HardCore Casual Gamers

At the beginning of class on Tuesday We took that in class poll to show us what the gaming habits of our class looked like. We then started talking about the differences between casual and hardcore games, and gamers. We often identified hardcore games usually as console or PC games that really immerse the player for hours at a time, and require a lot more time being put into it. We labeled casual games as more interrupt-able and less time consuming. This emphasis on time got me thinking. Sure you may only play Bubble Spinner, Tetris, or Angry Birds for a few minutes at a time, but often you play them more than once throughout the day and more often on a daily basis than hardcore games. If someone plays 10 minutes of a game on their smart phone 5 times a day every day that’s 6 hours a week ( if my math is right). I feel that if you played 6 hours of Angry Birds a week, that would make you a hardcore Angry Bird-er. So what I’m trying to get at is perhaps we should look differently at the element of time of game play when considering a game or gamer a hardcore or casual game. If you put the same amount of time into a *casual* mobile phone game as someone does in a *hardcore* game in one week; perhaps you should reconsider your label as a casual gamer.