Casual gamers are characterized by the ones that play games because they are bored. There may not even be a conscious decision to play a game. The game maybe just sitting on a table. You see it, you pick it up, you start playing it. They are designed as if they are waiting room magazines.

Casual gamers do not list gaming as a hobby.

They don't prefer gaming to other activities to kill time.

They don't understand the term "hit-point".

They couldn't name the game they played.

They don't look forward to playing any particular game.

They don't regret never playing that same game again.

In this end of the spectrum, casual games sit at the same rank as a plate of mixed nuts, a stack of magainzes, a riddle book, a coloring book, some toys, a transformer, or a wooden puzzle offered in a waiting room.

The players didn't buy the games. The buyer of the game is the host of the location.

This is the extreme end of casual gaming. Starting from this end of the spectrum you get the other games as they get more serious.

Note the observed paradox where when a player starts to enjoy a specific game, they move away from the casual player definition. So casual games has a property where they eject their targeted audience. Another way to think about it is that they may transist a player for more casual player to a more serious player. However, transisting a player for more serious gaming need not be a goal in the desgin of a casual game.

They are not necessarily a 'lite' version of something more complex.



An example:

You are at a waiting room and there is a table-top window. There is a dungeon&dragon character that is walking in the dungeon controlled by the AI. The character is wandering in the dungeon and avoiding the monsters. When an encounter is inevitable, the character fights. Sometimes it wins, sometime it loses. If you are just watching it, it would look like a screen saver, but you also notice that the AI hero does not pick up any new weapon or open chests to loot. When your hand moves over the screen (again, the screen is flat on the table, you have a top view of the dungeon, although most of the dungeon is dark), the hero can see and follow the direction of the movement (think futuristic interfaces). When you tap on a weapon on the floor, the hero would pick it up and change weapon (and open chests as directed).

When you start interacting with the table, you are playing the game. This makes you a gamer eventhough you may not play games normally.

You continued to direct the hero to open chests and get weapons. Then you just watch.

Now, another visitor came. He is sitting opposite from you. He also sees the on-going adventure and waved his hand over the table. Portions of the dark screen near him lighted up showing a sleeping hero in one hallway and a sleeping monster in another. Tapping on one of them would wake one up and it would be assigned to the second player.

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Original post by Kest Quote: Original post by Way Walker After a long day, I'll be less motivated to really push at a particular problem (whether in a game or otherwise) and so may desire to play casually the game that I was drilling at yesterday. My point is that it's not impossible for a gamer to play casually and drill at the game at the same time. You might not do it, but others do. I'm starting to question whether even motivation is related. I think it's entirely possible to be highly motivated while playing casually. You fire some random game up, get heavily engaged in it, give it everything you've got, lose horribly, cuss at the screen, turn off the console, then go do something more productive. Casual gaming.

I would say that shows a lack of motivation. The player was presented with a challenge they don't have the motivation to continue to try to overcome.

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Quote: Also, from what I've read of your posts, you like games. Who would want to waste time making games for people who don't like games?

Lack of intonation is a problem. A better word choice would've been "love". The point was you seem to find games intrinsically interesting, just because they're "games".

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Quote: I like beer and brewing. Because I have an interest in the thing itself, there's less effort involved in learning about it, so, even though I may be quite exhausted, I may pick up a relatively involved book on brewing. Exactly. Learning about it. Once the player knows exactly how to play, there's nothing we can do to make the game more casual that we shouldn't already be doing. Since we should already be making all games easy to learn, that's not an exclusive trait, either.

I think you're using a much shallower sense of "learning about it" than I was. The rules of checkers, chess, and go are all very simple and it doesn't take long to learn t

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Street Fighter makes an excellent example. The ease (or difficulty) of learning how to perform a dragon punch at the blink of an eye is completely unrelated to the possible complexity of using a dragon punch to win a fight. One is learning how to play a game, the other is using strategy, foresight, and reaction time to subdue an opponent. The complexity of the gameplay does not need to depend on the complexity of the learning curve.

I'm counting the complexity of using a dragon punch to win a fight as part of the complexity of the game since accessibility only depends on the complexity, not whether it's in the rules themselves or the implications of those rules.

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Quote: Every author tries to make the plot as easy as possible to follow, but some plots are just complex. To make it simpler may require losing an important character development. If gameplay or enjoyment hinges on facts of this plot, then make those facts readily accessible whenever they might be needed. Otherwise, I don't see how a complex plot would be disruptive of casual play.

I was making an analogy to books, not game plot.

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Original post by Way Walker Quote: Original post by Kest Quote: Original post by Way Walker After a long day, I'll be less motivated to really push at a particular problem (whether in a game or otherwise) and so may desire to play casually the game that I was drilling at yesterday. My point is that it's not impossible for a gamer to play casually and drill at the game at the same time. You might not do it, but others do. I'm starting to question whether even motivation is related. I think it's entirely possible to be highly motivated while playing casually. You fire some random game up, get heavily engaged in it, give it everything you've got, lose horribly, cuss at the screen, turn off the console, then go do something more productive. Casual gaming. I would say that shows a lack of motivation. The player was presented with a challenge they don't have the motivation to continue to try to overcome.

Agreed. They didn't have enough motivation to try again, but they did have enough motivation to give it everything they had the first time around. I'm just saying that casual play doesn't necessarily mean idle/unbothered play.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to find a casual player totally flipping out on his couch while trying to win a fighting/racing/sports game. Even to the point that other gamers in the room tell him not to take it so seriously.

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Quote: Quote: Also, from what I've read of your posts, you like games. Who would want to waste time making games for people who don't like games? Lack of intonation is a problem. A better word choice would've been "love". The point was you seem to find games intrinsically interesting, just because they're "games".

There's no denying that. But I would suggest that one doesn't need to love the idea of games in order to love individual moments with games. Casual players can love to play games, possibly even more than I do, during those moments.

My theory is that casual players just don't get enough of the parts they enjoy to evolve into more devoted gamers. That doesn't mean hardcore. It just means not so casual.