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Casual gaming


wildfire
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I was thinking about this yesterday, as I was playin Tekken 6. I haven't playded it in a while, and I got to one of the later stages and just kept getting my ass kicked over and over again, and it was so frustrating that I got to the point at which I had to turn off the game before I threw the controller. I then picked up my ds and started playing Picross 3d. It was such swift mood change, and it made me realize that casual games are awesome sometimes. I still feel they have a stigma against them, and are still not considered "real" games, and people who play them seem less respected than "real" gamers. I love casual games though, especially when I get homefrom work, cause the last thing I'd want when I get home from a long day is for a game to stress me out. Being stressed isn't very fun for me, and the whole purpose of games is to have fun.

What do you think? Are casual games any less respectable than other genres? Do you think there's still some prejudice against people who play casual games?

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honestly for me it's hard to know the difference.

It depends on the player i believe,I can sit and play something like Geoemtry wars evovled for hours on end without an ounce of frustration, (even though a lot of people consider that game tough as nails)

and its the same for everything else peggle ,tetris, world of warcraft even.

I've always considered myself as hardcore-casual(I'm pretty serious about having fun :P)

Because well for me the moment the game becomes frustrating It breaks for me,

If I'm not having fun then there is no point in playing.

Now i do get frustrated at times. (I'm not some kind of Dalli Lama of gaming here :P)

But i set it down until i cool off.

If your playing frustrated, first of all your not having fun, and secondly your going to get sloppy and make mistakes and rash decisions(and make yourself even more frustrated)

So I guess everything is a casual game to me.

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I don't play casual games, but I play games casually. Old games, anyway. The last new generation game I cared about was Mortal Kombat vs. DC. I've been far too guitar centric to care about new games, mainly because those take a lot more investment of time than new games do. I've been sticking to classic games for almost two years. I've been on a real Turbografx-16 binge lately.

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I don't think there is any stigma attached to casual games at all, if by casual games you mean things like Peggle, Tetris or Bejeweled. The stigma (IMO) is now with "social" games like FarmVille or Mafia Wars. That's because 'games' like these rely on cheap psychological tricks to hook users and extort money from them. The CEO of Zynga (who produces many such games) literally admitted this almost word-for-word.

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The most addictive games to me are Picross DS and Picross 3D. I've completed all the puzzles in both of them and I've started over. I can easily sink hours into them without thinking about it. Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee also.

And all of my favorite games are usually on portable systems, cause I like to watch TV while I play, so a lot of the games I play are ones that I only need half of my attention for.

Oh and I've recently been playing Pokemon Soul Silver, mainly cause Pokemon games kinda lend themselves to multitasking while playing.

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I despise terms like "casual" and "hardcore" to describe games and gamers. They're nothing more than terms made up so people can separate themselves from the games/gamers they don't want to be associated with for whatever self-serving reasons.

They're video games. And if you play them, you're a gamer. Period. Saying you're "hardcore" doesn't make you cooler in any way, shape or form, and saying you just play "casual" games doesn't make you any less of a gaming geek.

It's time people got over this retardation. If you play video games, accept the fact you're a gamer and move on.

Edit: Yes, this post comes off somewhat trollish. But after years of hearing those terms on the Web and in real life, it's simply reached the point where I just want to strangle people. Those terms rank right up there with "real" when talking of gamers.

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Casual and hardcore are just buzz words used by marketing and the gaming press to sell stuff.

All that matters is that a game is fun. Whether that fun is achieved by playing Hexic or Gears of War is all up to the end user.

This, "Casual" games is essential the game industry's way of saying retarded games, and "Hardcore", being what a bunch of high minded game makers describe their "cinematic" quality games.

I've been enjoying more and more of the games that have a more arcade style, I find them more satisfying...

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What kind of cheap psychological tricks are unique to Farmville/Mafia Wars that are not unique to most other games like Bejeweled or Peggle? (or World of Warcraft, or Heroes of Newerth or Team Fortress 2 or Mass Effect)

There are a lot of articles online about this; I've read a number on the topic, but often times I end up clicking links within the article (or at the end) to other websites and don't bookmark them or remember who the author is. I suggest starting at www.Sirlin.net and reading his GDC articles, as well as the talk by Jesse Schell which he links to, and the response to that piece. There are elements of external rewards in games like WoW, but Farmville's design literally revolves around getting the user hooked on external rewards and encouraging them to spend as much money as possible to get such rewards.

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A lot of times, the line between casual and hardcore blurs. Halo is probably a good example. It's hardcore when it needs to be, but casual when the situation is right (such as during a party).

I think dividing games up into hardcore and casual overlooks a lot of the nuances of individual games. Is Final Fantasy VII casual because it had wide appeal? And to that end, is World of Warcraft a casual game due to its general accessibility (I'm assuming on this one; never played WoW myself).

It seems the problem with these categories is that casual is too narrow and hardcore is too broad (despite the fact that it seems that many more casual games are being released these days). Casual is basically any Wii shovelware, most kids movie-tie-in games, and anything else intended to have that grandma appeal. In other words, the epitome of a casual game is actually Toy Story: Midway Mania.

On the other hand, hardcore games include basically every genre out there. God of War is hardcore, and so is Final Fantasy XIII. But other games are also hardcore under this classification; basically anything released by NIS America (Mana Khemia, Atelier Iris, etc.) is hardcore because they have little grandma appeal. At the same time, so is Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Galaxy, Metroid, and Zelda. In other words, any game that foregoes cheap gimmicks likely classifies as "hardcore" whether or not it actually is.

So to end my little analysis, I don't think these words are ever truly used appropriately because their scope is either overinclusive or underinclusive (or sometimes both).

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Picross DS isn't a casual game.

It's a puzzle game.

Why don't we call them puzzle games anymore? That shit is not casual at all. Some puzzle games are mind-bending.

That's what I've always wondered. Many "casual" games seem to just be puzzle games at heart. The term fit for everything like them from the 8-bit era to the 128-bit era, so...

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Picross DS isn't a casual game.

It's a puzzle game.

Why don't we call them puzzle games anymore? That shit is not casual at all. Some puzzle games are mind-bending.

I guess, in my situation, I feel like it's a casual game, and more generally that I'm a casual gamer, because of my living situation. I'm a girl living in a house with 3 guys, so I already feel like a bit of an outsider, and it doesn't help when they're playing MW2 online with their friends while I'm playing Pokemon and other kid-ish games.

But the thing is, my favorite games are ones that aren't realistic. I like cartoony games, cute games, puzzle games, stuff like that. I think I like the nostalgia of playing games that remind me of the stuff I liked when I was a kid.

I realize I'm still a gamer, but there's so many different types that it makes it seem like I still don't properly fit in with the people I know.

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