Why is "Casual" bad?

[BlackSaint09]

Casual is another group of people playing games for fun...Sound like what we all should be?
Either way there just people who wanna enjoy themselves. Why is that bad?

 

[GotMalkAvian]

Snipped since it's quoted directly above this post, anyway.

This is exactly what I would've said.

Another factor that I think makes casual games dangerous is the cost of production. A game like Mass Effect or Bioshock can take years of work and millions of dollars to produce, and will only make a profit once per copy plus revenue from DLC. A game like Farmville, however, can easily be created by a single person with a relatively inexpensive toolkit, and the end product, although technically free, can keep massive streams of revenue constantly pouring in from the huge consumer base.

Either way, whether you want to go the financial route or the intellectual route, casual games are showing companies that big-budget games and hardcore gamers may not be the most profitable market. Nintendo realized this years ago and Reggie Fils-Aime gave his infamous "the hardcore gamer will no longer be our target demographic" speech.

 

[Protomega]

The comparison to a parent buying Shrek 3 and other games for other kids shouldn't be looked at as if they are a waste of money or that the games are bad. Those games are not developed with intentions to satisfy "hardcore" gamers or even pre-teen and above gamers. They are designed with children in mind. People who play shoot 'em up games like Raiden could look like idiots wasting their time to those "hardcore" gamers who play Touhou.

 

[Delusibeta]

-snip-

By this definition, Halo and Call of Duty and any games that rip them off are casual games.

 

[Talal Provides]

It's because for nerds gaming was their special thing that nobody else understood, but now that gaming is a part of pretty much everybody's life, they hate on the people who aren't like them so they can feel special again. It's like the people who follow a local band that gets signed to a major label and gets huge. When they were small, all they wanted was for everybody to be into it too, and once everybody is, they feel like they had stolen something that used to belong to them.

 

[xMelior]

Casual isn't bad. There are days you want to play peggle and days you play Halo till your eyes are sore. Nothing bad about it.

 

[boholikeu]

5 day grind > 25 day grind
Raids too easy with DBM installed? Here's a solution: uninstall it!

So yes, I would say that it's much better now than before. Perhaps you are one of those people whose amount of fun is dependent on what other players don't have?

25 day grind is still insanely short.

And FYI. Since its an MMO. What you do DOES affect me as well. Addons like DBM trivialize raid content. Who needs situational awareness, encounter knowledge, or ability when BIG LETTERS SCROLL ACROSS THE SCREEN LIKE THIS AND SAY, "LEFT FOOT GREEN! RIGHT HAND BLUE. MOVE TO CORNER!

Its practically automation. And since I am not soloing the raid when nearly all other 20 people who I cant force not to use addons are using it in order to make it far easier. It ends up Ezmoding the content for me as well.

So yes. What you do in an MMO does in fact effect my experience of the game. Because its a F@#! MMO.

No wonder the genre is going downhill. Argh.

Perhaps a 25 day grind is short for you, but there are those of us that value our time a little more than that. I honestly don't see why anyone would argue in favor of longer grinds unless they were trolling.

And regarding DBM: there are some guilds that tackle content without any mods/reading any guides. Perhaps you should check them out if you are so disgusted with the current situation? Or heck, if you really like the old broken mechanics so much, quit wow and start playing one of those antiquated Korean MMOs that haven't evolved at all in the past ten years.

Snipped since it's quoted directly above this post, anyway.

This is exactly what I would've said.
Either way, whether you want to go the financial route or the intellectual route, casual games are showing companies that big-budget games and hardcore gamers may not be the most profitable market. Nintendo realized this years ago and Reggie Fils-Aime gave his infamous "the hardcore gamer will no longer be our target demographic" speech.

I still don't see why hardcore games are "the intellectual route". There are plenty of intellectual/artsy casual games as well.

Another factor that I think makes casual games dangerous is the cost of production. A game like Mass Effect or Bioshock can take years of work and millions of dollars to produce, and will only make a profit once per copy plus revenue from DLC. A game like Farmville, however, can easily be created by a single person with a relatively inexpensive toolkit, and the end product, although technically free, can keep massive streams of revenue constantly pouring in from the huge consumer base.

