A great deal of effort has gone into delineating gamers into two groups, generally the casual gamers and the hardcore gamers. I’m not going to get into this divide in great detail in large part because I think it’s a drastic oversimplification. At present, I’ve come up with a framework that actually divides gamers into a hierarchy of four different categories. I say hierarchy not because any of these types are better or worse than others, but rather because they exist on a sliding scale of priority, one end representing purely for idle enjoyment and the other end the absence thereof. Many of the ideas I’m about to get into are derived from C. Thi Nguyen’s book Games: Agency As Art, which I recommend you read if you’re at all curious about some of these concepts or games in general. Without further ado, let’s get into it, starting from the bottom.

The Casual Gamer

I’m not sure that you can define someone as casual based on the usual metric of how much time or money they put into games. Some casual gamers hardly ever play games and some play them fairly often. What makes them casual is that they’re purely playing for fun. Any greater sense of accomplishment isn’t of much relevance to them. That’s not a bad thing; by most accounts, it’s these kind of gamers that are the bedrock of the industry. But it should go without saying that any mechanical or aesthetic nuances are probably going to go right through them, in the same way casual moviegoers aren’t thinking much about cinematography or editing.

The Striving Gamer

In this context, striving doesn’t mean they’re working their way up the ladder. Many striving gamers are perfectly comfortable where they are. Striving here, as explained in much greater detail by C. Thi Nguyen, refers to the act of playing for the sake of struggle. That doesn’t mean always taking on the hardest challenge possible; something that’s a struggle for one person may be trivial for another and vice versa. It also doesn’t mean that the struggle is the only thing they care about, but it does mean that they place importance on it. Of course, one still gets to choose what games they volunteer to struggle in, and that’s going to be based on factors outside of challenge just as much as it is by the nature of the challenge. Lastly, the experience of the struggle is more important than actually winning to the striving gamer. Without a sincere attempt to win, there isn’t any striving happening, but the outcome is relatively insignificant.

The Competitive Gamer

Unlike the striving gamer, the competitive gamer actually does care about winning. That’s their primary goal. It’s winning for the sake of winning, as there usually isn’t any benefit to it outside of the game, but regardless, the shift in focus means they probably don’t care as much about other aspects of the game. Competition can come in a lot of forms, like online versus or in-person tournaments, but it can also include score- and time-based single-player games. How much they care about the non-competitive aspects of the game probably plays a part in which games they chose to compete in, but to a lesser degree than the striving gamer.

The Professional Gamer

Competitive and professional are often thought to be synonymous in gaming, but I disagree. Whereas the competitive gamer cares about winning for the sake of winning, the professional cares about winning for the monetary benefit that comes with it, whether that’s prize money for winning directly or sponsorship money for repeated high-profile performances. This is a job for them, and that means they don’t even get a lot of choice in what they play. Maybe they would rather play a less popular game that they like more, but if they can’t make a living doing it, they aren’t going to invest much time in it. Their goals are very different from all three prior tiers.

Why does this matter?

If you’ve been following me at all, you’ve probably noticed that I like fighting games. In the fighting game community, there’s often a distinction made between casual and competitive players, but I don’t think that’s the whole story for the reasons outlined above. This is important for a few reasons, but one of the biggest ones relates to the current state of the competitive scene. Evolution Championship Series, the largest fighting game tournament in the world, is now half-owned by Saudi Arabian economic diversification/propaganda vehicle Qiddiya. This development has caused a lot of disillusionment among players. Understandably so; a lot of the community’s history is tied up in this event. But if it’s going to become esportswashing for a regime of butchers, it’s time to wash our hands of it. And it’s more important than ever to remember that in the hierarchy I described above, professional players are the tip of the iceberg, and we shouldn’t let the community be defined by big money. Some people are wary of this outlook lest they be called casual, but there’s a whole lot of daylight between the casual players and the professionals. And in rejecting the vice grip of major corporate sponsors, we should also try to remember that we play these games because we like them, and that’s something that can’t be taken away.