Casual

Zeriel · Sep 20, 2015

StriderVM said:
Please do not hate other people for what they know. It's better to educate them.

Elitism doesn't really help anything but divide us. Trolls thrive on such things as well.

It's not about elitism, casual gamers exist, they are mostly the mom and pops that enjoy killing time
playing bejeweled, the grandma who plays angry birds 10 minutes at a time in the line of the grocery,
the people that don't own a Gaming PC or a console etc, Not to be Misogynist but a lot of women prefer casual gaming.

Companies prey on these people. There are actually psychology studies on FTP and how to entice people with gambling
addictions, There's even an episode of it in South Park lol. This predatory behavior from the gaming companies
towards the casuals is spreading to AAA gaming where it affects us regular gamers.

You realize is a problem when you see FTP on games you payed 60$ for. Mortal Combat X, Evolve, Dead Space, Assassins
Creed, even Metal Gear 5, just to mention a few. I think this is downright dishonest and disgusting

GameSystem · Sep 20, 2015

I only see a bleak future for the quality of games. The last game I purchased was Super Smash Bros. Brawl back in 2008. After that I pirated everything. I had a PS3 for a few months, but I gave it away to my cousin after I played every worthwhile game on it. I never bought a XBOX360/PS4/XONE because of the "pay for online" model. I can easily afford everything, but I hated that I'd be forced to pay extra to get the full experience. If future consoles continue with this trend, I'll have to quit being a gamer.

I didn't buy a Wii U because it has no games. However, I did buy Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate to play on my friend's Wii U. He was kind enough to let me borrow it. I let him have the game afterwards once I completed both the story and online portion as payment for letting me borrow it for so long. Sadly, the reason he let me borrow it for so long was because there were no games on the Wii U.

I have a 3DS and a smartphone left. I ran out of games to play on the 3DS, and the future seems bleak. All the games on the iPhone are trash. I jailbroke my iPhone, installed iPhoneCake and pirated the top games that were listed on review sites and MetaCritic. Everything was garbage. I can't understand how anyone can pay for these poor excuses for games. The F2P stuff is entertaining for a short while, but gets repetitive quickly and you'll hit a pay wall really quickly. As of two weeks ago, I haven't played a single iphone game because there just isn't anything worthwhile.

I'm depressed that all focus will shift to trying to make the easiest buck, and all that will be left will be these poor excuses for games. I don't even want to pirate anymore because there is nothing left worth playing.

My last hope is PC. Once I finish school, I'll build myself a decent rig and look for decent stuff there. Hopefully I can stay a gamer.

anhminh · Sep 20, 2015

Zeriel said:
It's not about elitism, casual gamers exist, they are mostly the mom and pops that enjoy killing time
playing bejeweled, the grandma who plays angry birds 10 minutes at a time in the line of the grocery,
the people that don't own a Gaming PC or a console etc, Not to be Misogynist but a lot of women prefer casual gaming.

Companies prey on these people. There are actually psychology studies on FTP and how to entice people with gambling
addictions, There's even an episode of it in South Park lol. This predatory behavior from the gaming companies
towards the casuals is spreading to AAA gaming where it affects us regular gamers.

You realize is a problem when you see FTP on games you payed 60$ for. Mortal Combat X, Evolve, Dead Space, Assassins
Creed, even Metal Gear 5, just to mention a few. I think this is downright dishonest and disgusting

F2P game had exist way before the era of smartphone, they call them with more pretty name, MMO.
It's normal to see people blow thousand and thousand of dollar just to have the top gear and raise up to the top rank. Even a hardcore gamer blow they money into there kind of game. And psychologist had been used in marketing long before F2P exist, company use them to study customer trending and brainwash customer to buy their stuff, now they just apply those in video game.
The only different now is that those F2P game had find a bigger consumer target, way bigger than anything you see before.

