Casual vs. Hardcore in "The Guild"

In her article, Erica Kubik discusses the dichotomy of hardcore vs. casual gamers and how that distinction often happens along gender and racial lines. She describes the “normalized” hardcore gamer is “usually a male, between 14-34 years of age who has gaming in their top priority list” (138). This is definitely something I’ve experienced, if not specifically in the gaming world, but a similar phenomenon happens in online geek culture. The trope of “Fake Geek Girl” or “Fake Gamer Girl” (that, thankfully, is generally shot down as soon as it appears) implicates women wearing geeky merchandise, playing games, and generally participating in geek culture, saying “she’s faking it for attention” and “that’s probably her boyfriend’s shirt/console.” This inability to recognize women as hardcore consumers demonstrates the gender divide inherent in casual vs. hardcore media consumption. 

            The Kubik article focuses on the breakdown of casual vs. hardcore gamer along gender lines, and the show doesn’t really conform to those gender lines.

In The Guild, the split between the hardcore and the casual gamer exists, but that split doesn’t necessarily occur between any two demographics. The members of the Knights of Good are relatively diverse: three men, three women, including two people of color, one of each gender. There are also people from several walks of life represented: there is a young mother, a middle aged man, and a high schooler, two people in college (one living at home and one living on campus), and one recent college graduate.

            Each of these six people from relatively diverse backgrounds, but are all incredibly immersed in the world of the game and devote most, if not all of their time to the game—very “hardcore”, if you ignore the race and gender dynamics of the definition. Each of the characters proves their hardcore-ness with their experience, high-level characters, and years devoted to The Game, but no one is excluded or even treated that differently based on gender or race. At least, not within the game.

            Outside of the game, Cyd/Codex can’t seem to navigate her identity as a woman and a gamer. When she meets Wade, a.k.a. Hot Stunt Guy, she stumbles over her words trying to play down the fact that she’s a gamer, because if she devoted that much of her life to it, “That would be weird.” Wade describes gamers as fat white guys who sit around, even though his roommate is an attractive woman who is a gamer. So Codex she tones down the gamer side of herself (which, arguably, is the majority) in order to attract a guy, because her identities of gamer and girl cannot exist simultaneously.

            However, one could argue that The Game the guild members play isn’t very hardcore—despite devoting hours upon hours to game play, the game doesn’t necessarily have the “trappings of masculinity” (Kubik) that could be required for a game to actually be hardcore, like the first person shooter games Riley describes she’s into. Riley, describing herself as “an FPS girl” clearly looks down on Cyd for not being into the harder core games, instead being into role playing games. This split does not happen along gender lines, contrary to Kubik’s argument.