At the end of the day, "casual" games are typically low quality affairs that take scarce resources away from other games that are either made or could be made. Therefore gamers who desire quality lose out from "casual" games.

You're not going to convince gamers that casual games are a good thing, primarily because whilst they are involved in the industry as consumers they have no underlying connection to it, they don't benefit from the success of casual games because they don't have a financial stake in the companies making them.

Pretty simple really.

some people only like certain types of games. some people will change and broaden their gaming choices. but a lot of the "casuals" went to the wii because it wasnt the "typical" console gaming. they didnt want typical console gaming and most of them wont get into them. you will have some of the younger ones and few of the older ones that get into more advanced gaming.

they would have no reason to do so either. there are plenty of the "casual" games to for them to play. i am more concerned that the wii might turn these people off of console gaming with the amount of garbage being produced.

@Picko

The simpler a viewpoint is, the less accurate it tends to be. You are viewing "casual games" solely in terms of the values of "non-casual games". That is to say, games which fit the values of the "old" market. The "new" market values are different, and thus foreign and unknown/unimportant to most of those who follow the values of the "old" market. To a disciple of the "old" values, the "new" market games look to be horrible since they don't fit into their idea of what a game is "supposed" to be.

While there are games which do fit your general description, that description falls short in accounting for titles such as Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, and so forth. These games are not lacking in "quality", save when looked at only by the primary "old" values: graphics, gameplay depth, and complexity. In these values, they are nowhere near ideal. But in the primary "new" values of intuitiveness, gameplay quality, and pick-up-and-play, they excel.

@Mr Bubbles

All consoles have shovelware, if a person new to gaming buys a wii, 360 or a PS3, they have the potential to buy a game that they may not like, or a game that just blows. The Wii isnt the only console with crap games. If you see 5 movies but only like 3 of them, does that mean you stop going to see movies? 

Booyah,

there will be some bad games on all consoles, but the number of bad ones on the wii are greater. buying habits for these atypical gamers is generally different as well. the chance they will find their way to bad games is higher.
As to movies: Movies are not the same as gaming. The pricing is very different as well. Lets say i have gone my whole life without watching these movies. They then do something with movies that makes them appear unique. So i go and buy, rent, or go to the theatre. if i hated even those 2 i might reconsider, afterall i was enjoying myself just fine before. it means 40% of all my money is wasted.

true that Wii is getting a lot of crap on their system, but the PS2 had the same problem, and some of those bad games sold well to the casual market. The industry didn't implode on itself cause PS2 got a lot of shovelware, and the Wii wont do that either. Besides most people who are new to console gaming this gen have played games before, like board games and such, and i would assume that they are educated enough to take each game at face value, and make educated decisions about what they are buying. I don't know a lot about cars, but im not going to go and buy a new car just based on looks, i do some research. If the car ends up being a bust, that doesn't mean im going to stop buying cars, im just wiser in my decision making with cars.

MrBubbles said: some people only like certain types of games. some people will change and broaden their gaming choices. but a lot of the "casuals" went to the wii because it wasnt the "typical" console gaming. they didnt want typical console gaming and most of them wont get into them. you will have some of the younger ones and few of the older ones that get into more advanced gaming. they would have no reason to do so either. there are plenty of the "casual" games to for them to play. i am more concerned that the wii might turn these people off of console gaming with the amount of garbage being produced.

 I'll leave aside the shovelware argument, because anyone who paid attention during the Playstation and Playstation 2 eras knows it's fallacious (long story short: it didn't work when Nintendo fans tried to use it, and it won't work when Nintendo detractors try either).

I was originally going to post a long rant, but I figured it'd be more entertaining to watch a video. Here you go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByPcQBveWOA 

"The URL contained a malformed video ID. "

MrBubbles said: "The URL contained a malformed video ID. "

 How odd. Try cutting and pasting it. That seems to work...for whatever reason.

Good post and welcome to VGC.

MrBubbles said: a lot of these "casuals" wont upgrade to other games.

That's only partially true. If we look at people who play cinematic games, this propably is very true, but in the other hand, gameplay games also do sell in good numbers. Either the hardcore moved away and casual took over, or the remaining hardcore still kept with gameplay games or moved to the cinematic games. The reason why "casual" doesn't upgrade, is because there's nothing where to upgrade. If you only try to make games fow the lower tier customer and the higher tier customer, with nothing in between, you are only making your own system happen. Basically by doing any split, you leave most of the potential customers out. Now, take a look at Nintendo, it's success is based in making games that fit for both of the audiences and people in between. Or Rockstar, if they would make GTA only for the "hardcore" or "casual", GTA sales would be a lot lower, and besides, when we look at PS2, its best selling games are these kind of bridged games, which tells, combined in the sales of "casual" games on the platform, that "casual" do upgrade, but if you have a lot of "casual only" games and only a few bridged titles, the casual isn't going to upgrade any higher tier, if there's no more games for their preferences in the more higher tier.