This holiday season, the video game industry is looking to reignite sales as two game titans, Sony and Microsoft, launch the next generation of game consoles.
Their target demographic is the group of dedicated players known as hard-core gamers. Dive into the wide world of video game culture on YouTube and you'll hear that term being thrown about.
So what exactly is a hard-core gamer?
"Well, a hard-core video gamer would be somebody that is there at every single midnight release," said Kelly Kelley, known in competitive e-sports circles as MrsViolence. "Playing the game for at least five to six hours, beating it within maybe 48 hours of release. That would be a hard-core gamer right there."
Kelley qualifies. She makes a living as a gaming personality. You can find her online most nights, streaming matches of Call of Duty to her many fans.
That's right, gamers stay up at night and watch other people play video games, the way sports fans watch football. It's about the most hard-core thing a gamer can do.
In fact, more than 32 million people worldwide watched the world championships of the strategy game League of Legends this month, according to the makers of the game.
At the other end of the spectrum are the people playing cellphone games like Words With Friends.
"I have parents," said Kelley, "and they love those games, and they ask me all the time: Does this make me a gamer? Yes. Absolutely it makes them a casual gamer."
The Other Side
Casual gamers. That's the other big group that gets attention from game makers. Inside gaming culture, "hard core" and "casual" are tribal divisions.
For the hard core, gaming is the passion. Casual players enjoy games, yet they don't steep themselves in gamer culture rites like midnight openings. Still, as the gaming population grows, and gets older, exactly where those two tribes begin and end gets a little blurry.
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