In the gaming world, particularly in MMOs, there exists a great amount of consternation between casual and hardcore players. Distinguishing between the two groups is often times difficult if you are just going off of face value, that is, judging based on what a character looks like and what talents the character chooses to take. The problem lies in ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ definitions, as often times the definition changes from person to person. As with most gaming terminology, there lacks concrete definitions by which to go off of. We cannot simply pick up Websters dictionary, or reference an encyclopedia, to provide us with clarity. The definitions are fluid, and change from group to group. But distinguishing between ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ is of utmost importance in a gaming community, due to the vastly different ways in which you are treated, and accepted by, various factions within a gamming group. As it is with most gaming communities, concentrating specifically on MMOs, ‘casual’ players are seen as part of an outgroup, they are in fact the deviant subsection of the gaming society.
Deciding who is deviant is controlled by who has the power. According to Pfohl (1994), “labeled deviants are viewed as such because they threaten the control of people who have enough power to shape the way society imagines the boundary between good and bad”. In the gaming world, the top ‘guilds’ (small groups of gamers that play together) hold high social status and prestige. They often times have the most in game currency, the best gear (items you collect for your character), and have defeated the most difficult encounters (which gives them the prestige of being ‘highly ranked’ on gaming websites). Casual players don’t have the same values as the hard core elites. They view achievement in the game from a different perspective, for example: they may not consider beating difficult encounters to be commendable. Instead, they come from the mindset that the game is a social challenge, and the proper way to play is to try and form the most friendships and build the most relationships. This kind of mindset is in direct opposition to how a hardcore gamer operates. In order to defeat the most difficult parts of a game, the hard core players must dedicate as much as 15-20+ hours a week for goal achievement. In order to procure this level of dedication from gamers, hard core guilds must ensure that their view of game achievement is preferred by the gaming society. Thus, they belittle and ostracize people that deviate from their self-built social norm.
In order to find out people’s opinions of the two groups I randomly talked to 20 people within a popular MMO. Half the players were at max level (max level refers to players that are at ‘end game’) and the rest not. I made this distinction because max level players may be more biased towards content achievement rather than social achievement (although, certainly hardcore and casual players can exist in both groups). Due to time constraints (players don’t like to be bugged with questions, they have stuff to do after all!), I limited the number of questions to only three. First I asked whether they considered themselves hard core or casual (8 leaned hardcore, 12 casual), how they defined the two groups (the responses ranged from ‘casuals are noobs’ to ‘hard core players are no life elites’), and finally I asked which group they felt was more socially acceptable within the gaming community (15 said hard core players were better accepted, 2 said the same, 3 said casual). As a gamer myself, these numbers come as no surprise. While there is certainly a minority that rebels against hard core players (as was the person that said they have no life, something you run into often), the majority stuck with what I’ve seen as the socially accepted norm. Viewing general chat (a chat interface that every player has access to), this same type thinking exists. Casual guilds and players do not receive the same kind of recognition or respect hard core guilds do. In fact, the most populated casual guild on the server, containing more than a couple hundred players, is often times mocked, ridiculed, and scorned on general chat by having players that don’t fall in line with how a ‘proper player’ is supposed to play.
Once you are labeled deviant your opportunities in the game begin to dwindle. You are punished by being kicked out of groups if you play is not up to standard, and often left out of groups entirely if you don’t make the ‘optimal’ character choices (talents, gear ect). Even casual players that used to be hardcore may find it difficult to be a part of a group that pursues end game achievement. Players that cannot make every single raid can be quickly replaced by someone who can. This may lead to confusion for players that view the game from a social perspective.
What would be interesting for future analysis is to see how casual deviance changes from one gaming ‘server’ to the next (each server is independent, thus each gaming society is uninhibited by other gaming groups). In Moynihan (1992) he talks about how the definition of what is deviant changes based on how prevalent a behavior is. The more prevalent, the less likely it is to be labeled deviant. In my example, the definition of ‘casual’ may be drastically different on a less populated server. The standards of ‘good play’ may also diminish, due to the lack of hard core players by which to be judged. Perhaps on ‘role playing servers’ (servers where the goal is to create a character identity that falls within the games story) casual players are the dominant and more socially accepted group. This wouldn’t be surprising since gamers who choose to play on these servers are likely to hold different values and beliefs.
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "defining Deviancy Down," The American Scholar, vol. 62, no.1 (Winter 1993), pp. 17-30. 1992.
Stephen, Pfohl, IMages of Deviance and Social Control, 2nd ed. (New ork: McGraw-Hill, 1994), pp. 1-6
