That's still just a matter of perspective, which is why casual and hardcore are such subjective words. If you play guitar nine hours a week, that may seem like a lot to someone who doesn't, but I've known people that play for 3 hours a day, everyday. My wife runs at least 8 hours a week, but used to run 15-20. She considers herself a very casual runner now. It's all subjective.

Not saying I disagree with your point, but food for thought.

Hours people watch T.V. in a week.
Hours some people read books during a week.
Hours some people spend on sites like Facebook or twitter.

Those are quite different that training for a sport or playing a guitar I know, but they are different activities that take up large portions of a persons time, which WoW may occupy instead.

Except if she were playing guitar, all of that time would be spent playing-Raiding is very much a hurry up and wait type of thing, moreso in 25 mans. I don't know about anyone else, but there's far more downtime between trash and bosses than anything else.

Well, you may need to change your approach if you idle that much.

There was a decent guide back in 2009 from stratfu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fxOW3L890c

When I was in college I had a lot of friends in the music program. Except I barely ever saw them because they used to practice 6-8 hours a day, in addition to their coursework. Basically, if they weren't in class, they were in a practice room. To me, that was seriously hardcore, (if not insane), and I bet most of them would agree. To them, I'm sure the idea of 9 hours a week practicing would be extremely casual. Even for myself, I used to practice 2 hours a day, and I was just in a little community band.

However, for most people, 9 hours a week devoted to a hobby is probably pretty hardcore. It really is all a matter of perspective.

A player who logs in for an hour a day to run a heroic and do some dailies plays for seven hours a week. One who manages two raid finders on the weekend is easily now at the 9 hours a week stage and hasn't even walked into a normal/heroic mode raid.

Is that person hardcore? The term is nearly meaningless nowadays.

Even when I had just started with violin lessons and was only playing 2.5 hours a week, friends and co-workers asked about my professional ambitions. As the Carlin quote suggests, labels usually say more about the observer than the observed.

It's also harder to properly gauge somebody else's effort when it's greater than your own. A professional musician would look at how long I've been playing and how far I've come, and they might say my Violining tradeskill is maybe 225*. My friends and co-workers, however, see me doing something they don't think they could (their words, usually accompanied by some remark about finding the time), so it seems like a much bigger deal.

* If you're familiar with the ABRSM system, I'm working on Grade 4 of 8.

Mr. Rossi, you might want to go back and reread some of the postings because folks weren't talking about playing WoW 9 hours a week, they were talking about raiding 9 hours a week.

That's a big difference, especially considering that the vast majority of players still haven't seen the inside of a normal Cata raid.

BTW, if you're concerned about "progression", you're hardcore.

And yet the average American watches about 34 hours of TV per week... How does nine hours spent in game doing anything even compare to that? Gaming still has some stigma attached to it that if you sit down and do it for a prolonged period of time, you must be hardcore. It's basically just TV with interaction built in.

@SamLowry

I think you need to re-read what OP wrote (to which Mr Rossi was replying); nothing about raiding is mentioned.

Also, using an ambiguous term to define another ambiguous term is.... well.... ambiguous. Progression for you might be killing heroic spine while for me heroic Morchock and for someone else might be reg Morchock; which one of us is hardcore? Certainly not all 3.

@Sam

Not necessarily. Currently I raid 3.5 hours on 2 nights a week. That puts me at 7 hours. I log in for 1-2 hours over the weekend to do some fishing, maybe a couple quests for my Loremaster and a big of Digging. That's 9 hours.

I don't run 5-mans, I don't need anything. Not even Valor or Justice. I don't do dailies either. I don't PvP. I don't play alts. I just raid. I play a bit over 2 nights a week. I'm actually not playing much WoW at all. I spend more time in a week eating than playing WoW. I spend almost the same amount of time just driving to work.

9 hours a week really isn't that much time. It's dedicated, purposeful time, yes. It's not a LOT of time.

@Devin
Actually, I think that "being concerned about progression" as a decent definition of hardcore. I see the distinction as being one of attitude and commitment not of skill.

On Illidan US, you can buy your way through Heroic Dragon Soul. On my server, the post progressed guild is only 6/8 H. Which one is more "hardcore" to you: the person with the bought and paid for gear, but with 8/8 H or the ones who spend night after night wiping on bosses?

Devin, being able to come up with examples of what is or isn't "progression" is another definition of hardcore.

I've been in the LFR about a half-dozen times for each part and I have no idea who Morchock is. I'm so focused on pressing buttons and staying alive that all that "content" and "lore" stuff goes right past me.

So much for "seeing" the raid.