Wait, what wrong with small budget, one-man teams? Hasn't Minecraft already shown us that this type of developer can create some pretty good games?

And RE Angry Birds vs Mass Effect: What percentage of each developer's efforts do you think went to gameplay as opposed to graphics/etc? I daresay Angry Birds devoted a higher percent of their budget to gameplay than Mass Effect did.

Yea, no way. No chance in freaking hell. Are you high? Angry Birds has one gameplay mechanic. ONE. Between the shooter elements, ability usage, teamwork with your squad, managing weapons/armor/upgrades, the conversation wheel, etc, there's no logical basis for you to claim that Mass Effect has the same amount of gameplay elements or gameplay depth as Angry Birds. If that's your best pro-casual argument, then I'm afraid you lost this little debate before you started.

As far as the actual percentage of development budget that went into gameplay, well it's not hard to dedicate 50% of it when your total budget is $10. Percentages are not an accurate reflection of the work put into a game or its gameplay elements. Looking at actual total spending on gameplay is a better way to determine how the games ended up like they did.

And the funny thing about it is that Angry Birds doesn't even have original gameplay. It stole everything it is directly from a flash game called Crush the Castle. A game that was originally free.

Casual games are a far cry from being on par even with old SNES games in terms of gameplay. Which is why they have the potential to be so damaging to the industry. They're a complete de-evolution of how far gaming has come, and yet they have the potential to give developers their highest profit margins.

Woah woah, did you completely lose track of what we were talking about?

I originally said it would be cool if the whole industry became more like casual games (less of a focus on graphics, higher focus on gameplay). I never said Angry Birds has better gameplay than ME2.

Of course a game with a $40 mil budget is going to spend more money overall on gameplay than a $100,000 game. My point is, wouldn't it be great if these big budget games spent as high a proportion on gameplay as these smaller games did?

 

[boholikeu]

Bah, double post. I'm sorry.

 

[GotMalkAvian]

Woah woah, did you completely lose track of what we were talking about?

I originally said it would be cool if the whole industry became more like casual games (less of a focus on graphics, higher focus on gameplay). I never said Angry Birds has better gameplay than ME2.

Of course a game with a $40 mil budget is going to spend more money overall on gameplay than a $100,000 game. My point is, wouldn't it be great if these big budget games spent as high a proportion on gameplay as these smaller games did?

Okay. I can completely agree that some casual games are wonderful games made by talented people, and it would be great if the entire gaming industry worked by that model. However, our fear doesn't lie with Angry Birds or Minecraft, but with things like the hundreds of Farmville clones raking in ridiculous amounts of money on Facebook. A lot of casual games are designed solely to be addictive, to appeal to mass audiences, and to keep people paying tiny increments into the game for as long as possible.

I present the following cracked.com article:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html

It focuses mainly on Farmville and WoW. The changes that WoW has undergone from its earliest days are showing the ear marks of casual gaming influence. The game has gotten more accessible, more demanding of time, and micro transactions have been added.

 

[TheDooD]

I enjoyed reading this topic because I want to be a game designer myself. So getting an understanding of how many different gamers think is something I'm interested in.

Basically we all started out as casual gamers its just most of us as kids was open to playing a lot of games. When I was a kid I played Dragon Quest, Contra, Batman, Cobra Triangle, Bionic Commando plus many others. When I was bit older I was playing Vectorman, Mortal Kombat and Streets of Rage like it was nothing and arcade games like Raiden 2 were easy for me. Yet I was still casual for years. I became "hardcore" more or less after I got into my retro piracy, dojin games and mugen in the past 5-6 years. I was able to play and experiment with so many games. Some I remembered and many others were a truly new experience for me. I truly felt like a kid again

Then I was able to play games I never had a chance to play like many SNK, Capcom, Psikyo and Cave games. I found out I liked those games. SNK made me a lifelong fanboy of Metal Slug and King of Fighters. Capcom got me into Darkstalkers, and the 1940 shmups. CAVE and Psikyo reignited my love for shmups because it reminded me as that 7 year old kid playing Raiden 2 for the first time.