Bladexdsl · Sep 20, 2015

casuals are a plague because of them we have shitty games like candy crush, bubble witch, angry birds and the rest of them M$T mobile garbage. they need to be stopped...NAO

MrJason005 · Sep 20, 2015

GameSystem said:
I didn't buy a Wii U because it has no games.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Maybe a couple of months ago, sure, but now it has good exclusives and a few more coming to it.

Steena · Sep 20, 2015

MrJason005 said:
Aren't you being too harsh towards the casuals? It's the companies' fault.

It's not companies' fault. Well, not primarily. They see people do not demand a level of quality and they do not go further. Sure, it would be great if a company had feelings and played fair, and some recognize those efforts when they happen; the problem with that is that, today, a company that goes out of their way and limit themselves this way will automatically get replaced by one that is willing to exploit its consumers to the maximum. That is just how it works, and inevitably there will be people who want to exploit things, expecting anything else is just a pipe dream. Therefore, you are in a situation where every company is exploitative and you need the consumers to keep the companies in check, because they are the ones with the power of making those companies rich.

When introducing Xbox live, it was initially targeted to be paid on PC as well. There was a massive, pre-emptive outrage for obvious reasons, and as a result it was released as a free "service". As the 360 was a very accessible system that opened the gates to the big casual wave of ~2006, nobody cared about that issue and just paid for it. I mean, a Microsoft figure pretty much openly stated in an interview that they wouldn't be able to get the PC crowd to pay for it. Because they are familiar with P2P connectivity and the fact that it doesn't actually cost resources to maintain.

So yeah, it's the fault of low-interest people outnumbering enthusiasts. It's the fault of our modern culture that is about "do a little bit of everything at once" instead of dedicating to one hobby in depth. I am not hating on casuals as people - everyone of us is "casual" in most fields, because there are more things you couldn't possibly have time to explore properly. I am hating on the casual culture that is lowering the bar, and not just for games. I hate the casual culture that is highly uninformed and is pushed around by hivemind trends telling them what to do. Just because you have little time to spare doesn't mean you have got to be uninformed. Those games aren't going anywhere, people can do some research first.

In the past, developers and publishers used to think that going out of your way to try and make a 10/10 game was the correct way to go about selling a game. Today, they aim to reach "average" as an end-goal, because of "efficiency", so that they could pump out their next average game faster (quite the mentality to apply to something so many people call "art", eh?). You see the thing is, developers and publishers of the past and present are largely the same individuals. What changed is the consumer base. So of course, since there has been a degrade in quality, the fault lies on what changed.

Why work hard when the little touches you put into the game go unnoticed because 95% of your users do not even KNOW how to recognize them, let alone appreciate them? It's a waste of money and talent. And thus, the dumbing down naturally occurs.

Steam game completion statistics are scary. It's like no one finishes games, and there are 30% completion rates on (unskippable) tutorials/prologues. This is why final boss fights have become shit/removed, this is why games are ridden with problems. People flat out don't play them, they buy them on a whim to satisfy their short term compulsion and then forget about it. That will only make games worse when your society runs on capitalism, no matter how much good faith you have on publishers and developers.

Prans · Sep 20, 2015

Hyperstar96 said:
This article would have been a lot more relevant about four years ago... no one feels the need to talk about "the upcoming casual threat" anymore. It's been long established that this sense of casual gaming is here to stay and will continue to seep its way into more traditional gaming, whether we like it or not.

Seriously, I'm confused as to why this article exists.

I believe it's relevant with the recent news cited at the beginning of the article. And I also believe that it would be interesting to see how people of the GBATemp community react to it. So far, we've seen some pretty interesting and diverse veiws. It's an upcoming issue that I deem worthy of discussion. Be it old or new, such topics will come and go and not everyone will have a chance to express themselves at the appropriate time, so better have a chance to do so somewhere, sometime.

