Rodin's "The Thinker." Courtesy of innoxiuss; edited by Level Up

The Idea: Gamers contain multitudes. Why doesn't our language reflect that?

The Thinker: Mitch Krpata

The Source: Insult Swordfighting

The Quote: The reason "hardcore" and "casual" fail as classifications for gamers is because each of those classifications contains contradictory meanings.

Essentially, when you call someone a hardcore gamer, you are saying nothing about what type of games they like to play, or the manner in which they like to play those games. You are simply saying that this guy seems to really like games. Is that helpful to anybody? If anything, it leads to the sorts of pissing matches that inevitably overwhelm online game discussion. That designation becomes a badge of honor to be defended instead of what it should be--a simple, objective term with no value judgments attached.

There's no reason a Tourist can't be "hardcore"--no reason he can't be the sort to simply rip through one game after another in search of unique experiences. No reason a Perfectionist can't be "casual," and simply try to master, say, Wii Carnival Games. A Wholesale Player may still want linear, narrative games like Okami, and a Premium Player might be getting his money's worth with quick sessions of the latest Tetris. Who in that group is the casual player? Who is the hardcore player?

So if there is no easy or quick way to combine these questions of taste and value, maybe that's a blessing in disguise. Maybe that means we can stop stereotyping ourselves and broaden the conversation. We gamers contain multitudes. It's time we realized it.

The Reaction: We thought we had made a genuine contribution to the never-ending discussion of videogames when we coined the term "hardcasual." But Krpata goes much, much further. In 11 brief, provocative posts collected under the heading "A New Taxonomy of Gamers," he eloquently argues that we should unpack the assumptions built into the overly broad terms "hardcore" and "casual." Instead, he says, we need to evaluate our tastes in videogames along multiple axes that are more precise, such as:

To read the rest of today's installment of "The Big Idea," click on the link below.

1. EGO...trip: Notes of a non-native son, revisited and considered
2. EGO...trip: third on the list, but first in Next Generation's heart?
3. EGO..trip: In which we bask in the adoration of our hardcasual children
4. AND...another one gone, another one gone/Another one bites the dust
5. GLA...snost and perestroika, or, the reformation of Electronic Arts
6. RND...What would qualify as Stuff Level Up Likes, we wonder