I can get really deep in this subject but it was my casual love for older games is what made me a "diehard" or "hardcore" fan of those games. It's that the atmosphere of gaming today is thick, wide spread, brutal and focused on money. So much harder for a child or a adult who have no experience to get into gaming. There's a need for games that appeal to a younger and or less experienced crowd. The bad thing is like many here have said it's EASY to rip these games off an stagnate the market. Shovelware and Bootleg games are one of the cancers upon the gaming world. Another cancer is the greed of the market. I'm all for making money but when you're just making something just to leech money off people then making something that can stand out on its own years down the road as something groundbreaking in my the smallest amount its a good thing.

Another reason why the greed of the market is bad because most of us if we're able to make a game we'll do it for damn near free. It's that gaming started out as an indie thing that a small group of people could do. Yet now its a multi million dollar thing, yes the millions allow high quality looking games but that make a good game. Most of us would claim the best game(s) ever made were during the SNES - PS2 eras and those games didn't take ten's of millions to create. So why can't games be produced at that level now its simply greed.

I can go on forever about this topic but I'll end it here sorry if I rambled a bit.

 

[Gralian]

I know this post wasn't directed at me, but it touched on the indie/casual debate we were having earlier.

Based on the above it seems that you define a casual game as a game that "promotes fun above art", but wouldn't this describe most games in general? How is this hurting the video game industry?

Not that it promotes fun per se, but that it promotes simplicity. Simplicity in design and mechanics. Take the tetris example. It looks simple, the rules are simple. Make lines with the blocks with the four or five variations of block that fall down randomly. It does get more complicated the longer it goes on for, but the core design of the game is simple. Take Zuma again. All you do is match coloured balls. That's it. Your avatar does not (for the most part) move, all you do is aim the mouse and click. You match blue to blue and red to red. You get the odd powerup, but the design and execution is simplistic.

Now take Bioshock, like we discussed earlier. It's not a simple game. There's moderate exploration as you search side passages for plasmids and ammo. You have the illusion of freedom due to the nature of linearity, but you can still explore a shop or something that's off the beaten path to scavenge for supplies. The enemies behave differently. You have multiple ways to dispatch them, both in terms of guns and plasmids. But most significantly, the plasmids you choose to take with you significantly alter the way in which you play the game, enter combat, and deal with puzzles.

Both games are fun (subjective to whether the person playing them considers either one to be fun) but with one very marked difference between them. Zuma is simple, Bioshock is not.

It is this simplicity that can have an adverse effect on video games. I think the core audience craves a more complex experience. This is why copies of shooters have a 'gimmick'. The reason we have, say, the time manipulation trick in Timeshift and Singularity is because the core audience is not entirely satisfied with the bare-bones Doom 3 clone. They want something more out of it. For Halo, i would say the gimmick would be the shielding that the player and tougher enemies have. It doesn't have to be a big gimmick, but it's something that makes the game more than "pull trigger, kill enemy". Halo is not call of duty; you have to deal a lot of punishment to kill things, but you can take a lot of punishment as well. The mindset between playing Call of Duty, where few bullets can kill you online, is far removed from that of halo, where you empty a veritable barrage of bullets into each other before someone is dead.

Casual games may also have a gimmick going for them, but that is all they have going for them. Where non-casual games shine is in the ability to not rely solely on their gimmick. In the case of shooters, you have an option of various guns, you examine your environment to determine where to take cover, you decide who's a priority target. More than just the base mechanics of the game are required to fully engage the player. You may have to think five moves ahead in Tetris to avoid a game over, but you're still looking at a single screen of falling blocks. The core audience demands more than this. Diverse environments, engaging characters, and things that only outlandish production values can produce and push the boundaries of. By demanding improvement over refinement, we do not become stationary. Where i will play the devil's advocate, however, is saying that the need for refinement to please the casual audience may work in the favour of the industry as a whole. It's like an Alfa Romeo. It might be good to look at, but the car breaks down so often that it's just not practical. Casuals demand refinement, the core audience demand improvement. A balance must be sought, i think, to maintain a healthy status quo.

-snip-

By this definition, Halo and Call of Duty and any games that rip them off are casual games.

