Just a funny question. In your opinion what is a casual gamer and what is a hardcore gamer, and is there anything in the middle?

I am kind interested because it seems that whole community is in some kind of casual vs hardcore war atm , and blame for the state of the game just crushes on every part of community it seems.

As for myself i find myself casual, mid hardcore gamer in wow. I can be hardcore especially in some FPS games, but wow kind takes to much time to be hardcore nor game rly pushes me to be hardcore, (and I am just not that good at the game) that said I love to have a challenge in a game from time to time, that is why i like WOWs pvp not that I am best in it far from that but reaching 2200 was a lot of fun for me this season.

Most players are somewhere in the middle.

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I think it really depends, I see my self as a casual others don’t.

but if were going by numbers then it still is hard to determine.

Is it by time played total? per day? time spent raiding and m+ ? by how much content you cleared? which type of content you engage in ? etc.

But like Lanie said, most players are in the middle

It’s always hard to give clear definitions of who is what and, in my opinion, such demarcations are also a bit arbitrary.

I think that hardcore players are the guys who put everything they can into the game, I think that Cutting Edge is a fair requirement if raiding is your thing, otherwise a high Mythic+ Key within the time. I don’t think we can draw a hard line if it comes to PvP, with which I am not all too familiar, but a high rating is pretty much required.

As you can see I define it with the output a player has. A player who plays a lot of WoW can be considered hardcore, but if his activities consists of mostly leveling and Normal Raiding, well, you can hardly consider him a hardcore player. It requires knowledge as well, a sort of WoW-techne if you will, which shows that you also have the will to aim for higher goals.

Traditionally, there is no middle ground, but it’s only fair that there is something between casual and hardcore, since there are enough players who play a lot of WoW in their spare time but don’t have the resources to invest to be the best of the best.

Hardcore - Mythic raiding/High Mythic plus keys
Casual - Heroic raiding and below/Low Mythic plus keys

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People should avoid using these terms. People are spending zillion hours on different kind of difficulties too. A lot they hit the limit at heroic raiding difficulty and ~+10-12 M+.

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Honest answer?

99,9% “casuals” players who post here on these forums, calling themselves “casuals” are just people who want everything for free without actually playing the game.

Aside from that pretty much anyone who isnt doing arenas/M/Mraids is casual …

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A ‘casual gamer’ either cannot afford to play this game for the majority of his/her day and/or plays when he or she has the time it.

A ‘hardcore gamer’ spends most of their time and energy focused on playing a game. More than likely at a competitive pace whilst having Nocco or Redbull delivered straight to his/her parents basement/attic until his/her Youtube/Twitch stream becomes popular and they can move out into a mansion and wash their insecurities away with money and hot human beings.

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I think of myself as a casual player because I won’t commit to any scheduling of any kind such as organised guild raiding. I play when and how I feel like it. Scheduling to me ruins the fun of a game, it makes it feel more like a chore or a job.

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Hardcore 8+ hours per day (job basically)
Casual 2 or less hours per day

First off let’s define some things that a casual player isn’t

  1. garbage at the game
  2. entitled
    Those two are separate issues unrelated to being casual or hardcore.

Now for my definitions:
A casual player is a player that plays the game when they have time.
A hardcore player is a player that makes time to play the game.

Neither definition necessitates achievements or skill. It’s simply an indication of how dedicated you are to the game or gaming in general. You could be a hardcore pet collector for all I care.

Obviously, since a hardcore gamer is more dedicated to the game they will usually be better at it than a casual in most cases, but this is not necessarily true in all cases. And there really isn’t an excuse for being terrible at WoW seeing how the game isn’t exactly hard in terms of execution or reflexes.

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Totally agree with this, the word “Casual” has been thrown around too often to mean these 2 things, I know casual players who aren’t either of these.

A hardcore gamer prioritises the game over his/her life
and a casual gamer prioritises their life over the game.
That’s distinction between the two, it’s not how far in the game you’ve progressed.
It’s what life priorities you have. You can play the game casually and still clear mythic content.

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Hardcore - plays the game all day/most of the day. Casual - doesnt play much 1hr a day ish or a couple at best.

Hardcore - Roams the maps, killing every ally it spots, and isnt afraid of anything
Casual - Some pleb still stuck in instanced content

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Actually I have one excuse - the game is so boring that during HC progress in my old guild after ~2+ wipes I was so bored that I was simply not paying attention and almost falling asleep.

There are a few views about it.

View 1 would be based on the amount of time played, in that hardcore is someone spending a high amount of time in the game, midcore someone spending a decent amount but not going overboard, and casual someone playing for a lower amount of time.

View 2 would be based on content difficulty, in that hardcore means someone doing top end content, midcore someone doing mid level content and casual someone doing low end content at high level.

View 3 would be that casual is someone that plays the game on and off, and everyone else is midcore or hardcore.

My personal view is that the time based metric is the proper one. I don’t think someone that plays casually cannot do more difficult content, and I don’t think there is proportionality between quantity and quality of gameplay. I can be a hardcore pvper for example that plays at 1400 rating for 14 hours a day, and you can be a casual pvper that plays at 2200 rating for 1 hour a day. Similarly, you can be a hardcore pveer that does every single world quest and lfr and heroic dungeons, or a casual pveer that only shows up twice per week for mythic raiding.

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Pretty much this! As someone who do heroic raids and sometimes the first bosses on mythic i used to view myself(still do) as casual, but sadly these days it seems that casual is someone who wants to be rewarded with items just by logging on because he is paying subscription. And blizz are forcing that mindset.

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This. Perfect definition.

40H+ playing a week is hardcore, rest is casual.

also depends on what content you do, and ho much you care about competetive stuff and top lists etc.