Not all casual games are bad and not for "gamers"

[Zeus]

Rock Band actually sold better on Wii and PS2 than any other system

http://wii.ign.com/articles/945/945693p1.html

Help proves a few things:

1) These guitar games are truly for the masses or "casuals"
2) The masses, many of whom are never online, far outweigh the "gamers"
3) DLC is limited more to "gamers". The majority of the market just doesn't care

[RentCavalier]

This is news that hasn't--and still doesn't--ever surprised me.

[Don]

I think it's only the alleged hardcore guys who are surprised by these things, probably due to an inflated sense of self-worth. The fact that WoW pretty much says 'we don't care about the hardcore' guys shows how little the hardcore matters, and how casual guys pretty much decide everything.

[Zeus]

No, not everything. One of the main difference between the hardcore and the casual is the proportion of expendable cash spent on gaming. The hardcore, even if they are only about 20% of the market, provide a steady stream of income. They buy games all the time, as much as they can afford. The casuals will buy what, 3-5 games a year? Hardcores will do that a month if there are good releases. Different market but both are important. And considering developers are often hardcore gamers themselves, they're relatively well represented with releases too.

No such thing as a casual MMORPG. They're exclusively hardcore by design right now

[Tessian]

No... all this shows is that there are games that cater to both markets. Rock Band / GH are not just for casual gamers, everyone has it including hardcore people. If I'm not mistaken everyone here owns a copy of at least one of them (I myself own RB1, RB2, GH4) and I'm definitely not a casual gamer.

[Don]

No, not everything. One of the main difference between the hardcore and the casual is the proportion of expendable cash spent on gaming. The hardcore, even if they are only about 20% of the market, provide a steady stream of income. They buy games all the time, as much as they can afford. The casuals will buy what, 3-5 games a year? Hardcores will do that a month if there are good releases. Different market but both are important. And considering developers are often hardcore gamers themselves, they're relatively well represented with releases too.

No such thing as a casual MMORPG. They're exclusively hardcore by design right now

So WoW is played by 11 million hardcore gamers?

[Zeus]

No, not everything. One of the main difference between the hardcore and the casual is the proportion of expendable cash spent on gaming. The hardcore, even if they are only about 20% of the market, provide a steady stream of income. They buy games all the time, as much as they can afford. The casuals will buy what, 3-5 games a year? Hardcores will do that a month if there are good releases. Different market but both are important. And considering developers are often hardcore gamers themselves, they're relatively well represented with releases too.

No such thing as a casual MMORPG. They're exclusively hardcore by design right now

So WoW is played by 11 million hardcore gamers?

Yes

[Julius Seeker]

The word hardcore gamer is mostly just a better sounding word than nerd. As Don said, used by people who need to inflate their ego.

Anyway, I don't see anything rational to the thought that game A will only be bought by nerds and game B will only be bought by casual gamers, for any game. World of Warcraft, I know a lot of people who play it, but most of them are casual and regular gamers; I also know a few nerds who play, but they are far from the majority.

[Tessian]

WoW is not only hardcore gamers... actually in most cases hardcore gamers have left the game by now. There's always new games coming out, we don't stick to one game for too long.

MMO's are simple enough that you do NOT need to be a hardcore gamer, I know plenty of non-gamers who play WoW. All that's required to play WoW is a computer built in the last 4 years, $15/month, and a lot of free time. Free time spent playing games != hardcore gamer. I'd stand by Don's claim that most WoW players aren't hardcore. They may be hardcore WoW gamers, but they're not hardcore gamers in general.

[Don]

I'm sure there are more people who pay for WoW to use it like an interactive chat room where you tell Chuck Norris jokes than the number of hardcore guys that play the game.

And if anything hardcore guys consume more resources so they're not the kind of people you want. You got to spend more developer time to make content. They play more which means your server is more congested and you need to use more bandwidth. Yet you still only get the same $15 a month compared to any other guy from that guy. And before people say hardcore guys play multiple boxes, WoW isn't a game where boxing offers a significant advantage, and most of the time the heavy boxes I'm aware of are actually pretty casual. It's because they don't have a lot of time that they're willing to pay for 5 or 15 accounts to do more in the time they have. It is easy to get to the top of any MMORPG I'm aware of by simply playing hardcore on one character, and in fact a lot of them having more characters won't even help you very much toward that goal.