Casual Games, A Necessary Sacrifice

Duncan Kennedy, Source Article - http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/04/two-ends-of-the-same-line-the-casualcore-war/

If you frequent any forum or other medium of game discussion, you’ve heard it, something condescending regarding “those casuals”. I used to be one of those people, in fact, seeing casual gamers as something that would disrupt the way games are published, even how they are designed. In reality, however, we must recognize the importance of this group, and why we sometimes need to cater to them.

It seems that there’s been a recent influx of causal gamers, and more worryingly, casual games, except that this is not the case. Casuals have been around for many years, even before consoles. Maybe they weren’t spending $20 in quarters in the arcades, but they were playing alongside us, especially in the 70’s playing pong for reasons unrelated to the game.  And how successful pong was, whether or not it is related to those looking to do more than play a game, launched the games industry to what it is today.

The industry always has and always will revolve around one thing, and that’s money. The reason Pong was such a success wasn’t because of the quality of the game, it’s because people were willing to spend so much on it. Back in the arcade days it may have been easier to pin the majority of spending on those who put all of their allowance into a machine, but what about nowadays? People aren’t spending quarters, they’re spending upwards of $300 on consoles and games, how do casuals fit in?

Casuals have Facebook, that’s how. Core gamers carve time out of their schedule to play games, casuals will really only play a game as a distraction or if they find that they have an empty hour or so to kill. Because Facebook is free, there’s no high cost to get started. It doesn’t take long at all to start a farm in Farmville, and if you can’t find time to harvest for a few days, it doesn’t matter; you can leave it and come back whenever you have time. The ease of access allows them to keep playing, and maybe spending $5 on making their crops grow faster next time, and so on. They may well spend just as much as a core gamer will on a console, but spread out over several months.

In the end, Farmville may not be the best example of how casuals affect the core gamers experience. Some core companies may well take advantage of the casual gamers who are finding their core desires with easier games. The core audience may not be happy about it, but the money made from these titles allows the developer to release the core games that we so enjoy.