TecXero · Sep 20, 2015

I think there will always be a wide variety of games, just like there are a wide variety of movies, books, comics, etc. Sure, plenty of games will be made to appeal to the "casual" crowd, but there's also games made for the "hardcore". You just have to know where to look. Some of my most favorite games are more recent, despite me growing up on games starting in the 16-bit era. Games like Dust: An Elysian Tale, Bastion, Dark Souls, and Shovel Knight are great, and I don't think they're part of dying genres for a diminishing crowd.

Don't worry, "hardcore" games are here to stay, it's just gaming as a whole is becoming more inclusive. That's a good thing, that means we won't be seen as the societal outcasts, anymore... well, not quite as much, anyway.

Frederica Bernkastel · Sep 20, 2015

Personally I feel that it is senseless and stupid to arbitrarily separate games into these two camps; what makes a game casual, or "hardcore"?

I loved Monument Valley, which is by no means a hardcore game. Yet it offered just as much challenge, and had been crafted just as beautifully as many triple-A puzzle games I've found myself playing.

Our world is expanding, more ideas are coming about and there's much more choice in what there is to play. As much choice as in the beginning, before big publishers and vendors monopolised and strictly controlled the influx of content to their platforms.

I don't think anything has changed here, except for this self-inflicted stigma being slowly lifted away. It seems unfair to equate shoddy half-baked games like Ubisoft's legendary Imagine series, with everything else that isn't a dark-gritty-first-person-shooter.

Vipera · Sep 20, 2015

As a proud gamer, I consider a lot of people who are self-declared "hardcore gamers" to not be hardcore at all.

Oh, you have two-digits long gaming sessions on League of Legends? Cute.
Oh, you have a 10 years-old World of Warcraft account? Very cute.
Oh, your Steam account counts more than 1000 games? Aww.
Oh, your self-proclaimed battle station has more LEDs than a Christmas tree? Aww!

If you put your life into being a League of Legends badass player, you aren't a hardcore gamer. You are a hardcore LoL player. Huge difference. I'm still kicking your ass in anything else. Same with World of Warcraft. You are a devoted WoW player, nothing else. Same thing with "pro" gamers. You aren't a pro gamer if you play one single game competitively. You are a pro <game> player. I consider game testers more pro than those people.
If you have 1000+ games on your Steam account yet you have played less than 10% because you spend your lunch break on Peggle, you aren't a hardcore gamer. To me, you are an idiot. Hoarding digital games and then never play them is like collecting NES games and putting them in sealed, carboard boxes. What's the point? Oh, you do that for badges? Then you aren't an idiot to me, but it's a completely different hobby. Not even a gamer.
If you have a $3000 PC with $3000 accessories you aren't a hardcore gamer. You are someone with either small advantages to game (better input hardware and such) and/or someone who cares a lot about eye-candy. There's nothing wrong with either, but you aren't hardcore just because your mouse has the Razr logo.

All of this has nothing to do with being hardcore. Hardcore means that you kick ass. It means that you love the gaming hobby as a whole and it's a big part of your life. It means shifting from a game to another, yet still kicking ass at all of them. It means clearing out the hardest difficulties of every game because fuck you, they can. It means spending countless hours getting good at whatever they want to get good at, kick ass, then move on. To me, THIS is the definition of a hardcore gamer. Anything else is just eye-candy. And no, most of the self-proclaimed "hadcore" gamers aren't hardcore. Deal with it.

As for casual gamers, I consider them to be the ones who play games but are little to not afflicted by them at all. They play small games, mostly on phones, they very rarely give full attention to them. To them, spending a big period of time without gaming isn't an issue. That's what a casual gamer is to me.

...now, let's look at how much the gaming community and industry have evolved since the past decade, and ask yourself: do you REALLY think casual gamers are going to take over the world? There are more people playing RPGs now than 10 years ago. We came to a point where you can have so many AAA games for so little that you are unsure what to play.

Are you afraid that the awful Freemium marketing will take over the world? Again, let's count how many successful freemium games there have been in the last decade and let's count how many successful non-casual titles have been released in the past two years. The most downloaded phone games ever are Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Temple Run. Are they freemium? I know Angry Birds has paid power-ups, but do you need them at all to play the game whenever you want? Nope. They even took care of the annoying ads.