Don't quote somebody, then make a statement about what that person said without evidence in the actual quote to back it up.

It's unbelievably annoying. I can't even refute this because i don't know what you are referring to that i said specifically.

 

[Delusibeta]

-snip-

By this definition, Halo and Call of Duty and any games that rip them off are casual games.

Don't quote somebody, then make a statement about what that person said without evidence in the actual quote to back it up.

It's unbelievably annoying. I can't even refute this because i don't know what you are referring to that i said specifically.

OK then. I was referring to all of it, but your definition specifically: "the gaming equivalent to anti-intellectualism".

 

[Gralian]

OK then. I was referring to all of it, but your definition specifically: "the gaming equivalent to anti-intellectualism".

Thank you.

I understand what you mean, it's difficult to draw a parallel with anti-intellectualism and casual games without thinking of the typical 'frat boy' image that surrounds the Halo and Call of Duty fanbase. However, the central theme of my argument was around the game mechanics and concept as opposed to the fanbase and demographic. The two are very much separate and often get blurred together whenever someone brings up this sort of argument. For more clarification on my position on this, read the above post that discusses simplicity in casual gaming compared to the mechanics behind a shooter. It is the central core ideas, concept, execution and presentation that marks casual games as being harbingers of 'anti-intellectualism'. I feel this is how the core audience feels towards casual games. "Oh, look how utterly simplistic the design and exeuction of this game is. How terribly one-dimensional. It doesn't deserve to be held under the same light as this million-dollar shooter / RPG / open world game, with it's diverse environments, engaging character interaction or riveting story. Look, in this game, all you do is match colours or make lines from blocks. How very basic."

 

[Delusibeta]

OK then. I was referring to all of it, but your definition specifically: "the gaming equivalent to anti-intellectualism".

Thank you.

I understand what you mean, it's difficult to draw a parallel with anti-intellectualism and casual games without thinking of the typical 'frat boy' image that surrounds the Halo and Call of Duty fanbase. However, the central theme of my argument was around the game mechanics and concept as opposed to the fanbase and demographic. The two are very much separate and often get blurred together whenever someone brings up this sort of argument. For more clarification on my position on this, read the above post that discusses simplicity in casual gaming compared to the mechanics behind a shooter. It is the central core ideas, concept, execution and presentation that marks casual games as being harbingers of 'anti-intellectualism'. I feel this is how the core audience feels towards casual games. "Oh, look how utterly simplistic the design and exeuction of this game is. How terribly one-dimensional. It doesn't deserve to be held under the same light as this million-dollar shooter / RPG / open world game, with it's diverse environments, engaging character interaction or riveting story. Look, in this game, all you do is match colours or make lines from blocks. How very basic."

Honestly? Fallacy. There are "casual" games that are, in my opinion, deeper than Call of Duty and similar games. Examples: Tidalis and Meteos. In both games, there are multiple mechanics that can radically change the gameplay (e.g. Sun & Moon mode in Tidalis, and some of the planets in Meteos), which is more than can be said for Call of Duty.

 

[Gralian]

There are "casual" games that are, in my opinion, deeper than Call of Duty and similar games. Examples: Tidalis and Meteos. In both games, there are multiple mechanics that can radically change the gameplay (e.g. Sun & Moon mode in Tidalis, and some of the planets in Meteos), which is more than can be said for Call of Duty.

That depends. There needs to be an objective opinion on what is 'deep' in order to draw a line on this, and i'm absolutely not going to say my own opinion is objective, but i will say this. When you play a Call of Duty game, you're constantly presented with decisions. Do you take a short range weapon? One with a scope? Dual wield, or single sidearm? Do you throw a grenade now? Do you save it? Who should you kill first? Where should you take cover? What's a priority?

But i understand that's just me being a pedant and trying to reach for something to back up my point in a fairly cheap way. Extra Credits used a similar argument to this during their video on Missile Command, and i have to say, you can dress it up all you like with 'morality' about who lives and dies and so forth, but that hasn't changed my impression of it being nothing more than a simplistic game; it's a trope you could probably apply to anything, casual or not. "When i play bejeweled, should i move this gem or this gem? It's all about choices!"

