Does gaming truly belong to the casuals now?

[Deleted member 56031]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...III_Tops_Lifetime_New_US_Sales_By_Revenue.php

The top 10 best selling games ever in the US of A by revenue

1. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock $830.9 million
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops $787.4 million
3. Wii Fit (w/ Balance Board) $736.6 million
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 $713.6 million
5. Rock Band $670.7 million
6. Wii Play (w/ Wii Remote)
7. Guitar Hero World Tour
8. Wii Fit Plus
9. Mario Kart Wii (w/ Wii Wheel)
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

5 activision games
4 nintendo games
3 call of duties
3 guitar heroes
2 fitness games
a remote pack in and mario kart

hell not even a gta or halo in sight complain all you want about activision's milking they know how to make a metric ****ton of money off of it

 

[Vegeta897]

hell not even a gta or halo in sight

Are those supposed to be non casual?

GTA was one of the first games I've heard of that appealed greatly to the whole jock and non-nerd demographic of new gamers. Halo was the exact same.

And who gives a **** about sales stats. How does that indicate who gaming 'belongs' to? I don't even know what that means.

 

[Viperidae]

hell not even a gta or halo in sight

Insert snide joke.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Are those supposed to be non casual?

nope, i'm just surprised they're not there tbh

 

[Barnz]

grim fandango didn't sell much back in the day, remember? it was always a casual market.

 

[morgs]

I'm sure we were all casuals once, we've just been doing it that long we've become almost snobby about it.

Maybe, what do I know.

 

[Viperidae]

Playing casual games doesn't make you a casual. Playing casual games and then thinking that you're playing the pinnacle of gaming and that there are no better games, does.

 

[Raziaar]

Who gives a shit. There's naturally going to be more casuals. I just hope developers don't continue to cater solely to their simpleminded game play desires.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Who gives a shit. There's naturally going to be more casuals. I just hope developers don't continue to cater solely to their simpleminded game play desires.

Well that's what I am worried about =/

Look at all the CoD clones or the simplification of DA2, ME2 and crysis 2 as examples. I'm getting worried personally

however at the same time i feel like i am also growing jaded aswell =s

 

[ríomhaire]

You mean the most popular things aren't necessarily the best? And that games that appeal to the broad market and not the core gamer culture sell more? I'm utterly shocked. It's not like Twilight was one of the top ten grossing films of last year or anything.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Hey, halflife2.net. How's it going, little buddy? Listen, sit down, we need a chat, yeah? It's just, you've been throwing around this "casual" word a lot lately and, well, the thing is... I don't think you ****ing know what it means. Look, your mother and I are just a little worried about how far up your own ass you'll have to climb in order to continue equating simplicity or popularity in otherwise non-casual games to some notion that your typical bro-fisting, mountain dew-chugging console gamer couldn't possible appreciate the complexity and nuance of your "CORE GAMING" experience, as though this distinction somehow makes them unworthy of the bar you yourselves have set for what constitutes a real gamer.

So, I don't know, maybe take a raincheck on the old core gamer superiority shtick for a while, 'kay pal? There's a good lad.

 

[Krynn72]

Hey, halflife2.net. How's it going, little buddy? Listen, sit down, we need a chat, yeah? It's just, you've been throwing around this "casual" word a lot lately and, well, the thing is... I don't think you ****ing know what it means. Look, your mother and I are just a little worried about how far up your own ass you'll have to climb in order to continue equating simplicity or popularity in otherwise non-casual games to some notion that your typical bro-fisting, mountain dew-chugging console gamer couldn't possible appreciate the complexity and nuance of your "CORE GAMING" experience, as though this distinction somehow makes them unworthy of the bar you yourselves have set for what constitutes a real gamer.

So, I don't know, maybe take a raincheck on the old core gamer superiority shtick for a while, 'kay pal? There's a good lad.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that the desires and level of appreciation of a game's features do not differ between different demographics within the video game consumer base? Cuz dats dum if u sayin dat.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I'm saying "casual" doesn't mean what it's often employed to mean, which seems to be as nothing more than a derogatory term targeted at certain sects of gaming we happen to disapprove of.

 

[Avoidist]

or the simplification of DA2, ME2 and crysis 2 as examples.

The simplification and refinement of rpg mechanics in mass effect made ME2 a better game. DA2 would have been a better game, had they possessed the time to polish it. Crysis 2 is receiving generally favourable reviews on all consoles, especially for the PC. Meanwhile, there are plenty of rpgs being released for the PC, not least from small and/or independent developers who are finally finding footholds in the market. And all this is during an economic climate equivalent to a 4 year long snowstorm.