No, you are afraid that, one day, the most hyped game of the year will be Clash Of Clans X and everyone will be happy to spend 100 bucks or more for a "free" game that asks you money to cut some unnecessary waiting time. Come on, you know it's never going to happen. And you are afraid that, one day, the most hyped E3 game will be Doodle Jump 4. Do you really believe that all of the gaming companies in the world are going to say "hey, let's make shitty flash games on Android" without thinking about the consequences? What happens when Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Square, Activision and such all decide to make the same fucking game? They know they need variety and depth. All of the most famous gaming genre are very appreciated. What we are seeing today is just the revenge of the simpler arcade games we used to play when we were kids. And the shitty Clash of Clans clones? Don't worry, they suck. Everyone knows that. They might get millions of downloads, but I know many people who just delete them after the waiting times take all the mild fun away.

So, let me say this: let the casuals have their games, let the gamers have their games and, for the love of God, stop treating people who play on phones like casual retards. I play on my phone. I'm not a hardcore gamer but I'm far from a casual one. This elitism between many gamers has to stop. They won't destroy the market.

Frederica Bernkastel · Sep 20, 2015

Vipera said:
They won't destroy the market.

I think the key thing to remember here is that, irrespective of its target audience, poorly made software is still poorly made software. People don't tout such gems as Boom Beach or Farmville as being the quintessential examples of a great gaming product -- Rather instead they play these games because they find them fun.

Bimmel · Sep 20, 2015

HaloEffect17 said:
Just looking the first photo... who actually puts their hand in their pocket with their thumb in the belt loop of their jeans? LOL.

VinsCool said:
Hmmm I always do that

And I am too. Thumbs u.. I mean in the belt loop!

For the topic: I have no anger for persons who play video games to kill time. I see that they mostly play games with simple mechanics and that's okay. Even if I do not want to play things like Candy Crush or something like that - it is there for a reason. For fun.

As long as people are happy with the extend of their gaming it's totally cool with me. And if not: I'm the one with the knowledge to teach them that there is more to see.

VinsCool · Sep 20, 2015

i play whatever is fun to me.
Casual? yeah.
plays to completion on rpgs? sure.
spend a lot of time finishing all of my games? of course.

Am I hardcore? I don't think.

I like to play video games. that's all.

KingBlank · Sep 21, 2015

I don't have any issue with casual gamers, Just the awful cruel developers who take advantage of the ones willing to spend money on them...

cracker · Sep 21, 2015

Most anything on a phone is going to be casual because of battery life and (usually) limited controls. Also mobile games need to be designed with OS standards in mind (saving incrementally and when being forced to shut down) so that usually goes in hand with more checkpoints, etc. and creates a more casual style of gameplay. I enjoy both casual and hardcore as each has their own place and time.

Meteor7 · Sep 21, 2015

I'm not sure the Wiki definition of "casual" games fits the current colloquial one. To me, casual games are games that require minimal brainpower and input to operate (Bejeweled is a fine example). Often, games that strike people this way also appear to be low-budget and seen as lacking cleverness in terms of game design, lending themselves to animosity. What people seem to fear is that, if this trend proves so lucrative, the highly involving games that "hardcore" gamers love and come to call great art are going to diminish, if not disappear entirely. I truly feel that the situation I've described is not only possible, but currently happening with Konami (though they're bat-bonkers crazy, so I doubt their relevance when discussing game companies in a general context.)

I guess it goes without saying at this point that I'm part of the anti-casual crowd, or perhaps casual-apprehensive. I'll never declare that games like Cut the Rope and Angry Birds have no place in the world, or even that they don't belong in gaming (the example I gave earlier, Bejeweled, is a game I enjoy, after all), but as companies strive for a higher profit margin, we could easily see gaming become a low-effort, high-rewards business, and I think that it's not only the gamers who would suffer, but the artistic integrity of the medium. I strongly believe that highly developed games, games like Xenoblade Chronicles, Tales of Vesperia, Metal Gear Solid... even New Super Mario Bros., affect and grow gamers like me by challenging us to think, make decisions, and act in new, creative ways. Though this is not impossible for a casual game to do at all, the scope, breadth, and extensiveness in which the ideas are applied, as well as simply how many new ideas are introduced, is directly limited by manpower, which in turn is limited by vision, effort, and budget.

