_fantics]

It does not really bother me, but it does get me wondering about the "utterer."

I'm a casual gamer. I never dig deep into lore or number mechanics (min/max). I do not have enough knowledge nor gumption to create websites about games. I play games, have fun, and complain on message boards

In one sense, I can kind of empathize with people who use the term "casual" negatively. Games have become very easy and byte-sized ( ) in the past decade. No more spending hours trying to figure things out, no more getting lost for hours, puzzles are mostly laughable being solved by 10 year olds, and activities that no longer have a chance for failure. I'm a casual gamer and this bugs me. I can not even think what "hard-core" gamers feel. Some changes are good. Most are bad for players who actually enjoy "wasting time" with video games. After all, video games are a waste of time. They do not help anyone grow or improve their lives. They entertain like movies, books, and other games or play. Can you imagine people getting as serious about Tag?

"Nerd Culture" is another matter, coming to my attention with my interaction with "Geek & Sundry" and Felicia Day in general. "Geek is Cool" is such an adolescent battlecry, I shudder whenever I see someone say that, and I see that a lot! Nobody can tell anyone else who or what is cool. If that's your motivation for doing whatever you do, you are missing the whole point. Yet I see this nearly rabid response to being a Geek or Nerd all too often. The backlash from decades of downtrodden egos is certainly swinging the other way now. Sorry for that turn of topic

Anyway, any label used negatively makes me wonder about the person using the word(s) in that way...

[Anthony Diaz]

nope doesn't bother me. i think people are just too sensitive nowadays. every hobby group has it's enthusiasts and casuals.

[CHANONE]

I agree. It is always the developer's fault, not the players. They should find a way to cater both groups. Backlash is not misguided, just misdirected. Though I don't dismiss criticism involving "filthy casuals" since I know exactly where they are coming from. Good thing, the expression became a joke at this point, no one can use it without a hint of sarcasm, just like "master race".

[Emma]

Honestly, gamers tend to be very mean, cruel, hostile, etc in general as well, which causes a lot of problems too within the community.

[Cassie Boyle]

It doesn't bother me at all because it makes the person saying it sound like an idiot. I envision them as sad, lonely people glued to their PC screen in their moms basemant.

When I was younger I loved the hardest setting in the hardest game but the older I get I prefer my games to be more relaxing then challenging and I have little time to game these days so I'm definitely a "casual" gamer.

[Sheila Esmailka]

A person who uses a buzzword like "casual" is telling us more about himself than about other gamers.

[Jennifer May]

I agree with your point but I strongly disagree with this. Business is always a push-pull situation. If a developer creates a game, but people are disliking it or they want to bring in more customers, they'll start looking for the ways in which they can improve the product or the product's appeal. The metrics for this are very, very inexact, and oftentimes the best means for them to do this is community feedback. They listen to what people are saying. If the loudest group wants a particular thing, even if that's just a very loud minority. While the ultimate responsibility lies with the developer, the responsibility rests with the community to provide measured, accurate, and thoughtful feedback. Games aren't developed or patched or expanded upon in a vacuum.

[George PUluse]

Yeah, pretty sick of it. But, then, I had to wade through years & years of "hardcoe vs casual" crap on the WoW forums (vanilla through Cata). Of course, not being a "hardcoe" dude myself, I generally see it (unlike fueledbycoffee) as a problem from an extremely vocal group of elitists.

(I played WoW basically solo that entire time. I probably never saw half the dungeons past vanilla, and the only "raid" I ever did was one of the early Wrath "boxed raids". On the other hand, I didn't ask for them to make those things more easily accessible to me - I just accepted that I wasn't going to participate in them because I wasn't interested.

....thinking about it, sure. Some of the changes were made to make things "easier". But some of them were also made to appease the elitist jackasses who complained about everyone being "bads". Like simplifying the talent trees - after all, we don't need options there, because "every just follows the Correct Builds!" No, sorry - I enjoyed trying different mixes of talents in the vanilla trees. I never looked up builds/etc. Of course, I also never inflicted myself on a dungeon group.

