[casual_games] Origin of the term "casual games"

[Jesper Juul / Soup Games]

At 28-02-2007 18:01, you wrote:

> > On 2/27/07, *Wade Tinney* <wade at largeanimal.com

> > p.s. If someone from Google is on this list, this might be a good

> > project to spend your abundant free time on. C reate a tool that would

> > allow someone to find the first time a particular word/phrase was

> > cataloged by Google. I would totally use it right now.


There is an imperfect method of finding first use via google groups 
(USENET archives).

 From that it looks the phrase "casual game" or "casual games" was 
first used in 1990 (concerning KLAX):
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video/browse_frm/thread/8d9d0c7265f8aafc/95e7e82fcc263551?lnk=st&q=%22casual+game%22&rnum=7#95e7e82fcc263551

But after that, it seems to become common in Bridge and board games - 
not to describe a game design, but to describe casual "game players" 
or playing a "casual game" of bridge:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.bridge/browse_frm/thread/6cd8215d20f2a344/020e8d8b25ee261b?lnk=st&q=%22casual+games%22&rnum=7#020e8d8b25ee261b

Looking through rec.games.video.* - the first description of a video 
game as being a "casual game" is 1998 ("Wave Race")
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.nintendo/browse_frm/thread/eb7bc8db260f7236/eb93b63882bcba19?lnk=st&q=%22casual+game%22+group%3Arec.games.video.*&rnum=31#eb93b63882bcba19


We can still credit someone with applying the term to what we know 
call "casual games", of course.


-Jesper Juul
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