Casual Gaming Redux
May 23rd, 2007Game Producer has an interesting post up taking a closer look at casual games. The author makes a number of points, but a few elements in particular stood out for me.
First off, casual games have always seemed to me to be some variant of Uno or backgammon or some such parlor game. But the most popular casual games aren’t simply translations of board games any more. Instead, they’re really forming their own mini-genres, a whole sub-category of simplistic actions that can form their own experiences:
“These genres are selling now, and developers and portals are catering for them. When somebody comes up with a better (simple) idea… there will be switch in genres. Match-3 type of games are not so popular anymore, although there are some of them still selling.”
When you can actually analyze the popular variants, the genre is really taking off.
The parallels to the Wii are fairly obvious - but the most interesting piece here is that the Wii is drawing both Nintendo fans (who come for the franchises) and grandparents (who are coming because the gameplay is so simple). The thing the Wii is missing, though, is a strong online solution: the quick changes in casual game trends and the fact that games are too cheap to bother packaging and selling through traditional channels means that they’re just screaming out for digital distribution. I don’t see the Wii expanding into this space till it can come up with such an alternative.
I will quibble with the idea that adventure game fans would benefit from a closer look at casual games. Adventure gamers are looking, I think, for the combination of two things: interesting puzzles, and an engaging story to act as a set piece for those puzzles. While such games often degenerate into simple inventory-based fetch quests, that belies the fact that such elements are generally the most criticized parts of adventure games (because they too often require you to essentially read the developers’ minds). I found the most interesting part of The Awakened to be the fact that it was peppered with ciphers, cryptography, and other non-traditional puzzles.
Posted in Industry, PC, Wii |
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:49 pm
right, the only thing pissing me off about nintendo….online. and f. codes.
PS: isnt WoW….casual gaming? AND hardcore? just a thought
May 24th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I think we can establish fairly reasonably that if this form of media continues, Nintendo will offer a more user-friendly online function.
And no more shall the dark clutches of the anti-N Empire reach out to the powerful, ignorant creatures that are called Media! Hence forth all shall know throughout the land that the Nintendo Rebels have finally shed themselves of their greatest flaw and moved in to position to reclaim the throne and return the world to a time of learning and innovation by ending the XB-PS dark age once and for all!
Excuse me, uhmm…
Yeah, that was a little over dramatic I guess…maybe….
May 24th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
the wii cant really store much inside of it memory wise leaving an option of digital distro pretty remote
May 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Papamook - that’s true, but you’d think that there could be some sort of flash solution that would work here. After all, games of the type we’re discussing aren’t exactly big.
May 25th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
The Wii has an SD slot, and 8GB SD cards are available for $80, and will continue to come down. 4-8GB would be plenty space to download some casual games, especially since you can just delete them and re-download them whenever you want (presumably).
May 25th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I have a 1GB Wii SC card that says you can back up VC games on it.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I have a 1GB Wii SD card that says you can back up VC games on it.
May 25th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I’d expect that a successful online market would require storage hardware to already be in place and not an additional purchase, especially when the majority of casual games are downloaded by mums I’d also assume that not a large percentage of those mum’s would own an SD card of any significant size. Of course I could be wrong!