Are you a gamer? A qualitative study concerning the parameters used to categorize casual and hardcore gamers

The research objective of this paper is to examine the parameters used to categorize male and female gamers as casual and hardcore gamers and the relation between these parameters. Four focus groups were organized, with in total 21 participants. A persona based approach was used as outline for the focus group interviews. Furthermore, this paper looks into several aspects related to gaming like time and gender preferences, to put the categorization into a broader perspective. Average time spent on gaming was used to categorize the participating gamers. Time spent on game-related activities was found to be related to gender. A number of differences between the male and female participants in both the casual and hardcore focus groups were observed. We conclude that categorization of gamers as hardcore or casual is not as straightforward as often assumed in large scale quantitative studies. © 2011 IADIS.

ISBN:9789728939502

Jaar van publicatie:2011