Hardcore casual gamers
It really shouldn’t be surprising that studies are showing that so-called “casual gamers” are hardcore about their game. Playing casual games isn’t about a choice of timespan; people who have hobbies devote the time they want to their hobbies. Interruptibility may be a factor, but far more important is whether they enjoy what they are doing.
At bottom, the cognitive demands placed on players by casual games versus say an FPS or an RTS are just different usually. Casual gamers can get hardcore about Bejeweled just as stamp collectors can get hardcore about what is essentially a classification task, or just as rowers can get hardcore about sculling at 4am on a river.
Different games for different sorts of people — not “lighter engagement.”
The reason, of course, that the industry tends to label these casual is that to the hardcore gamer, the simpler rulesets of the casual games look like, well, a hotdog does to a gourmet, the way Boone’s Farm looks to an oenophile, the way Billy Joel looks to a fan of Bach.
These days, a lot more folks listen to Billy Joel. (In fact, we could do the math, but I would not be surprised if more people have listened to Billy Joel than to Bach, in all of history). Simplicity is not a bad thing; it just may not be to the taste of those who prefer their entertainment rococo.
12 Responses to “Hardcore casual gamers”
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Original post:Hardcore casual gamers by at Google Blog Search: gamers
I happen to like my hotdog, but prefer Ben Folds Five for the piano. It’s a good point and the comparison to stamp collecting really drives it home for me. Casual games are not simple games for simple people who can’t handle the complexity of a real game — they are just a different sort of interaction that isn’t geared the same way.
When you get rid of the graphical chrome, a depressing number of “hardcore” games are not really that deep or rich. Is Go a “casual game” because you can write its rules in less than a page?
Casual (computer) games is more a statement about the size of the development team, not the depth or quality of the game.
I agree that casual gaming is just another style of gaming but I do think that one can make some generalities about lesser “depth” in casual studiesand this study isn’t refuting any claims about “depth” and casual games. It is talking about time-investment. Casual game players invest plenty of time playing casual games (in this case >2 hours per game session) but tend to do so in very accessible/simple games.
Go, the game, can be explained with very few rules but actually has a very high barrier to entry if one plays it against even moderately skilled players. As such it’s not very casual. I think learning curves, accessibility and rate of reward/success are really what we’re talking about when we talk about “casual”. A good casual game is one that doesn’t have a rule screen at all, let along strategy lessons — you can pick it up and play it immediately. It has a gentle learning curve and slowly introduces players to new strategies. And it regularly rewards even players who are not that bright.
And when I make that last statement it’s not a statement that casual players are on average stupid stupid. Rather I think that casual games target a broad audience and in order to do so they need to pay more attention to the broad skill levels of players from very smart to well, not very smart at all. Generally it is hard to find many successful casual games that will make you “lose” regularly. At most you may fail to achieve “expert” ratings on a level. In order to service a larger portion of the bell curve, casual titles have to reduce the potential for frustration from “poor” play.
I found the study (as reported) flawed in that it didn’t say that casual players played more than we thought, just that their play sessions were longer. How many average hours a week did they play vs. the non-casual? The article doesn’t say. Also, while some casual play sessions may be longer, was the average still shorter than non-casual? It didn’t say. Finally, I suspect that a lot of casual gamers, while maybe they did play more than just a quick 30 minutes, actually played 2 or 3 sessions over the course of an hour. So they’re still looking for a shorter gaming cycle, even if they’re engaged in repeating it for a substantial amount of time.
That latter is what I mean by “interruptibility.”
FWIW, in pre-CU SWG we found that sessions were typically much shorter than in the other MMORPGs, but that total hours spent were in the end larger. More smaller bites leading to more total time. I would not be at all surprised to see that pattern manifesting with many casual games.
It’s funny how these terms Hardcore and Casual are tossed around as if they are antonyms. At it’s heart it seems like Hardcore players are achivers who want to draw a line between themselves and others, while casual players want to have fun with as little time-related restrictions to that as possible. If you followed those links above, you might notice that casual has too different meanings that might apply when you call someone a “casual gamer”; One is “occasional” and the other is “nonchalant”. As such the player may be insulted by being called detached and uncaring.
[…] Comments […]
StGabe:
“Generally it is hard to find many successful casual games that will make you “lose” regularly.”
True. However, it’s impossible to find any MMO (for example) where you can “lose” at all. The “win” strategy is identical in each, and it’s “spend more time”. That can’t be all we have, surely?
I think it is appropriate to draw parallels between casual gaming and MMO’s. I’ve been doing so for a while and I think that that the audiences may start to mix more and more in the future.
In this case there are *some* MMO’s that penalize “losing”. One can lose up to months worth of work with a death in EVE Online, for example. But I think that in both casual games and MMO’s we are seeing that accessibility and the need to cater to wide ranges of players, with wide ranges of skill and tolerance for frustration generally requires that the more successful titles mitigate risks and potential losses and focus on continual progression and reward tracks (where WoW is for the most part).
It’s not what I would choose but I do see how it can be very effective.
“Statistical feeding frenzy?”~~I guess if you like the statistical equivalent of ice berg lettuce…..
Rather than rip that article’s author for bad analysis. Im just going to say that they should probably go to an Edward Tufte seminar and revisit thier college stats class textbook.
Anyhow…
“with wide ranges of skill and tolerance for frustration generally requires that the more successful titles mitigate risks and potential losses and focus on continual progression and reward tracks”
How much does different player expectations related to game come into play with this statement. Lets look at it from a labeling POV:
Casual vs Hardcore
Carebear vs Powergamer
(im not using these as derogitory terms merely highlighting what the percieved label means)
Games that support risk averse behaviors are not interesting to powergamer/hardcores, more specifically those into PVP, I’m going from my own perceptions and experiances here though. But Id be willing to bet any game that didnt include some level of social darwinism for the PVP achiever powergamers, would not be popular with this crowd. After all how many PVP’ers do you see playing SL?
On the flip side the “casual carebears” dont want to much of what Ive described above, just enough maybe so that from a comfortable spot well away from the violent heathens they can comment about thier barbarism (the cantina in SWG? :). But a game going to far in that direction is a turn off likewise for these people.
Whats interesting in player forums and fan sites when a large vocal (often minority) labels a game “carebear” or (the worst sin) accuses the devs of catering to the carebears/casuals. those are always funny threads to read…
I’m confused. So, what’s the definition of Hardcore vis-a-vis Casual? Or have we already decided there isn’t a difference?
I lose at Solitaire all the time, which may be the quintessential casual game. As far as Tetris goes, everyone loses eventually. Though on my old Apple //e I could keep the game up for hours, heh.
And I’m tired of people who look at “more time spent” as some kind of trivial solution. It’s not. Most things I’ve ever done that I’ve been proud of have been mostly about serious time commitment, whether it’s learning to play the piano, graduating with a good GPA, learning Bessel functions, getting promoted at work, or writing a good-quality history paper. Perseverence is a virtue well worth teaching.
And I know a lot of people who failed simply because they didn’t spend the time. Do you “die” if you don’t finish your senior thesis? Does someone track you down and fine you or put you in prison? No. You just…don’t succeed.
The fact is, if the current crop of MMOs are teaching people that if you stick with something in a productive way — yes, grinding — you’ll get rewarded, I say more power to ’em. And if the only “punishment” for “failure” is the absence of success, well, people need to learn that that’s something to be sorry about too. Failure to accomplish is a terrible thing, and it’s a big problem in this country today.
Now, is the “time spent” solution the only solution we can come up with? No, not at all. But it’s not fair to say it has no intrinsic merit; it’s just fallen out of fashion.