Warning: This post contains two horses (perished), named “hardcore” and “casual”, as well as a stick with the note “sports comparisons”, and the opportunity to use the latter on the former.

Because of high workload this week, I’m a bit behind on posting and on reading other blogs. (Not all of it is bad work though: as a result, I’ll be able to go to Tokyo for about two weeks in December! Yay me!) When I caught up on Tobold, I read a reply that said:

I like the definition that hardcore is when you rearrange RL to accommodate a game.

I like that the definition is concise and clear. Unfortunately, like many of those, it’s also not correct. “Rearrange” is such a relative term. If you have a night a week reserved to play with your friends, you’re hardcore by that definition. If you compare this to sports, every team sport is hardcore, because you need to make plans with other people to play together. Only single-player sports could be casual. Watching a movie? Casual. Unless you decide you don’t want to watch just anything, but a specific art house film, which might only be screened by the one small theater in town, for one or two screenings – then it’s hardcore.

I can’t come up with a good definition of “hardcore” and “casual” myself, but I think this one isn’t it. I think people who say the terms are too fuzzy and loaded to be of any help are probably right.