@Plaupius

Happy to be of service, I'm open twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. ;)

this article was awesome..he really explains everything

:Tutorial= if someone neeads a tutorial to understand the game, the game sucks..
everyone knows to swing the wiimote to use link's sword...people don't know they HAVE to press button '1' to execute action 'b' and press button '4' while executing action 'b' to perform action 'f'

:Cinematics= people want to pull off those cool stunts.. they wanna be there.. look at RE4/Half Life 2 Portal...or short cinematics
if you hav too long cinematics (MGS4) where your character experiences things...it gets damned boring.
why? because I the PLAYER want to do those cool flips and attacks and jumps...not simply see them

:text= talking to someone once for items (Zelda) is fine really...but once you have to endure too much of it (FFIV and up, most RPGs) it gets boring
this is not to say the game fails in general..it fails to be a bestseller..obviously...it will only sell to the targeted market, not to the rest

:fun from minute1=Mario galaxy...I get to jump and perform all regular mario stunts and THEN the SHORT cinematic starts...
MGS2 already pissed me off playing it again...damnit....I don't get to play for 45 minutes

all in all..the fail or 'broken' that malstrom means is obviously: it won't sell, except to the target...wich sucks...since the target is shrinking ^^''

What exactly is the point?  I read the first seven paragraghs, saw a guy talking out of his ass who hadn't made a point yet.

I'm not nitpicking yours (or my) grammar or punctuation.  Just mr. Fancypants style.

I am not arguing against his maint point.  I am saying he is bad writer, who mislabels himself as a casual writer.  If he doesn't even know enough to realize he is not a casual writer, then what the hell is he doing talking about definition of casual games.

Refined, doesn't mean fancy, it means reworked to make better.  In the case of his writing, he has not reworked it to make it better.  He free wrote into the editor, used spelling and grammar check, and posted.

He is arrogant, because he assumes that readersconsumers don't want a challenge.  He is arrogant because he uses unnecessarily smarter sounding words that don't do as good of a job describing the object as the simple word.

Who ever told him he is a casual writer, either doesn't know writing or is coddling.

malstrom is the man

@steven

Whoa there! I never said anything about refined being fancy... to be honest I didn't know how you'd define refined so I made sure not to slap a definition on it. His point by the way is interlaced between all is articles - the major complaint I hear is about his rehtoric which is funny because does so intentionally.

I'm convinced though that you and he have totally different understanding on what casual is - in anecdote; I had a friend who I jokingly asked knowing that he is a hardcore gamer (by definition of playing game engines and not just games) what to expect for an answer. We had already actually gone through the motions of this industry not having a grasp of what casual actually is and instead they think it's so magical demographic or just the flash game moms. So my friend responded, "casuals are people who play casually - they don't play for too long nor too often." I agreed and laughed my fanny off all the way - then called him laughing on the phone just to tell him "sort of." By his definition he's totally correct though, but what this guy (Malstrom) is defining it as is the industry slapped 'casual' (which if you read his past articles you'd know why he quotes that) on the core gamers that buy into "casual games" or games geared towards everyone.

Now for what it's worth Malstrom did explain exactly what he means for each word he types - you have to read all his articles in order actually not think the guy is a total asshat.

Firstly context over content - that's his first step towards writing for casuals. if casuals of the core demographic or everyone however you find it easier to digest wanted content they would go to school and get text books on the subject. This is the major driver for his writings.

Nextly reitteration of points - he loves to wrap himself in his own smug, that he does. People see it as being rhetoric I see it as him just saying: "See, see I told ya so." Which is fine by me but only if he was correct which amazingly he actually has been for a little while now. If E3 pans out exactly as he's said by this point I wouldnt be suprised. Of course he isn't an insider nor is he surfer girl nor is he psychic he just analyzes the money flow, historical data and how they align to recent trends.

Lastly - he writes these articles for himself. you can tell in his writing, he doesn't have to come out and say it. but he does plently of times. Saying you have a problem with his writing would be moot as he is not published nor edited. I honestly don't understand how your even offended or antagonized in the slightest bit, this isn't a book, nor does he claim to be or currently delivering this information from the position of a journalist.

Simply put it's a blog if you don't like it, don't read it honestly it cost you nothing but time.

Is it just me or is it only on VGChartz I ever hear of this Malstrom guy?

Who is he anyway? Is he generally respected by the gaming community?

I think you misunderstand me. I am not arguing against his point. I have tortured myself reading the rest of it and still haven't found it.

Here's what I got from the article. If the game has instructions it is broken. He says tutorial, but really older games didn't have tutorials because of technical limitations, so I expanded it to instructions.

Too much text. I agree for the most part. Notice the only argument that makes sense is also short. Hmmm, must be an accident.

Fun in one minute. The first time you play Super Mario Bros, it is fun in the first minute. That is about the only game I can think of. Every other game (that I can think of) has you meet some text, tutorial, or insta-death before the end of the first minute. These games aren't all broken.

Madden is an extremely accessible game, it is also one of the most nuanced when it comes to gameplay. (Not so much because of the game but because of the number of people playing. On a side note, I can't believe I said good things about Madden :) Just kidding)

Next, the crap about Shakey braking the Greek tradition is just not true. There were plenty of English playwrites before Shakespeare. He was writing in a very specific style that dictated meter and structure (he didn't invent that style). He wasn't that different than others, he was better.

Most of his argument has nothing to do with casual, and more to do with his personal taste. I still don't really see what he is trying to get at. I still think he is a bad writer.  If he writes for himself, then why is he publishing it?

@steve

You know what, I got to go to work tommorow so I'll read it again then we can continue this, because either your taking what he said litterally or out of context or I just overlooked that part or I placed it within context.

Either way as painful as it may be I strongly suggest you read his other articles before reading his news articles as they do not do him justice at all.

NeoGAF has a thread about this article as well.  My favorite post in that thread is from a user named FightyF who rips apart the article and mentions the fact that Malstrom actually made up a quote from Mark Rein (read the last few paragraphs in his post).  Also a user named GitarooMan pretty much summed things up as well.

NeoGAF thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=325845

FightyG's post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11852784&postcount=89

GitarooMan's post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11853597&postcount=100

Yadda Yadda! the Hardcore having a cry at a Malstorm article!.. what ever! Wii still rules! and completely pwning the HD consoles.

His intelligence is way too much for most of ya to grasp.. and he already put his points as simple as he could. how sad!