Alarmist behaviour has always existed in all forms. If you are so appauled with the direction gaming is heading, and if you genuinely aren't looking forward to any of the games on the horizon, then go live in the past. In the meantime, I'll be playing DA2, Crysis 2, Portal 2, Brink, Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3, The Last Guardian, Rage, Skyrim and more. Let me know if you want to join in.

 

[StardogChampion]

Look at all the CoD clones or the simplification of DA2, ME2 and crysis 2 as examples. I'm getting worried personally

It is a major worry. The funny thing is that it all stems from Deus Ex 2. That was the start of the era we're in now. It's like the 70's film industry has ended, and you'll never see a movie like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest again.

Unfortunately, some people will buy any old shit which backs some devs blockbuster mentality. Crysis 6 will be on rails, and only require you to bang your chin against the controller to complete it.

 

[lord_raken]

I don't think the rise in "casual" gaming will see a decrease in "serious" gaming. There are two types of gamer (casual and serious). The casual gamer plays games for entertainment, they play games to spend idle time and as an activity with friends. The are not invested in games and therefor are put off by games that try to draw them into the story. This is OK.

There there are the serious gamers who treat the gaming medium like a serious reader treats books. We look for depth, artistry, intelligence in in games. Of course we will worry that causal elements will dilute the developers and series we love. How do you think the Ann Rice fans felt when Twilight came out? But the core remains strong.

As with any form of media, there will be piles of crap for every gem.

Now, serious gamers can enjoy "casual" games. Playing them is not a betrayal. We can't play games like Amnesia all the time, it too draining. I don't think the sky is falling, but we should push for more artistry.

There is a saying I heard a while ago: "The car saved the horse." When cars came out it spelled doom for the horse as the primary means of overland personal travel, but it shifted the horse from a utilitarian role to one where breeders created the finest bloodline until models of near perfection were achieved.

Eh, no metaphor is perfect but I think you get my point.

 

[Krynn72]

I'm saying "casual" doesn't mean what it's often employed to mean, which seems to be as nothing more than a derogatory term targeted at certain sects of gaming we happen to disapprove of.

So you're just upset that people don't like that a certain sect is determining the direction of the industry, and reflect this distaste by saying "casual" in a resentful tone? You've got a pretty thin skin for being an hl2.net regular.

 

[Barnz]

casual, consolized, console game. call whatever you want.
I don't want to tap the fecking keyboard buttons to save my ass on my PC.

 

[kineaesth]

I don't think the rise in "casual" gaming will see a decrease in "serious" gaming. There are two types of gamer (casual and serious). The casual gamer plays games for entertainment, they play games to spend idle time and as an activity with friends. The are not invested in games and therefor are put off by games that try to draw them into the story. This is OK.

There there are the serious gamers who treat the gaming medium like a serious reader treats books. We look for depth, artistry, intelligence in in games. Of course we will worry that causal elements will dilute the developers and series we love. How do you think the Ann Rice fans felt when Twilight came out? But the core remains strong.

As with any form of media, there will be piles of crap for every gem.

Now, serious gamers can enjoy "casual" games. Playing them is not a betrayal. We can't play games like Amnesia all the time, it too draining. I don't think the sky is falling, but we should push for more artistry.

This is utter nonsense, you're simplifying to the point of being absurd.

 

[Krynn72]

This is utter nonsense, you're simplifying to the point of being absurd.

The underlying point is valid though. There are still developers willing to make products that are not COD level blockbusters, and there always will be. This is the sole reason I still have interest in this form of entertainment.

 

[lord_raken]

This is utter nonsense, you're simplifying to the point of being absurd.

Then let me complicate it some more for ya.

You can play games for various reason. You can play to waste time (farmvile), you can play games as a social event (Halo multiplayer), and you can play for the story and experience (Amnesia). So you have, roughly three reason to play: Casual (farmvile), social (multiplayer), and serious.

Games geared towards these three reasons to play are tailored to those reasons. Casual games typically don't have much of a story, and don't ask the player to invest anything other than time. Social games are geared to create interaction between players which is normally competitive. Serious games are created to create an experience, immerse the player in the story and environment, and ask the player to invest emotion and time. This is the differences in terms of game narrative.

Causal games in terms of gameplay tend to be simple, social games once again foster interaction, and serious games tend to involve more complicated mechanics (this does not mean that a more complicated game is better, only that the mechanics tend to require more investment of mental effort.).

