[casual_games] RE: The Definition of Casual Games

[Joel Downs]

I myself was a hardcore gamer in a former life, but now I'm in the
business of peddling casual games.  Which, I think, is great.  I'm happy
to bring the world of interactive, digital games to a crowd that hasn't
been well-catered to by the games industry historically.  

Which brings me to my point: I look at casual games from more of a
marketing point of view, i.e. who plays these games?  I consider a
casual game to be a game that can be appreciated by a mass market
audience.  One day, this may be the likes of Half-Life 2, but at this
point in time casual games are mostly puzzles, simple action games, and
mind-teasers/trivia, which isn't too surprising considering the off-line
(non-sports) games that people play are usually puzzles, simple hand-eye
coordination games, and mind-teasers/trivia.  People love their
crosswords, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Taboo, Jenga, darts,
pool, spades, hearts, and more recently sudoku - simple games that
anyone can appreciate.

Also, "mass market" depends entirely on your market.  In Korea, the
criteria for a casual game of time spent playing, hardware requirements,
and development cost would all be different than in the US.  A
completely different set of games appeal to a mass market audience there
than in the US, but I would argue those should still be considered
casual.  So, we end up with American casual games and Korean casual
games and Japanese casual games...which, in light of the cultural
differences, are necessarily different.

I realize that defining them as "games that appeal to a mass market
audience" is subjective, and there will always be games on the
borderline, but how useful is it to come up with a hard line that casual
games cannot cross?  There will always be games on the border just like
hip-hop and rap blur each other's lines.  As long as we're entertaining
the masses, or at least our niche, isn't that what's important?  ;)

My two cents,
Joel


http://www.grab.com