Entroper said:
No. I believe he is responding to arguments from people saying that the Wii is abandoning hardcore gamers by showing that they aren't actually cranking out casual games left and right. |
thank you!
nintendo does seriously need to make more "new audience" games. wii sports, wii play and BBA are really basically it. and... i can't imagine the total development time for those game combined being more than 1 year (granted, conception for wii sports probably took a while). among upcoming releases, wii music (if it's coming at all) and wii fit are really the only ones designed completely with that group in mind.
the term "casual" is too broad. it's ambiguous too, as it describes more a tendency rather than preference. anybody can be "casual"; a gamer can play only 1 game the whole a year but the game is god of war, a game all would agree is "hardcore".
let's start using "new audience" or "expanded audience"--it's much closer to what we really mean when we say "casual". BBA would certainly be considered a "casual" game, but a BBA enthusiast could still spend 2 hours a day trying to perfect it, which makes him a "hardcore gamer". using the term "new audience" would eliminate this apparent paradox.
better example: sudoku on the DS would be considered "casual" games. but many sudoku players are totally "hardcore", spending hours and hours, finding all the puzzles they can find. indeed, any sudoku player dedicated enough to purchase a standalone sudoku product is pretty enthusiastic about this activity. again, it's just that this DS game is targeted towards this new/expanded audience, and it's not that this audience is "casual".
as time goes on, the "new" in "new audience" might yet again become ambiguous. we can worry about that when the day comes.
the Wii is an epidemic.
