| IsawYoshi said: I'm not sure if I'm the only one feeling this, but it seems like there are two types of casual games.
I see all the time that people claim that the casual market is gone on consoles, and that they all have moved on to smartphones and tablets. While I think it is true to some extent, I still think there is a market there. And that is were my two types come in.
I sit on a bus to school every day (that school is open, of cource) so I see people play games on smartphones every day. Not to mention that 2/3 of the people at our school use their break to sit inside playing temple run while it's nice and warm weather outside (in Norway nice and warm are words we use rarely). Now, what I notice is that these games are timekillers. I understand that pretty much every game is a time killer, but not in the same way. When people play these smartphone games they simply just play them. When they put down their phone, there seems to be no change in attitude, they don't seem happy, neither angry on their game. It seems like it has no other effect than to kill time.
Now, when I compare this to when I have my friends over and play Nintendo Land, Mario Kart, Wii Sports resort or even wii fit, they all are happy and scream and shout and really get themselves into the games. It might still be a time killer, but it leaves an impression. And two of my friends now own a wii u, and three of them are planning to get one when the next mario kart comes out.
My point is that even though Angry Birds and Wii Sports Resort are both casual games, there still is a difference in them, and I think that difference is enough to have a rather large casual audience on consoles, even though there are people that have reached the point of no return. What do you think? |
The thing is that people who play Mario Kart on a daily basis or something are not casuals because Mario Kart is not really a casual game it is as casual as GranTurismo or Forza are. Even Angry Birds is not really a casual game (They are in the original sense of "CASUAL" since you can always stop after 1 race or stage because the gameplay works like that and since there is no real story you can always pause and resume 1 week later or so)
MarioKart and AngryBirds are accessible games. Angry Birds space for example is harder than COD in singleplayer because people fail more in AB than thesy do in COD.
And just because COD has multiplayer where I can find people that can kick my butt (which is actually not part of the game itself) and Angry Birds or Wii Sports have not, doesn't make COD hardcore and the others casual. COD multiplayer is theoretically casual since you can win a round quite fast and then you can stop playing.
I can also find people that can kick my butt in Wii Sports tennis I just have to look for them compared to COD which has online mode etc.
The real difference is accessible and non-accessible that might scare away new gamers with somewhat complicated rules and/or gamplay mechanics.
Mario and Mario Kart are accessible because the rules are simple. But having different physics and handling for every single car in some racing games or taking cover, leaning, reloading, jumping, crouching the different classes or the different way all the the guns handle in shooters are more complicated than running and jumping in Mario.
So hardcore/core and casual does not make alot of sense. Stuff like tetris is casual and hardcore at the same time because you can play it for just 1 minute and it can still be hard and I can theoretically find people that kick my ass.
It is more about being mainstream like COD/Uncharted or niche like most jRPGs and being accessible like Mario and Angry Birds or not like Starcraft etc.
