As time went on, games became more popular and widespread. What was once a hobby enjoyed by a select few with the time and resources soon flourished into a whole subculture that had regular tournaments with thousands of fans and cash prizes in the hundreds of thousands. Accessibility to games became easier and even transcended generational gaps. Indeed a culture and fan-base rose form these event, and as with anything that develops a large and loyal following a hierarchy has developed in the gaming sphere. Sure, many of us argue over the better console or game, but even in those arguments there still exist that hierarchy. I’m of course talking about the distinction between casual and hardcore gamers.

The terms are rather loose in their definition, but in general a casual gamer is someone who plays games in a casual manor with relatively little gaming experience or experience in a game with a “low barrier of entry. ” An example of such a game would be Tetris, as the concept is simple and easy to learn compared to the mechanics required to play a first person shooter .(Running, movement, aiming, shooting, aiming and moving, etc.) Hardcore gamers are those who have put in hours into a game to understand how to be an effective player. Think of those like your traditional pro esports players.

Within this hierarchy there seems to be a resentment towards the casual players to the hardcore gamers, and many hardcore player would say that some casual players aren’t “real” gamers. This idea of being a “real” player breeds a culture of exclusion and toxicity as many hardcore players feel that their favorite game is being encroached upon. That is how the ideology of the “filthily casual” came to bear roots in some online circles after all. This idea of “casual vs hardcore” serves to only divide gamers and create unnecessary areas of toxicity and sexism. In a research report by Lina Eklund she found that:

“Consequently, the tropes of women as casual gamers
and men as hardcore hide the fact that the casual game category as well as
traditional games are engaged in almost equally by men and women.[1]”

This distinction in all honestly does nothing more than exclude many gamers from a game-space that they could add to and be a part of. In all honesty gamers should see the increase of players coming to their games as a compliment, especially those games focused on a multiplayer model. This gives their favorite game developers more clout and finicial resources to either improve on the game they have now or create a new version of their game that can have more features and even more polish.

When It comes to the game-space in the future, I would like there to be a utopia that is accepting of gamers of any creed, race, sex or religion. These places are areas where we go to to forget the woes of our day or to catch up with friends we no longer can see on a personal basis. I hope that in the future the distinction of casual and hardcore games will cease, and that we can all be just “gamers.”

[1] Eklund, Lina. “Who are the casual gamers? Gender tropes and tokenism in game culture.” Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The changing gaming landscape. Ed. Tama Leaver and Michele Willson. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 15–30. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 24 Feb. 2020. .