Another issue is whether a person sees making things "more accessible" is a good thing or not. The elite raiding jackasses, who thought it was great when all the raid content was only consumed by less than 5% of the playerbase, and then moaned that their gear was "worthless" because other people could get it (i.e, it's only value to them was the fact that they could lord it's rarity over other the "have-nots", not it's stats)..... eh. I don't feel bad about not catering to their desires, you know?

edit: and then there's the pvp community, which takes the vitriol to a whole 'nother level. Whee!

[lauren cleaves]

Ah yes, those filthy casuals.

[Shae Munro]

First, let me state what I think of when I see the word 'casual gamers'. To me, they're defined as people who are not so into gaming that they'll play the next hottest game out there, religiously follow every gaming site and glue their eyes to the TV when E3 rolls along. A classic example: an elderly couple who decide to spend a Saturday morning playing Wii Sports or a casual racing game on the PS4.

hardcoe gamers, in general, are the exact opposite. We're the ones who treat gaming like a hobby. Some of us have been insulted and belittled because of that. As a direct consequence, these few have learned to treasure their hobbies with extreme care, with love. Something they can form an identity around. Anyone who didn't game were 'outsiders'.

Imagine how they must feel when they learn that developers are catering to those who don't game as much? They must feel betrayed, like what was so prized to them, so exclusive to them, is now being catered to the general population including, yes, the very people who used to belittle them. The 'outsiders'. What do they know? What do they care? They're not even *real gamers* as far as these 'hardcoe gamers' are concerned.

So they lash out by, ironically, doing the very thing they once suffered through. All that anger, all that pent up rage comes out in a frothing, acidic mess. Now THEY are the bullies, but to them, THEY are the ones in power. The ones in control, the ones who decide who is 'cool' or 'uncool'. As far as they're concerned, these 'causal gamers' can just go curl up and die (not literally) because they don't know what real gaming is like.

Does this make them right? Of course not, but I can sort of see why they'd act like this.

[GEo LIme]

Not so fast on shifting the blame to an entity like business there. They change the business model all the time, forceful marketing works.

They don't have to listen to everything but the idea of providing optional hardcoe and casual modes makes a lot of sense, especially for certain franchises and genres. Casuals aren't so hard to please, the real work goes for hardcoe modes. There must be a level of satisfaction at designing a game with some balance in mind instead of level scaling, where dragons are actually fearsome etc.

Dark Souls is everywhere, hardcoe is a powerful marketing tool too it turns out. It is a failure of devs for not capitalizing on this. Though, Dark Souls is just the other side of the same coin here.

[darnell waddington]

You know, funnily enough, most of the complaints about the talent trees came from the low-to-mid skilled players. The high-end guys actually enjoy min-maxing and experimentation. I'm nowhere near high-end, but even I loved the depth the old system had. The MoP system is decidedly brainless by comparison, but there is still some opportunity for theorycrafting.

I think it's quite sad that only 5% of people ever got to see raids in the old days. It makes me sadder, however, that far fewer get to do so these days. People seem to think that by seeing the story, they're experiencing the raid, but that's not true at all. Raids are more about mechanics, about the design, the struggle. The euphoria that accompanies a successful kill on a boss that's been stonewalling your guild is obscene, it's something every gamer should have the chance at experiencing. Unfortunately, most players run LFR a few times and call it a day. They'll never see the real raid. They'll never experience that joy. They'll never be tested and overcome. The gear is nice as a means to an end and as a visual cue for those whose validation comes from standing on the mailbox, but raiding isn't about the gear or the elitist lording-over the noobs. It's about the competition. The ultimate victory was the kill.

