Erik Aston said:

Can we stop all this nonsense about GTA being "one of the most casual games"?

Just because the game is very popular does not mean it is casual.

Just becaue the game is perceived to be played by people who may not play many other games does not mean it is casual. The most "hardcore" gamers probably actually play very few games since they may stick to a few genres and just the top few games in those genres.

You start with a good hook. You continue with three true statements, one of them arguable.

I don't give those arguments enough credit to discuss them at length, but worth discussing is the observation that players can play GTA in the same fashion as casual games; the numberless "I don't play the missions" players who just run around bringing mayhem to the city.

While GTAIII (and the subsequent GTA games) appear to be played in a similar style to Brain Age or Wii Fit, with the length of the session varying and being unimportant for enjoyment, and with no "progress" being made, GTA actually follows in a long tradition of sandbox/adventure games dating back decades.

Next you present a statement which you intend to support. From paragraphs two and three you say GTA (the series, I'll presume) follows the sandbox/adventure style of gameplay. Fair enough, but there is no point of argument here and you do not state how this keeps GTA from appealing to casuals or being targeted primarily at the core demographic. I'm still waiting for your argument so I'll read on.

Going all the way back to Adventure on the Atari 2600, there have been games based around exploration and player-driven storytelling. It isn't unlike children playing with dolls or action figures and making up their own storylines. Adventure obviously feels restrictive today, but at the time it was revolutionary for the way the player is dropped into a world which they are supposed to discover on their own terms.

This paragraph elaborates on the nature of sandbox/adventure games.

Your next two paragraphs about Zelda contain many fundamentally flawed arguments and lend no support to your statement about GTA being a sandbox/adventure game.

Metroid and Zelda are among the most important and well-known games to follow in this line. These games followed a set narrative, but the player got to control how it unfolded. The Zelda games are illustrative because there is a general disagreement over the importance of the storyline in them. On their own the storylines are pretty poor, yet they are cited as part of what makes Zelda so great. In fact, the story feels so amazing and epic because the player is put in charge of telling it. Even though the game must be played in a certain order, the openness of the world lets the player explore, and it starts to feel like everything they do is part of "the legend" whether a menial side task they creatively addressed on their own, or a cutscene to drive the little bits of actual plot.

Eventually the player learns the rules of the game, and in turn sees the limits of what they can do, and they discover that they aren't actually telling the story, and the game is no longer fun. This is why older gamers are disappointed with newer Zelda games and say it feels like they are just completing a sequence of tasks, yet they still get big sales from people less familiar with the rules of Zelda (the items, puzzles, etc).

Metroid and Zelda games follow a set narrative. Yes they do. The player controls how the narrative unfolds. Not really, and you contradict this in a few sentences with "Even though the game must be played in a certain order." The gameplay in these games offer the player the opportunity to expose the game's storyline and as a result unlock new areas to continue to expose the story. The game contains and tells the story, the players actions of exploring the world expose the story to the player. "'The legend'" can be replaced with "the story." Everything the player does is part of the story, because they are playing the game to explore the gameworld and expose the story waiting to be revealed. Your statement on gamers being dissapointed with Zelda games is irrelevant as it doesn't support your main statement. The player should not have been under the impression they were telling the story, this is not a solid argument. Zelda and metroid sell to core and casual demographics, are you pegging them as casual targeted games?

GTAIII was so groundbreaking because it opened this world up even further, and made it so much bigger, and filled it with so many other living things. The multitude of people and cars moving around the giant city creates an extremely large and complex set of rules for the player to discover. Rockstar was able to make a world complex enough that the set narrative could be moved completely to the back burner.

These are accurate points. GTA3 was a huge sandbox/adventure game. Not that it is only that, but it certainly is partly that.

And because of this, you get the "I don't play the missions" folks. As I said, they may appear to be playing the same way as someone playing Brain Age. But actually, they are telling their own stories everytime they play, and learning a little bit about the rules of the game world. While the Brain Age folks are more motivated by "high scores." They learn the rules of the game right away, and then repeat the same tasks every day to improve at them. The game stops being fun when their rate of improval slows down. This type of game transfers well to social play, with games like Guitar Hero and the mini-games in Wii Fit. While people take turns theoretically to show off how high they can score, as long as each person feels like they are improving at a good rate, everyone has fun regardless of differences in skill. You're driven to buy the game after playing it for just a short while and seeing much of the content because of the addictiveness of getting better, just like old high score based arcade games drive you to keep putting quarters in.

By "playing the same way as someone playing Brain Age" I can only assume you mean playing in half hour chunks. A large percentage of all games released can be played like this. The rest of it contains accurate observations.

I'm not saying that this difference in playstyle is the difference between "casual" and "core." Not in the least. But all the other attributes of GTA--the content and context, the controls, the intended audience--are also very traditional and "core." The playstyle is the only thing which appears to be "casual," but it actually follows directly in the tradition of core games like Zelda. And in that light, I see no defense for the idea that GTA is "casual."

You end your argument here. But unfortunately you also make your argument here. Content and Context of GTA series: life of crime in a big city, please explain how this is traditional or core. The controls certainly are traditional, but this means that they are well known and appeal to core and casual video game players alike.

I don't know how big the "core" demographic is. In fact I'm not sure what the core demographic is. I think you're trying to tell me Rockstar intended their game to be sold only, or even primarily to "core" gamers. Bunkum I say, the GTA3 series sold over 41 million copies. Their intention was to make a life of crime sandbox/adventure game and sell it to as many gamers as they could. Their intended audience: anyone they could find to buy it.

And that's significant because there's been a longstanding argument that Wii is following in the footsteps of PS2 by getting the casual player, with GTA being example #1. Equating GTA and Wii Sports as both being "casual" is a quick way to explain Wii's success. But if you look deeper at the playstyles that Wii is appealing to versus PS2, PS2 was building on things that had been "core" since PS1 or before, while Wii is taking other playstyles which had previously been less popular but applying them to a context that appeals to different audiences.

I have not seen anyone equating GTA to Wii Sports, and then use it to justify the Wii's success. I don't recommend anyone do it because it doesn't make sense. Beyond their both appealing to the casual and core demographics, they are entirely different games.

The PS2 offered the same kind of gaming that had been offered in the previous generation, but with better graphics at a higher volume and with better quality. This appealed to both casual and core demographics.

The Wii is offering a new control scheme. And to many a unique and new control scheme. Yes it was less popular because nobody offered it outside of arcardes.

This brings us to the crux of the problem. What is the "core" demographic? I'll define it as a group of individuals who play a lot of video games, significantly more than 80-odd% of the people they know. These individuals are also willing to spend more money on video games and thus offer a good starting base for video game sales. Let's come to a consensus because it's causing a lot of problems.

Well. I hope someone actually reads that.

In the end, you offered no argument at all. Your essay was a directionless rant. I'll give you one thing though... The Bunkum Award!