[casual_games] What is a Casual Game?

[Eric Fortier]

Hi all,

I've been reading the Wiki pages, the Casual game white paper and other
resources, and they all seem to be pretty vague on what exactly makes a game
casual versus core or hardcore.

For example, on one site I read that a casual game is a game people can play
for short period of time. Okay, I can do that with Doom 3 or Neverwinter
Night, but these are hardly casual games.

Simplistic gameplay also comes up when talking about casual games. I find
that playing an adventure game like Fahrenheit is a lot less involved in
term of gameplay mechanics than Darwinia (for me at least), but Fahrenheit
is hardly a casual game.

As for the file size, I think we can all agree that a casual game shouldn't
require two days of download on a high speed connection.

So, what do you guys consider a casual game and why?

Thanks,

--Eric