The problem is that most people don't get that. They think that LFR is representative of raiding, or that dungeon finder gives the same experience as running with your guildies. Frankly, though, while I might be elitist towards LFR, the problem with not gating that content is that 99.99999~% of the time, people will take the easiest path towards achieving their goals. If they have to raid, not only will they have to engage with the community in a game that is social by design, but that story will come with an emotional connection to your character and the villain. You have strived, you have prepared, you have anticipated, and finally the fight is here. After weeks of wiping, of hating that PoS with a passion, the boss goes down. That's about as close to simulating the experience of being there as you can come. If you hop in an LFR, follow the pack and press a few buttons, that experience is diminished. Another good example is epics. The epics people get in dungeons these days are no better (adjusted for inflation) than the dungeon blues from vanilla, but people get defensive when you criticize "welfare epics" because they like their "purps", it makes them feel like a badass. The thing is, they'll never get the sheer, orgismic joy of finally getting that Core Hound Tooth. When I finally got my Legendary hammer after a year of admittedly casual Molten Core soloing last year, the emotion I felt was indescribable, almost religious. It provided no benefit, at that point, it just sits in my bank. Can't even transmog it. But it was the culmination of long-term effort, actual investment by me in that item. By comparison, my legendary cloak was handed to me in a quest chain and a few LFR runs. Emotionally, that was just another stat boost. Nice proc, but just another piece of gear.

Furthermore, as I said, it devalues the game. Raiding is fun. PvP is fun. These things can sustain a game in the year of downtime before the next expansion and after you've cleared the questing content. They keep people subbed. If most of the player base is simply clearing the leveling and unsubbing, then you get a ping pong effect for profits, which is bad for the bottom line. Then the developer responds to this new dynamic, which results in Xpacs like WoD, which had tremenous initial appeal and absolutely no long-term lifespan. MMOs aren't single player, long-term sustainability is a must. The problems come when the most optimal course for the company is to treat the game like CoD.

I agree that balance is what we should be going for. I only chose to focus on the vocal casuals because it was the most direct way of addressing the thread, but vocal elitists definitely contribute to the problem. Takes two to tango, yeah?

Anyway, sorry about the novel. The only reason I'm making this argument is to clarify the opposing position. I saw a lot of misconceptions about hardcoe players in your post and others, so I just wanted to clear that up. It has very little to do with lording your shiny gear over the casuals, but the experience of clearing raids and actually earning your victory. Rather than experiencing that, however, most people will settle for LFR, because they have nothing to incentivize taking the risk of dealing with other players in a meaningful way, since that content has been opened up to them free of charge. It's like having the opportunity to eat the greatest steak the world has ever known, and opting for drive-thru double cheeseburgers.

Anyway, I don't want to make this topic about WoW. It just makes for a brilliant case study for this topic.

[Spencey!]

It doesn't bother me at all. I am not ultimately casual or ultimately hardcoe, I am casual for some games (that I like but not so much as to invest to much time to learn or farm or grind or whatever) and I am hardcoe for other games (that I deeply, madly love and spend a lot of time in them). I think everybody is right in this debate, and being so sensitive about a (otherwise quite appropriate) word is pointless. If anyone tells me I'm a casual in WOW or ESO I will gladly agree, I am a casual because I like them and play them but not intensively enough.

[Emma Parkinson]

Its a silly term and basically meaningless (or at least its meaning varies widely)

Everyones a casual to someone. I've been playing games for over 30 years, they are my main recreation and I read a lot of lore for some games like Runequest or Pendragon but when it comes to mmos I'm a casual because I don't want to devote my life to just 1 thing. There are too many interesting things out there to be hardcoe about just 1 thing

[Donatus Uwasomba]

not really, it was the advent of internet multiplayer games that brought out the troll gamers. hiding behind mostly anonymous screennames.

before that, almost most gamers were considerate, and thought it was actually cool to be with other gamers to play. this was when the only multiplayer gaming was local play or serial/lan network. if you were a jerk, no one bothered to invite you back. and if you were cheesing, you got a punch to the arm among other things haha. though if that still happened nowadays, it'd be considered bullying the jerk haha.

i remember the shift to internet multiplayer and the general rudeness of jerks amplified when there were no immediate repercussions.

[Emma louise Wendelk]

I don't know how unusual I am, but I didn't make any distinction between Skyrim and Dark Souls really. To me proper hardcoe gaming is the pro competitions, they are the only gamers I actually have respect for their skills -- not playing bloody Dark Souls.

Systems and controls have become simpler, but that is partly just game makers being good at their job and getting the interface out of the way.

Now indie devs have many outlets and can make somewhat more complicated games again like Pillars, so there should be less to complain about. Broadening the hobby has brought much more money and new technology in, to all of our benefit.