Still, in the end, the dollar will decide. If the casual gamers sufficiently outpower the hardcore market, the games business will follow that trend no matter how much a niche group complains. Even still, there are quite a few dedicated, passionate developers out there, so it might be possible for sheer adoration for deep and developed games to sustain the type of games we enjoy today, even without maximizing a profit margin. Donations through Kickstarter could even be a strong factor in deciding whether the "hardcore" games disappear or not, only time will tell.

KingBlank · Sep 22, 2015

Meteor7 said:
If the casual gamers sufficiently outpower the hardcore market, the games business will follow that trend no matter how much a niche group complains. Even still, there are quite a few dedicated, passionate developers out there, so it might be possible for sheer adoration for deep and developed games to sustain the type of games we enjoy today, even without maximizing a profit margin. Donations through Kickstarter could even be a strong factor in deciding whether the "hardcore" games disappear or not, only time will tell.

Yes, I hope it does not come to this...

sneef · Sep 22, 2015

Steena said:
We also got kickstarter. A great opportunity for us to decide what can be developed, bypassing investors who don't have a clue about a good game, right? Too bad the system has already been cannibalized by AAA investors and we're seeing game after game being already funded under-the-table by those very figures, with the KS announcement merely being a hype-generating bonus (and bonus cash collecting, which is actually like 10% of what the game needed in funding - see Iga's project). Kickstarter is now being used as a preorder tool where your exploited customers, on top of putting their money at risk (the risk is greater than a standard preorder, mind you), will worship you for "saving a franchise". Despite the fact that KS games are most of the time underwhelming and the really good games that came out of it without some major fuck ups can be counted on one hand. This one is golden, in just how many ways it exploits the consumer while getting credit for it.

This right here :teach:

I've been making this point for a while now with some colleagues of mine, but it has fallen on deaf ears. One guy, in particular, considers himself a hardcore gamer.. in many ways he is.. but he's also a F#$%#n chump! any kickstarter campaign for some otherwise "dying franchise" gets his support, and not only his support, but usually a $200 "exclusive free shit" preorder.. I shake my head in disbelief, as he praises the game designers/studio for giving fans the chance to save the franchise, and actually feels grateful for having the chance to spend TWO HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS on a game that is almost always worth $20, if that, in my opinion. he can't see that these guys are exploiting the phenomenon of crowd-funding? And, they're using really really basic psychological tactics, which really concerns me, as it says something about the intellectual state of our society. anyway, good point, and i agree 100%.

Steena said:
(sorry for the slightly long post, the casual game I've been playing momentarily forbid me to play further and so I needed to kill time)

This cracked me up.. hahaha.. good example of the current shit-state of F2P/Freemium mobile games: Angry Birds 2. I downloaded it because... well... you know, angry birds.
Anyway, when i ran out of whatever it is that allows you to play (tokens? coins? stars? could be bottled air for all the value they contain) and came to realize what a shitty gaming world casuals live in.. you see, i normally don't EVER download/install free games with in app purchases, for reasons already discussed in this thread... I would much rather pay $10 for a decent, well-executed mobile game, than download a free game that is either completely shit unless you pay up, or, even worse, is actually decent, but requires money to progress, after you've gotten into the experience of the game (i'm talking to you, developers of "Commute"). Anyway, back to Angry Birds 2: when i ran out of bottled air (tokens, coins, what have you) I came to realize what a shitty gaming world casuals live in, as I was reduced to watching pathetic advertising videos in order to keep playing.. after a while i stopped, because it actually felt goddamn insulting and demeaning. I sincerely hope that this model is not the predominant one in the years to come, for the sake of my children. I had some other point to make about Angry Birds 2, but I am now all pissed off, after thinking about that whole experience..

