Mario Kart DS/Wii, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit/+, Wii Play, Brain Training, NSMB DS/Wii, all arcade games.

Nintendo could have exited the console race and singlehandedly resurrected the arcades instead.

Story games or '10/10' games aren't arcade games. They're 'computer'/'hardcore' games.

Typically, if there is little to no story, you can pretty much just lop a game into the "casual" category if you really want to put them into categories....'no story' includes games that have more of a goal than a story...Games like mario have an implied story...reach the end of the level to get closer to saving *Insert saved person or thing here*....i.e. scrolling screen marios, metroids, megaman games, sonic....all that same category...

"Casual" is a buzzword and has no solid definition, people can make it mean whatever they want and thus it becomes useless as a means of communication. Just check out this thread - there are about three different "definitions" presented by different people and then other people contesting said definitions.

The reason game journalists keep calling Mario a casual game is because the industry simply doesn't know what the word means.

They do?

I've never heard anybody describe Mario as "casual".

Read like the first reply to this thread

I just feel that categorizing a game as "casual" has this polarizing effect on the so-called "hardcore" gamer audience. I think both the terms are intentionally misleading and simply a marketing ploy by which video game critics fuel on. IMO, "casual" in gaming has a much more negative connotation by today's standards whereas "hardcore" almost means "limited to genuine gamers," which in itself, is a fallacy.

One person, then. But it's certainly not common or anything.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923375&page=1&postnum=3
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923378&page=1&postnum=4
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923448&page=1&postnum=10
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923497&page=1&postnum=19
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923561&page=1&postnum=22
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923570&page=1&postnum=23
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923597&page=1&postnum=25
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923681&page=1&postnum=39
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923701&page=1&postnum=41
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923899&page=1&postnum=46
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2923973&page=1&postnum=50
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?post=2924025&page=1&postnum=52

Satisfied?

Casual means for normal people, hardcore means for the pretentious 1337 uber hackers who hate the light and listen to only anger music; which they think is more important than anything else in the world.

If there's something I despise this gen it's the hardcore/casual labeling. It's totally pointless and most of the time it's just used to look down on the new kids in town.