However, i would like to point out two things. Firstly, that on a purely shallow level, the aesthetic design and technical level is one of the fundamental aspects about 'core' games that seperate them from the simplicity of casual games. Say you hate the gritty grey shooters of yester-year if you like, but at the end of the day, they're far more detailed than a frog on a lilipad or different coloured gems. Secondly, i've not heard of those games, but they sound a lot like "indie" games rather than "casual" games to me. If you read my other posts, i went into a lengthy discussion about what seperates "indie" games from "casual" games. Limbo is an "indie" game for its depth in both mechanics and artistic direction. Zuma is a casual game for its pick up and play nature, simplistic in both design and game mechanics. A casual game, to me, is one that must be easily accessible to someone who's played little (if any) video games before. Peggle is another good example. If a seemingly casual game goes beyond that and the mechanics become more advanced (and this point is exacerbated with titles that the mainstream will not have heard of), it reaches into the realms of the "indie genre", in which a developer will devote their time and money to creating brief, cheap, yet complex or artistic (or both) video games for a niche demographic.

 

[Delock]

Time to look at this from a different angle.

Gaming is a subculture. It has its own music, fashion, language, "ranks", social circles, and required amount of commitment. However, the term "gamer" isn't referring to the subculture's members, but rather to anyone who likes games (this is one of the ways it differs from other subcultures). "Hardcore" gamers are those who listen to the music, learn the language, associate with other "hardcore" gamers, and/or show their commitment by continually staying on top of things. It's about being part of the group.

"Casual" gamers are those who don't even make it really into the right categories. They fit the term of gamers, but they go against a lot of the "hardcore" tendencies. They don't really learn the jokes or music, nor learn the language (this includes learning about companies and franchises, in addition to mechanics), nor show the same level of commitment (such as following news, buying a console, or just regularly staying on top of things).

You could associate it with other subcultures having their own "poseurs" (a term coined by subcultures for this sort of person, before it became more commonly used to refer to anyone who pretends to be someone they're not, which can overlap with this, but "poseur" has a much broader range) or being part of a separate group that overlaps with the subculture in terms of medium preference, such as what a pop-lover would be to a metal-head. Both listen to music, but the pop-lover is often looked down upon by the metal-head, while the metal-heads' deviance (yes, metal is still considered a form of deviance. Just because it is much more popular and accepted doesn't mean it's considered normal) is uncomfortable for most pop-lovers.

In other words, "casual" is considered offensive to "hardcore" due to the fact that it rubs up against the subculture but doesn't enter it, and this is completely natural for a subculture. The biggest problem is that people don't recognize that what was once a hobby has turned into a subculture over time, and so people continue to treat the issue as if it is obsessives vs normal people.

(It's also important to note that casual here has it's place as part of the sampling routine most people do when looking for what subculture they feel they belong to)



However looking at things another way, you could also look at this as people discovering art for the first time vs. long time masters (no, this isn't a games are art rant. Just follow the metaphor already). The newcomers start off with simple stuff, like doodles, while the masters are used to much more difficult items, such as a painting. It's offensive to masters to group their work in the same category as the doodle, so they devised "ranks" for their art. It's perfectly natural for someone to start at the bottom (or anywhere if it comes naturally), and to move their way up if they take a liking to it (it's also just fine to stick to doodles rather than investing in art supplies and learning), but the bottom rung of the ladder associating themselves with the top by insisting to be called artists (which they are) causes things a bit of animosity. You also tend to think of artists as being those at the top, and even have a bit of problem applying the label to those at the bottom.


There's nothing bad about casual, and it has it's place, but it will rub hardcore the wrong way just by its nature.

 

[Manji187]

It's bad because in the end it's an influence that "pulls down" instead of "lifts up": less depth, less immersion, less reflective thinking.

Sure, you can still have fun with some of those games....but they won't make you cry, or reflect on what it means to be a human being.

Simple fast fun is easy...it's the short, broad, flat, well-traveled road whereas that what truly matters, what has actual meaning...that is the long, steep, narrow, winding and a lot less-traveled one.