Nonchalant Gaming

The term " casual gamer" appears to have undergone radical change in the last 12 months. At one time you would have described the people who bought the Need For Speed and FIFA/Pro Evolution games as " casual gamers" , whereas now they' re being lumped together with the rest of the " traditional gaming" audience.

I think however that it was simply a misconception that those games were " casual" . Having put some thought into it i would probably be more inclined to describe them as " populist" games that have a subject matter which appeals to a large percentage of the more traditional gaming demographic.

When you look at a console like the original Xbox where Microsoft only really reached a more hardcore audience and struggled to expand into the more mainstream market, you understand why they' re now pushing their Arcade SKU and games like Scene It and Viva Pinata. While many of the more traditional gamers, myself included would much rather have had Rare working on a Killer Instinct or Conker sequel, those games would have only reached the core userbase Microsoft carried over from their original console.

So a casual game is best described as a title that your mother, father, children and grandparents can all play, has universal appeal, simple rules, relatively short duration and is (in general) designed to be played by multiple people simultaneously.

Nintendo, through their DS and Wii platforms have broadened the scope of the definition to encompass more traditional types of games that don' t require large time investments and are quick and easy to pick up. Why? Because in general they cost less and so the return on investment is greater. Since they' ve been so successful, developer focus has and will continue to change, with more and more publishers making Wii a priority. It' s not as simple as developing for the machine with the largest install base because you have to factor in attach rates and work through your projected sales for each platform, but in general there will continue to be more of a shift in both the nature of content developed and platform priorities, just as long as Nintendo can maintain momentum and 3rd parties find success en mass.

Nowhere has the effect of Nintendo' s effort to revitalize the gaming market been felt more than in Japan. Their immense success with the DS platform and Brain Training games is proof that entire markets can be changed, though whether something of similar scale is possible in the west is still unknown. Nintendo has won the war one one front, ...they own Japan and that' s not going to change this generation, ...but they still have a long way to go in the rest of the world, and it' s one these fronts where their competition is strongest.

Microsoft and Sony are making (and Sony has for years) serious efforts to cater to the casual gaming audience and expand into the more casual market. Games like Singstar, Guitar Hero, Scene It and Viva Pinata Party Animals are all aimed at the same demographic Nintendo has managed to tap so successfully, but the rest of us are pretty dismissive of them regardless of quality. It' s not all baseless though as many of the titles flung together and released in a hurry to cash in on Nintendo' s newly found success can accurately be described as being shovelware. And that' s Nintendo' s problem. Most Wii games are no more deserving of merit than the hundreds of thousand of Flash games, coded in bedrooms and available to play for free on the internet.

So how long will this casual boom last? Will it mature into a wholly sustainable market? Are casual games a stepping stone that will bring the ' non-gamers' over the the more hardcore market? If these kinds of casual games weren' t behind Sony' s previous generation wins, does Nintendo really have what it takes to stay on top?

Great post !! We need to have a rep system in kikizo . Anyways , i feel the casual gaming thing is here to stay . As nintendo has proved , that crowd is more lucrative than the ' hardcore' crowd .. They wont buy many games but the hardware will surely sell .

At one time you would have described the people who bought the Need For Speed and FIFA/Pro Evolution games as " casual gamers" ,

Huh? I called those " mainstream" gamers.
I never used the words " casual" or " non-gamer" before Nintendo started doing their... uh... new thing. There were hardcore gamers, mainstream gamers and normal sane people.

I think this boom will stay as long as there are people out there who enjoy these quick games. They will keep selling, because those who buy them, unlike us who play video games as a hobby, one that we are well educated in and know the differences between games and consoles, these other people don' t know any better. Is like the mainstream movie audience, they' ll most likely see a movie because it looks cool on the poster. As long as the casual audience doesn' t investigate more about the games they buy, then they' ll keep selling, and even if they do inform themselves, they' ll probably still sell as well, as they can please their entire family with, as well as play with the majority of their friends.

ORIGINAL: 2pac

They wont buy many games but the hardware will surely sell .

But that' s the thing...

Nintendo are raking it in, pure profit on every unit sold and their first party software is selling really well (as always) but where does that leave third parties?

It transcends to third party quality too which is something they' ve said they are going to address

In some ways, it' s unfortunate that a developer like Rare seems to have been " assigned" the task of making these kinds of family-oriented mainstream games. (Of course, that may have just been their own preference.) But it is useless to the mainstream buyer, who has never heard of Rare and has no idea of their reputation for quality games from long, long ago.

Great post !! We need to have a rep system in kikizo . Anyways , i feel the casual gaming thing is here to stay . As nintendo has proved , that crowd is more lucrative than the ' hardcore' crowd .. They wont buy many games but the hardware will surely sell .

Remember though, it is only lucrative to sell them hardware if you are making a profit, like Nintendo has since the release of the Wii, or like Sony has with the ps2 later in its life cycle. MS lost tons of money selling its Xbox for cheaper than it was to produce, same to a lesser extent for the 360. We all know Sony' s ps3 is costing them too.

Now, in a couple years, when MS and Sony start to make money off of console sales, then it will be very profitable to have casual gamers buying your console, and not surprisingly, that is around the same time casual gamers do start buying the consoles for a number of reasons. The foremost being, low price, and a wealth of both casual, and hardcore games.

Nintendo' s strategy of selling lots of consoles, and not many games(in North America, not talking about the DS attach rate in Japan) works well for them, but applied to Sony and MS, it wouldn' t be nearly as lucrative.

MS cleary has the most lucrative audience out there, with high attach rates of games and peripherals, but at the same time, it isn' t the largest audience. Casual gamers will always be bigger.

I feel that as a whole gaming and being a " gamer" is becoming more and more popular. With people buying a Wii is like them buying most other forms of mass media entertainment(i.e. the iphone or ipod) and thankfully the Wii has gotten so much press and is so widely known people will buy it even though they will hardly ever play it.

I have found also that the term " casual" gamer is a misconception, it isn' t usually the person but the game that is casual(while the person is " mainstream" ).

As for the 360 its attach rate is so high is because it is a household name(i.e. MS) and the fact that all anybody knows is Halo is awesome(it sickens me when people consider themselves real gamers because they play Halo 3).

I am sorry Nitro that I suck at posting, maybe you guys should get me banned.

ORIGINAL: Torr

I am sorry Nitro that I suck at posting, maybe you guys should get me banned.

Oh stop feeling sorry for yourself you sound like a bitch.

Majik i see what youre trying to do but did you really have to spread it accross 2 threads? It' s almost stealth trolling.

Case in point. You didn' t buy a PS2 until 2005, right near the end of it' s lifecycle and when Sony were making the most money on hardware.

120 million PS2' s sold to gamers, not to Wii' s core demographic. It means that there are an awful lot of people still sitting on the fence.

im not sure we know how many PS2 were sold as second units, i mean a 7 year life time is long for hardware like that. 30% could easily have gone to replace broke models if not more than 30%.

PS2' s are still being sold vividly in toystores, whenever im in toys r us, i always see a kid (8-11) with a ps2 and úsually its singstar or dance dance, or guitar hero.

Those people wont buy anything untill its as cheap as the ps2, and offer those kinds of games.

Casual gaming has been popular for years, but before it was only on the PC. Old ladies buy a lot of games.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."