Shush! Did you hear that? You will in a moment. Just give it time. There, hear it? That’s right, someone uttered the term “casual gamer”. That raucous uproar you’re hearing is the ebb of battle as everyone on a discussion board shouts and cries over what the ridiculous terms of “hardcore” and “casual” actually mean.

It happens all the time, especially when some item of news or topic shifts to discuss Nintendo and their little console beloved by grandparents and girlfriends the world over. Someone inevitably throws out the term “casual gamer”, and Nintendo die-hards cry out to defend their tiny little system. An argument breaks out where allegedly hardcore games for the Wii are listed, and the counter-argument is a slew of edgy M-Rated titles that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are filled to the brim with. In the end no one can agree, and the same old perspectives and stereotypes continue to live on.

Super Mario Galaxy often falls in between how gamers try and define “hardcore” and “casual”, being both and neither at the same time.

Most amusing to an outside observer is actually trying to watch gamers try and collaborate to actually define what it means to be hardcore vs. casual. A definition will be created that will leave out a game like Super Mario Galaxy, and then an argument will begin whether Mario games can even be considered hardcore at all. The terms hardcore and casual are so ridiculous that supposed hardcore gamers don’t even know how to come to a consensus on the definitions.

The industry isn’t of much help, either. Game journalists continue to use these phrases as well, embedding the ridiculous vocabulary into the minds of anyone willing to read the website or pick up the magazine. Game developers and publishers can’t even figure out that “girl” is not a demographic on its own, and that it is impossible to create a game that an entire gender can enjoy. Can’t someone tell Sony that Nintendo never had to make a pink device in order to convince them to give games a try? Or maybe I missed the release of Pokemon: Rose Petal Pink this year.

It’s no wonder outsiders to the industry continue to look at gamers as a bunch of children. The best selling titles are often bloody, violent, sexual and completely devoid of any sort of plot with writing poor enough to make the original Street Fighter movie look like Shakespeare. We scratch our heads trying to figure out why girls supposedly don’t play games, and when they do we ask for nude pictures and harass them off our servers. We endlessly bicker and debate over silly terms such as casual or hardcore, claiming anything rated for everyone is for grandmothers and wimps.

House of the Dead: Overkill may be rated Mature, but it is anything but.

The truth is a lot of these problems would resolve themselves if we looked at these differences as a simple matter of taste. A lot of girls simply have different tastes than the ones that currently play the same games as the guys. Nintendo simply appeals to different tastes than the gamer that spends hours each night severing foes in twain on Gears of War. Believe it or not, there are plenty of gamers that keep up with the industry daily, buy more games than there are months in the year and invest countless hours into the hobby that just don’t like Call of Duty as much as they enjoyed Super Paper Mario.

Of course, discussions and debates on gaming forums will never sound civil anyway. Even if the “hardcore” and “casual” terms were completely abandoned, it would go back to the tradition of claiming one game being stupid over another. It happens with film and television, and it will happen with games. However, at least then the entire world can understand these foolish arguments and recognize gamers just as everyone else.

The real benefit goes to the industry. Casting such foolish terms from our collective vocabulary would just be the first step in learning how to appeal to the masses as video games ought to. Viewing video games in terms of specific and diverse tastes will allow games to more accurately hit a target market, as well as broaden the number of people playing. All the girls that are in fact insulted by the notion of a Hannah Montana PSP will be catered to on their own terms. Maybe grandma and grandpa can play something aside from Wii Sports Resort.

Abandoning the terms “hardcore” and “casual” is not the only solution to the childish state that video games are in. It is but one of many, but if we can grow out of this ridiculous vocabulary than there is hope.

Then again, this is in a generation that console wars continue to be in full swing. Talk about a case of glass-half-full or half-empty.

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