[casual_games] The Definition of Casual Games

[Joe Pantuso]

Coray Seifer said "casual games exist upon a continuum" which is dead on.
Perhaps we should look at things that can push a game out of the sweet spot
for being clearly casual;

 

For the player:

- Complexity of play

- Length of play per session

- 'Adult' or unpleasant subject matter

- Financial commitment 

 

For the developer:

- Financial commitment

- Length of development time

- Cost of deployment

- Speed of deployment

 

As each of these increases the game is likely further from a casual game.  I
suspect any one of these can be significantly elevated without clearly
pulling a game out of the 'casual' realm.

 

Again I'd have to say there are 'casual players' as the major audience for a
casual game.  We shouldn't mistake casual play (i.e. picking up
Counterstrike for 20 minutes after work) as having anything to do with a
casual game.  A person who can do that is so clearly a hardcore gamer, even
if they don't actually have much time to spend playing.

 

With any product there will be a percentage of people who obsess over it
(hardcore casual, you bet).  Some people collect beanie babies, some people
want to dominate at rolling a ball around.  There's always that fringe.  

 

I think it is also worth pointing out that if you are a member of this list,
you are almost certainly by definition NOT a casual game person.

 

This is an interesting discussion but I seriously doubt we can arrive at a
unified definition of 'casual game'.  There will always be edge cases that
some people select and others do not.  

 

Maybe we need another thread defining what a 'casual player' is.  That
should be interesting.

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/casual_games/attachments/20050714/90e34497/attachment.html