Difficult also plays a role in these three classes of games. Causal games tend to be easier. Social games depend on the skill of your opponents. Serious games require more skill to do well. Note: A good game should be easy to learn but tough to master.

There is some bleed effect. A casual game can be social, and many serious games have social aspects (multiplayer-modes).

Causal games are a growing part of the market because most everyone can play them and have fun without having to spend many hours honing ones skill. Social games are also popular because you can play with others in a competitive enrollment and that is fun. But serious games tend to be singleplayer and require time and effort on the part of the gamer. The serious gamer is more willing to invest the time and effort into a serious game because they value the experience offered by the game. However the serious Gamer is a relatively small portion of the people in the world and so more games are made for causal or social gamers than serious.

Because more people play social and casual games than serious, the industry makes more causal and social games than they do serious. Because I value serious games I view the game market as a mire filled with same'y and mediocre titles with a seam of gold under the murky waters. One has to hunt for that gold through the mire, but the larger the mire the more gold there is to be found. A larger industry will produce more poor games but will also produce more excellent games as well.

And there will ALWAYS be that small core of developers who are dedicated elevating video games as an art form. They are the ones who make the games worth playing. Frictional is one group that comes to mind.

Is that clear?

 

[kineaesth]

I might have given up at this point

So you have, roughly three reason to play: Casual (farmvile), social (multiplayer), and serious.

 

[Gargantou]

Playing casual games doesn't make you a casual. Playing casual games and then thinking that you're playing the pinnacle of gaming and that there are no better games, does.

I love you for saying this, I really do, because I've almost been feeling "shameful" for having been playing a lot of casual titles lately, like it makes me a lesser gamer.

Stupid, I know, but I know some real elitists that seem to think you are only a "core gamer" if you restrict yourself to only playing certain titles, and they've been starting to get to me since I've played less and less niche titles recently.

I'm not even sure how to define casual and non-casual these days, since I don't do facebook games or such.

Games I've spent playing recently that might be classified as casual: AITD reboot, RDR, Dead Space 2.

On the other hand though, I've also been playing a bit more 4X titles recently, not sure if Sword of the Stars can be called casual but personally I don't think so.

 

[Bad^Hat]

So you're just upset that people don't like that a certain sect is determining the direction of the industry, and reflect this distaste by saying "casual" in a resentful tone? You've got a pretty thin skin for being an hl2.net regular.

But... that's not what it means.

Look, call it whatever the christ you want, I'm just saying that it's kind of dumb to use "casual" as a catch-all for a certain type of game when that type is so ill defined. It really seems like we're just lumping everything that's somewhat easy to pick up and has mass appeal into the same description, and that seems kind of pointless. Is that really what we want to see less of? I don't think it has anything to do with simplicity versus complexity, it's just become "well I don't like this but all these other people do so **** them."

Ignoring all that, I do agree with the sentiment that those demographics are often catered to much more than core gamers (**** that term too, actually), but it's not hard to see why. That shit sells, and with so many studios closing down year after year, publishers are going to want to play it as safe as they can. Innovation has been pushed more and more into the indie circuit because they can afford to make those risks. When triple A games are costing tens of millions of dollars to produce, they can't really afford to fund projects with niche appeal, as a business.

Which isn't to say that playing it safe is any excuse for the questionable quality of some of these games/franchises, but that's another issue.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Alarmist behaviour has always existed in all forms. If you are so appauled with the direction gaming is heading, and if you genuinely aren't looking forward to any of the games on the horizon, then go live in the past. In the meantime, I'll be playing DA2, Crysis 2, Portal 2, Brink, Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3, The Last Guardian, Rage, Skyrim and more. Let me know if you want to join in.

Now who's being sensationalist? -_-

there are loads of games coming out i want to play, probably more than i am able to handle with my current backlog.
I can't wait for games like brink, LA Noire, mass effect 3, bf3 uncharted 3 and more...

Games I've spent playing recently that might be classified as casual: AITD reboot, RDR, Dead Space 2.

On the other hand though, I've also been playing a bit more 4X titles recently, not sure if Sword of the Stars can be called casual but personally I don't think so.

i wouldnt say any of those are casual, especially not sword of the stars

The simplification and refinement of rpg mechanics in mass effect made ME2 a better game. DA2 would have been a better game, had they possessed the time to polish it. Crysis 2 is receiving generally favourable reviews on all consoles, especially for the PC.

