[casual_games] Survey to compare Casual and Hardcore Gamers

[Ulrich Tausend]

Hi!
I am doing research about differences between Casual and Hardcore Gamers for
my major thesis in sociology.
While we know that the demographics between the two differ (hc: mostly
male/junger, cg: mostly female/older) it is not as clear why this is the
case.

Therefore I plan to do a online survey on one typical casual games site and
one typical hardcore games site.
To get clear results I try to find two websites which are as similar as
possible except for their casual and hardcore audience and ask them about
user motives, time investment, experience with computers...

I think for the casual side it makes sense to focus on the "try before you
buy casual games" on the pc (and leave the consoles and Massive Online Games
out of the way).
This leads me, on the hardcore side, to PC Hardcore gamers, for example Ego
Shooters, Real Time Strategy or non massive RPGs.

On the other hand distribution models and often the level of violence differ
between these two markets.
Both are aspects which could have an big influence on the possible customers
(e.G. many women being turned off by violence). But both are not central
differences between casual and hardcore at least if you go with this
casualgames whitepaper definition:

Casual / Hardcore games involve less/more "complicated game controls and
overall complexity in terms of game play or investment required to get
through the game" (or enjoy the game session as I would formulate it).

What do you think would be good example sites to highlight aspects of the
casual - hardcore games difference?

How about "try before you buy HARCORE games" which would lead us to indie
games - right?

I have written a paper on Casual games and Gender, feel free to download it
from my blog: http://www.casual-game-studies.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

Ulrich Tausend

ulrich at tausend.name
www.tausend.name
www.casual-game-studies.blogspot.com
skype: uli1000

mobile: +49(0)179-2951979
home: +49-89-12000421
Heßstraße 90
80797 München
Germany
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