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WoW Hardcoreness Determined Research Paper
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Post by
597426
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Post by
597426
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Post by
Neutronimity
Since displaying issues in browsers other than Internet Explorer occurred, I took the liberty of editing your posts.
I also recommend hosting your (assuming this is your work) analysis and
research findings
from an open external source, such as
docs.google.com
, as reading your rather long forum post can be quite hard (I apologize if this offended you). Many people would be more inclined to read your analysis if it had a proper formatting—a forum is just not the right place. :-)
Personally, I found the findings and analysis very interesting and I am looking forward to continue reading on a better formatted document (I am a little less than halfway through it)!
This thread is left open for potential discussion and more ideas around the topic. Have fun!
Post by
Lenience
I can't read that even if I wanted too.
Post by
586483
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Post by
Aratheras
I feel hardcore for actually reading all that in one go.
Talk about immersion and time spent.
Post by
91604
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Post by
Spiritus
Not sure I agree with this, I don't think the classic gamer stereotype could exist without video games. The classic recluse stereotype, yes. Certainly. But the classic gamer one requires video games, after all.
Table top war gaming has been around longer than the video game. In fact, you could argue this is where the "classic gamer" finds its origin over the more family board gaming experience that the CRTAD provided.
I think to clear up this confusion, the OP should include a solid definition of what a "gamer" is early in the article.
Actually, most things that are fuzzy in this article are loosely defined terms and assumptions, as Barmy pointed out. I, for one, would not associate "hardcore" with hours played. I would categorize "hardcore" in terms of goals and playstyle. The "hardcore" player wants to master the controls of a game and defeat its hardest challenges. The "casual" player finds enjoyment in many things, but none of them require the classic "gamer" attributes such as reaction time & spacial awareness. With these definitions, which I believe are more true to form, there are plenty of "casual" players in WoW that log on for 35+ hours a week, and there are "hardcore" players that log on for max 12 hours a week.
As an aside, the definition above allows for a "hardcore" & "casual" Tetris player.
@ETHANCOLE: I would reexamine your definitions of several terms, as "hardcore" & "casual" are community definitions, not academic.
Common and, arguably, most effective criteria are dedication, literacy, and goals.
This is not sourced and is the cornerstone of all your research. If you are to pin these attributes to "hardcoreness," it really requires each term to be not just defined, but to be proven as workable terms. WIthout sourcing these attributes, one better have a good reason for providing these criteria, like interviews with gamers or a separate survey that attempts to define "hardcoreness." This would be like me writing a paper as saying the most common and effective criteria for determining racism is piety, empathy, and sacrifice. The criteria I used for racism would be perfect if I wanted to pin Catholic nuns as racists. The criteria you chose makes it easy to pin WoW players as hardcore, as the MMO genre itself lends to longer play-times, goal oriented activities, and being somewhat literate in gaming culture.
Furthermore, you define "hardcoreness" as dedication, literacy, and goals, but you really only survey dedication , and use this as the basis of your results section. I think most people in the gaming community would not weight "time played" as the key factor of "hardcoreness" as I explained above.
I assume you created a survey for this, but did not attach the survey questions so they could be examined for bias. Normally not necessary, but you did not include a Cronbach's alpha, so we are not certain if your survey is legitimate. You also did not include a Pearson's correlation on your data sets.
I would refrain from using descriptive qualifiers in your results section, such as "measly." I would also refrain from using first person language; the personal reflection section is out of place.
There are other things, but I should stop before this also becomes a wall of text.
Post by
304214
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278980
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91604
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Post by
484945
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Post by
Spiritus
Right, and I agree that the description you quoted is a decent stab at defining "hardcoreness," even though there is no sourcing or original research to back this definition. One of the problems is, however, that the above passage is not what the author indicates as the primary motivator for the "hardcore player." In fact, the results focused mostly on playing time, not achievement based on competition or motivation, which paints all WoW players as hardcore since the MMO genre lends to longer play hours. This is, fundamentally, why the data set and results are flawed. Would we call baseball players more hardcore than football players because they play the game of baseball for more hours out of the year than football players play football?
EDIT: Also, we do not know how the sample was selected, which can have an enormous impact on data validity.
Post by
484945
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Post by
Spiritus
All good points actually except for one. the comparison between games (or in this case, electronic entertainment and sports) is comparing apples to oranges. There are people who have logged hundreds of hours and are very good because they spend 10 minutes a-day on iPhone games.
Point is, the time spent is a fine measuring stick, but the time spent is relative to other players
of the same game,
not another game. When you leave that measuring stick, you're right, the idea falls flat.
I would agree with your exception if the article did not explicitly set out to compare WoW gamers to gamers that play games other than WoW, which very much makes the baseball to football analogy valid, IMO .
If the article had compared "hardcore" and "casual" WoW players, then I believe my analogy to be false.
Post by
73830
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