QFT Thank you man. I am really starting to like Rockstar. I just hope EA doesn't buy them.

that kinda appeals to me. there are too many average casual games. i don't care what kind of game they are, but i just want it to be full of awesomeness!

NYANKS said: How is GTA not hardcore but Mario is? Seriously?

Mario has more brutal ways to kill things than any GTA game, ie. crushing enemies flat, burning them alive, having his pet dinosaur eating them alive and impaling them, to mention a few. Mario is usually politically motivated, staging violent coups against several regional governments that have either supplanted or driven out the more democratic rulers of said regions. 

It also deals with mature themes such as drug addiction and subsequent delusions, family relations, love, loss and sacrifice, humility, and the struggle of a normal blue-collar man in a fantastic environment - again, to mention only a few. Also, the main storyline of most Mario games is built around sisyphean tragedy, and the games often explore the intricate dynamics of the Mario family, especially the relationship of Mario and his younger sibling, Luigi.

 

Actually, I don't think anyone claimed Mario as a HC-only franchise. 

Since when is GTA IV groundbreaking haha. Or any game that is really still made in the hardcore area. All I see is updated versions of old games. If that's groundbreaking then we really have dropped our standards.

You guys are confusing casual games with mainstream games. "Mainstream" refers to games that reach a broad audience of people outside of the usual core of gamers. "Casual" has little to do with audience, although casual games happen to appeal mostly to the mainstream audience. What actually defines a casual game isn't its audience, but its accessibility and simplicity of function. A casual game has only a few game mechanics, while a non-casual game might have thousands. Minesweeper is a casual game. Wii Sports is casual. So is Solitaire, WarioWare, and just about any puzzle game in existence.

Even though it sells to a huge mainstream audience, GTA is not casual. In fact, it's pretty much at the extreme opposite end as far as number of gameplay mechanics goes (though it's still quite accessible). The same goes for Gran Turismo -- it sells millions, but it's not a casual game. (The main simulation mode, at least, certainly isn't. The arcade mode is to a certain extent). Or look at something like Puzzle Quest -- it takes a simple puzzle game, which would normally be casual, and turns it into something much more complex (hardcore) by adding a bunch of RPG elements. What categorizes each of these games isn't their sales/mainstream appeal, but their style of gameplay. For an example from the other side, an Xbox version of Checkers would still be casual even if it sold extremely poorly. It just wouldn't be mainstream.

Now, all of this is confused by the fact that the broad mainstream audience is sometimes called "casual gamers." But casual gamers don't only play casual games. The term just means that they play games as an occasional hobby rather than on a daily basis. Casual gamers are the ones who play Wii Sports at a friend's house, then go out and buy one themselves. After a couple months they pick up Zelda because their buddy told them to, but they still only turn it on every couple of weekends for an hour.

About the only other thing to keep in mind is that casual games aren't necessarily shallow. For instance, Checkers, which I mentioned above, is extremely casual but also allows for some very deep strategy that takes years to master. The difference is that casual games bury their depth beneath a few simple mechanisms, while hardcore games gain depth (though not exclusively) though adding more and more complicated mechanisms: for instance, an RPG with hundreds of different abilities, stats, and unique sidequests.

@Borkachev

You're mixing complexity with depth, or giving complexity too much weight in terms of depth.

Most of GTA's depth comes from its sandbox design, free roaming and the large playfield. Every GTA game is also quite accessible and simple - get a gun or a car and go on a rampage.

Which is not very unusual in mature markets is it? We are not in 1920 anymore when it comes to movies, we are not in 1870 anymore when it comes to novels, we are not in 1990 anymore when it comes to games. EVERYTHING has been done before in some way or another. But innovation is only one aspect of groundbreaking new work. Execution is another.
Games like Uncharted and GTA4 bring us very near to the interactive movie experience that has been aspired for a while.
Games like Assassin's and GTA give you previously unknown freedom, even if you think Assassin's (or GTA) are flawed the potential is awesome.


Besides what is so groundbreaking in the casual market? Seriously even the great games on the Wii are almost 100% updated versions of old games. (Brawl, Kart, Galaxy, Zelda, ...)
The only really innovative title I would say has transformed the industry this generation is Wii Tennis. But even in the previous existing but not so dominant party-game genre a slight Deja-vu effect seems to take place. There simply are not so many new innovative actions you can do with a motion controller. Games like Lawn games smell of desperation.

I think what he is trying to say is that there is still room for casual and traditional games despite the run away success of the Wii. Games like GTA4 won't be going away anytime soon.

As for Wii Fit creating it's own genre, I guess so, but it's not all that original to be honest. Just get some exercise DVDs and some paper to record your stats? Wasn't there some Xbox game that tried to do the whole exercise thing but failed or am I dreaming?

I wonder if Michael Bay would make statements like this if movies returned to their roots and focused on acting, dialogue, plot and quality direction rather than special effects ...

In many ways the unconventional games that are incorrectly labeled as "Casual" are a return to the roots of gaming, where the focus was on interesting gameplay and fun over graphics and "Mature" content.

That reminded me of that dude that said that the wii was a virus because his mommy plays with it..what was that dork's name?

=P

eh, another retard "designer". who cares what he says anyway?