StriderVM · Sep 23, 2015

sneef said:
This right here I've been making this point for a while now with some colleagues of mine, but it has fallen on deaf ears. One guy, in particular, considers himself a hardcore gamer.. in many ways he is.. but he's also a F#$%#n chump! any kickstarter campaign for some otherwise "dying franchise" gets his support, and not only his support, but usually a $200 "exclusive free shit" preorder.. I shake my head in disbelief, as he praises the game designers/studio for giving fans the chance to save the franchise, and actually feels grateful for having the chance to spend TWO HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS on a game that is almost always worth $20, if that, in my opinion. he can't see that these guys are exploiting the phenomenon of crowd-funding? And, they're using really really basic psychological tactics, which really concerns me, as it says something about the intellectual state of our society. anyway, good point, and i agree 100%.

This cracked me up.. hahaha.. good example of the current shit-state of F2P/Freemium mobile games: Angry Birds 2. I downloaded it because... well... you know, angry birds.
Anyway, when i ran out of whatever it is that allows you to play (tokens? coins? stars? could be bottled air for all the value they contain) and came to realize what a shitty gaming world casuals live in.. you see, i normally don't EVER download/install free games with in app purchases, for reasons already discussed in this thread... I would much rather pay $10 for a decent, well-executed mobile game, than download a free game that is either completely shit unless you pay up, or, even worse, is actually decent, but requires money to progress, after you've gotten into the experience of the game (i'm talking to you, developers of "Commute"). Anyway, back to Angry Birds 2: when i ran out of bottled air (tokens, coins, what have you) I came to realize what a shitty gaming world casuals live in, as I was reduced to watching pathetic advertising videos in order to keep playing.. after a while i stopped, because it actually felt goddamn insulting and demeaning. I sincerely hope that this model is not the predominant one in the years to come, for the sake of my children. I had some other point to make about Angry Birds 2, but I am now all pissed off, after thinking about that whole experience..

The mobile space actually has some pretty good games. Sadly it is overrun by the "Free-2-Play" misnomer by like 1 to 5. Some examples :
(These games are perfectly enjoyable even though they have premium versions / stuff.)

- Plague Inc.
- Shattered Planet
- Star Traders RPG (Or any game by the Trese Brothers)
- Star Command
- Fallout Shelter
- Pac-Man Tournaments
- Lemegeton
- Soul Ares 2
- Static Quest
- Trigger Knight
- Wind Up Knight
- Game Dev Story (Or Any Kairosoft game)
- Grave Defense
- Galaga Special Edition
- Chaos Rings series (Square Enix)

Or games that are "Free2Play" but are not that abusive of that mechanic (sorta)

:

- Final Fantasy Record Keeper
- Monster Blade (Monster Hunter Ripoff)
- Cross Horizon
- LoveLive! School Idol Festival
- Deemo
- Cytus
- Cat War 2 (Or most WestRiver games)

There's also some pretty good ports as well :

- Alien Shooter / Zombie Shooter (Sigma Team)
- ReRave Plus (Rhythm Game)
- DJ Max Technika Q
- The King of Fighters A
- Tengai
- Strikers 19XX (Multiple games)
- Ur Quan Masters HD
- Corsix TH (Theme Hospital)
- RE-VOLT Classic
- Carmageddon

sneef · Oct 1, 2015

are those mobile apps on android or iOS or some of both? not saying those are the only two mobile platforms, but lets face it: the chance that you're referring to WebOS, Symbian, MeeGo, Tizen, or even Windows Phone, is pretty slim.

[edit] i ask because i saw theme hospital in your list, and got excited, because it was my wife's favorite game when we were dating, and I wanted to find it in the app store, and send a link to her.. but i couldn't find it. so i'm thinking must be a google play app? [/edit]

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