Altho i do prefer ME2 over ME1 there is a semi constant backlash against it for the simplification of its mechanics compared to the first. The same could be said for DA2 even if there was more polish, many would probably argue the same thing. Crysis 2? Look at pc gamers on forums not reviews, many people aint happy there.

Ignoring all that, I do agree with the sentiment that those demographics are often catered to much more than core gamers (**** that term too, actually), but it's not hard to see why. That shit sells, and with so many studios closing down year after year, publishers are going to want to play it as safe as they can. Innovation has been pushed more and more into the indie circuit because they can afford to make those risks. When triple A games are costing tens of millions of dollars to produce, they can't really afford to fund projects with niche appeal, as a business.

I think this was kind of the crux of my topic to begin with and I agree with you.

 

[Dekstar]

I think there's room for everybody to have a broad range of games, from 'casual' to 'hardcore', and hell I'd even encourage it. I've actually had less time to become full engrossed by a complex story like Amnesia recently, so I've been spending my time playing pretty great 'casual' games like Nimbus and Puzzle Quest. They're much easier to just get into and mess about with for 5 minutes or really however long you want to.

On the subject of Mass Effect 2; I thought story-wise it was awesome. I had gripes with the original inventory layout and the sheer amount of weapons you amassed and had to sell. I made it a bit better by editing the files to give myself more inventory space, but in general it was a pretty broken system. The thing I had problems with in Mass Effect 2 was just that it had one button to do everything (run, cover, use/action). Without an option to separate these to what I was used to, I found myself having to run up to items, then let go of the key (and movement keys) until Shepard stopped running, then pick up the item. It just seemed a bit confused key-wise. As a side-note, I also found it odd that throughout the course of the game, Shep rarely found extra weapons. I'm looking at you, heavy pistol!

So my problem isn't with 'casualisation' in terms of gameplay, it's a problem with consolisation. Games that have their graphics options stripped because they were built primarily on consoles (Crysis 2) annoy me, moreso when these graphics options are still tweakable, but require delving into directories and random files. It just screams that the developers aren't trying. Similarly, I have yet to complete Dead Space purely because the developers included mouse acceleration when Isaac is aiming; the one time you don't want that feature. It's essentially a bug (caused by laziness) that the developers fixed in Dead Space 2, but not the first.

So that's where my problem lies. Developers trying to get their game on multiple platforms shirk their porting duties, and the game ends up broken. Usually on PC.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

eviscerate the proletariat

 

[jimbo118]

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/first-darkness-ii-developer-diary

/relevant.

 

[Sheepo]

I really find the terms 'casual' and 'hardcore' pretty annoying, because ultimately it's just terminology that any one person can use to look down their nose at others without making any real point at all. It's pretty unsettling to consider that the people who probably consider themselves the most hardcore probably chiefly play games with duty in the title, and that virtually every Wii game is looked down upon as casual and made for children. People will make games that don't cater to your taste, deal with it. Have you played Peggle? It's fun. Have you played Mario Galaxy 2? It's fun on steroids. If there could be some mutually agreed upon definition of this stuff, fine, but I rarely encounter people talking about horrible games when they say casual. They're generally just safe, accessible, and simple (or just disliked by the person without any reason given). This shit is just garbage generalizations made so people can feel superior to others. They're like hipsters in reverse.

 

[Krynn72]

The fact that people use the terms as derogatory labels doesn't mean they represent nonsense ideas. There are differences between casuals, core, and hardcore gamers. I think people like you just reject the notion that people can be labeled. They can be though, and the label of casual and hardcore gamer signifies differences in interests and expectations, just as labels of "sports car driver" and "luxury car driver" do. It is those differences that brought about the terminology and labeling. The luxury car driver might scoff at the lack of a dashboard mounted rear-view parking camera monitor in a sports car. Thats because the luxury car driver expects something like that from their cars, while sports car drivers don't. You can't just say its a bullshit generalization just because you don't like that people make fun of others for having different expectations of the product.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Right, but labels are only as useful as their descriptive power. What constitutes casual to you would be seen as core or hardcore to others. The terms are so caught up in this idea of one audience as "true" gamers that it's only meaningful in a purely relative sense. Case in point - people throwing titles like CoD, Halo and GTA into the casual heap. What distinguishes these games from being core in appeal, and where is the line drawn between the two audiences? I'd argue that your view of the latter point depends largely on your own interests, which makes it exceedingly difficult to pin down any one definition of the term, and again makes it more useful as a derogatory remark than as an actual, descriptive label.

 

[morgs]

I would use the term casual only to describe someone who games like an hour a week, a casual gamer who doesn't take too much interest in it as a hobby.