The Asian Power Hour

Harris? Who is this Harris? You cut me deep, Dr. Yang.

I like the way you summed this up... too often, I think, "hardcore" and "casual" games and gamers get lumped in with gamer demographics... but those terms only really make sense when applied to investment.

If we refer to people who spend 50 hours a week perfecting their form in multiplayer Bejeweled as "casual", what the hell does that mean?

What about games that are just too flipping hard for most players? Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Ikaruga, Battletoads? Mechanically they aren't much more complicated than their peers. The way they differ is that the room for error is much, much, much, much, much smaller.

I guess you could argue that Ikaruga's "bullet hell", for example, is a complicated mechanic in and of itself. But for me that gets into the dynamics of gameplay. The mechanics--dodge bullets, shoot, power up shield--are still the same as other shooters.

I think an important distinction to make here is that we often use casual/hardcore identifiers to imply the assumed time investment required to get enjoyment out of the game, or at least to discover the "true depth" of the game. Or, in another way, to identify how long the game must be played in order to run through the game or complete a major goal.

Your (or Jamie's?) definition requires people to have played a game and then to have chalked up the amount of hours played to determine if the experience was a casual or hardcore one. But based on past experiences we can make assumptions as to whether the game will work in a casual or hardcore setting. We know that a game like Gears of War 2, you'll need to deal with putting the disc in the tray, waiting for the game to boot, navigating several menus, and then spend on average at least an hour per session -- a requirement some would say prohibits it from the casual definition.

I think it's important to understand why we're using the definitions at all. Yes, Bejeweled can be played in a manner that a hardcore game would be played. But you don't need to spend an hour at a time to enjoy the game. It's still fun in short bursts (the time it takes to type in the address in a browser, load the game, and play it to completion is no longer than 15 minutes).

If we waited for everyone to say how long it took them to play a game, it would lose meaning to use the label in the first place.

Note that I don't think "casual" and "hardcore" are used very appropriately most of the time, and I dislike that "casual" is often used negatively in describing a game. But I think it can be useful in describing the kind of setting you can play the game in and still enjoy it.