Nowadays, casual games are big business. While the big three have certainly not forgotten the core, they have been increasingly focusing on the casual market. Just look at Nintendo. Casual games have helped to propel that company to the forefront of the video game industry. However, what exactly is a casual game?
Of course, casual games are more simplistic in nature than their hardcore counterparts. They are more accessible and are therefore able to be enjoyed by a wider audience. However, there seems to be some confusion over game length equating to casual status. Many, companies and consumers alike, believe that casual games should be shorter in length and hardcore games longer in length. However, there are plenty of short games out there that are certainly not casual. Call of Duty 4 for instance was a relatively short game, but was anything but casual.
I find it a bit disconcerting that so many companies tout their games as having 30, 40, 50 or more hours of gameplay. Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360 spans four disks and will last gamers approximately 50-60 hours. The problem I have with games like this is that I simply don’t have the time to play them. I would love to play Lost Odyssey. I like JRPGs and Lost Odyssey’s story sounds intriguing to me. However, I simply don’t have 50-60 hours to invest in one game.
Just because I don’t have as much time to play doesn’t mean that I am a casual gamer. I play games like Call of Duty, Metroid, Zelda, Mass Effect, Bioshock and many more. While it is alright to have a few games that hit the 50-60 hour mark, I don’t think that game length alone should be an indicator of quality or status. I would much rather pay for a great 10 hour experience than for a 50-60 hour experience that I probably won’t be able to finish. While a game like Lost Odyssey may be great, I don’t want to be stuck playing it for weeks on end. With a game like Call of Duty 4, I could beat it maybe on a weekend and then be able to start playing a new game. I want to be able to experience different games and having to play a game for 50-60 hours prevents me from being able to do that.
Video games require more time investment than any other medium. With a TV show or movie, you sit down for a couple of hours and that’s it. However, with video games, you must invest significantly more time in order to get the whole experience. Does this mean that I want games to last only two hours? Of course not. Although, I must admit that Portal (which lasted only 2-3 hours) was one of the best games I’ve played in a long time.
As I’m sure many students like myself can attest, we can’t play as often as we’d like. Sometimes we can only afford to play for half an hour here and there. This doesn’t mean that we’re casual gamers, but just that we don’t have as much time to play as we might like.
Games like Wii Sports and Brain Age are most definitely targeted at the casual audience. People can play them for a few minutes a day and don’t have to learn complex controls and rules, they can just start playing. However, you can just as easily play Call of Duty 4 for a few minutes a day, but this doesn’t mean that its casual.
Having a game that lasts 10 hours, or even three in Portal’s case does not mean that the game is of poor quality, just as having a 50-60 hour game doesn’t equate with higher quality. While casual games may be in the spotlight now, let’s not forget about the players who, although they may be part of the core audience, don’t have quite as much time to game as they used to. Valve is doing an excellent job catering to these gamers through their episodic content. Instead of offering gamers a 20 hour experience every four or five years, Valve is instead giving gamers shorter experiences on a much more frequent basis. I’m glad to see that developers are finally starting to break away from the mindset that if they’re making a hardcore game, it needs to be long. Finally, hardcore gamers are starting to get a little more variety in their games.
Filed under: Nintendo, Technology, Video Games, Wii, Xbox 360 Tagged: | Bioshock, Brain Age, Call of Duty 4, casual games, JRPG, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect, Metroid, Nintendo, Portal, Wii Sports, Xbox 360, Zelda
