What’s the difference between a core gamer and a hardcore gamer? A core gamer plays to live. A hardcore gamer lives to play.

Often these days gamers don’t seem to understand who the core gamers are. I’ve noticed that in the last half a year people have slowly stopped using the term hardcore, and started using the term core to mean the same thing. It’s not. People also use the term casual gamer these days to mean non-gamer, which seems like a silly contradiction to me. Nintendo recently came under fire for saying that Animal Crossing: City Folk was a core game for core gamers. The hardcore said that it was ridiculous to say that this game was for them. And they were right about that. What they were wrong about is that they are the core gamers.

I am a casual gamer. Not what the term means today. Today, it means a non-gamer. I have been a gamer since I first got my NES for Christmas and played Super Mario Brothers until 2 AM. Which, for a 7 year old, was pretty late back then. I’ve own a video game console for every generation since then, including the current one, and bought and played games for every generation, including this one. However, sometimes months go by and I don’t play games at all. Other times, not a day goes by when I don’t pick up a controller. I’m a casual gamer.

But more than that, I’m a core gamer. This includes more than just the casuals. Core gamers typically have been around for more than one hardware generation, and play video game for fun, or excitement, the challenge, or the story. They play to live. This is different from the hardcore gamer, who lives to play.

Some of the really far gone hardcore gamers think that their games are the only real kind of video games. Not only do they play a lot, but they tend to play many of the same type of games. For example, a hardcore gamer may play first person shooter after first person shooter without tiring. Another may play nothing but various types of RPG games. Some play all types, but again, many of the same type of game over and over again. This would typically boar a core gamer. And there in lies the difference. Although a core gamer my like the challenge, a hardcore gamer sees challenge as the main part of gaming. For them, the challenge is the entertainment.

Since the NES came out, the hardcore spoke for the core. What was good for the hardcore was good for the core. With superior technology came better graphics, better sound and made game play better with new types of games and new types of game play. But this is no longer the case. Graphics and sound have gotten good enough. And while modest improvement of hardware in the past meant major game changes at the time, like going form 2D words to 3D worlds, that is no longer the case.

Now, technology no longer is that important. The technology is at the point where instead of freeing game developers, it is confining them to worry about the art, the sound, and not the game. Here is where the core start to splinter from the hardcore. The core gamers want new, fun, and entertaining game play. In the past, new technology freed developers to do this. The hardcore like the old games, and want games just like that, only more so: more graphics, more sound. Where the core gets bored, the hardcore thrives.

The result is gamer drift. The gamers stop caring about gaming and move on to other things, and the industry contracts. The video game industry hasn’t grown much since the original NES. Revenue is up, but gamers and profits are down. And profits are what matter to investors.

The most profitable games are core games. These are games that are friendly to the core or casual gamer, and typically even the new gamer. These are also the games that make the new hardcore gamers. Games like StarCraft, GTA, and Zelda are core games that are casual friendly. Sometimes people laugh that GTA could be on that list, but it’s true. GTA allows the gamer to do anything. Someone I know puts their nephew, a young kid, in front of GTA and he goes parasailing over the lake. It doesn’t matter that you can kill prostitutes. The fact is that the game is entertaining in a number of ways. It keeps the interest of the core, is accessible, and open ended.

Games like StarCraft and Zelda are not as open ended. But they are accessible. They start of simple enough that anyone can learn how to use them. In fact, the game teaches them as they play without tutorials or instruction manuals. The game simply tells them what they need to know when they need to know it. This allows all the core gamers to play the game by lowering the barrier of entry. It’s not the challenge for challenge sake they want. So the game has to ease them in, and play with them at their own level. The hardcore, on the other hand, love the challenge for it’s own sake, and they love these game games because they become difficult as you play them.

The non-gamer is someone who doesn’t buy games, or has no interest in them. They may become new gamers who may become core gamers. Some might one day become hardcore gamers. People think Nintendo’s strategy is the new gamer and non-gamer. But this is not true. Their strategy is two part. Get non-gamers to become new gamers with games like Wii Sports and Brain Age. The second is to get those new gamers to become core gamers by giving them more complicated games like Mario Kart, The New Super Mario Brothers, and Animal Crossing, which are all core games. Hoe do we know they are core games? Because core gamers buy them. And then they buy the sequel, even if they have to buy the next generation console to play it.

But the hardcore are not the core. The hardcore are a minority. Games that sell don’t sell to the hardcore only. They have to sell to the entire core. The PS2 wouldn’t have sold over a hundred million consoles if only the hardcore bought it. Instead, the core bought it to play core games like GTA, Final Fantasy, and just as important, other random games in the incredible deep and broad game library. You see, they need a diverse library, because they need to be entertained.