Recently in the “Is handheld gaming doomed?” thread, while listing the best selling games for DS and 3DS. I’ve run into many diverging opinions about what constitutes a casual game. The games in question were:
New Super Mario Bros., Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, Pokémon Diamond / Pearl for DS
Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Nintendogs + cats, Monster Hunter 3G for 3DS
At first, I had flagged only Nintendogs and Brain Age as casual games but from Andrespetmonkey’s perspective he believed that Mario Kart was definitely casual and also mentioned that Super Mario 3D Land “isn’t exactly hardcore”. This exchange prompted GhaudePhaede010 to state that both Mario Kart and Smash Bros. weren’t hardcore because they appeal to women and non-gamers. Finally, outlawauron dropped a bomb by declaring he considers all above games casual (even Monster Hunter to some degree).
This whole exchange left me confused, I was aware not everyone had to same definition of casual but I never imagined people could push it this far.
So I’m asking guys, what is YOUR definition of a casual game? Does it include only party games, mini-game collections, educational and fitness games? Or does any game with accessible gameplay qualifies as casual? Does being family friendly tip the scale? Is it the number of hours required to finish it that determine its status? Are you required to have guns in a game to make it hardcore? Enlighten me VGChartz!
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