![\"casual](\"http:\/\/www.nexfinity.net\/danielprimed\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/casual-gaming-misconception.jpg\")
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You know something that really frustrates me beyond belief? When I am scrolling through an online message board and find gamers whom downright slag out the recent push for casual gaming. This new orientation of gaming has undeniably been receiving quite a lot of heat from a number of members within the ‘core’<\/em> gaming crowd. Especially among hardened Wii owners whom are feeling the pressure on their identities as gamers. You see, the truth is a lot of this hate is extremely misguided.<\/p>\n I’ve had this article in cold storage for at least a month now and it was only the other day that another couple of incidents occurred which reminded me of how important this issue is. So I want to tackle this issue head on and hopefully continue to report on and share my ideas on the topic. Please let me know what you think.<\/p>\n Casual gaming is essentially gaming made for casual gamers or non gamers, that is people who are new to or don’t play video games on a regular basis. Casual gaming in a way is designed to be the first stepping stone for new players onto the gaming scene.<\/p>\n It is generally accepted that casual games would consist of at least two or more of the following attributes:<\/p>\n But more importantly it has to successfully appeal and be easily enjoyable by new players. To further clarify what a casual game is here are some examples of games that fit this bill: So now that we know what casual gaming is all about lets dive into some misconceptions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I was writing about what defines a casual video game I realized just how problematic casual gaming is. As casual games have slowly expanded, gamers have had difficulty in classifying casual gaming and in many ways still don’t know how to handle this foreign concept. This is a similar issue with survival horror games. Some may regard casual gaming as a separate genre of its own. But as you may have realized, reading over what defines a casual game, casual games are not a genre of their own. Instead they are an orientation or style of games with a loose set of rules.<\/p>\n At this current stage casual gaming does not properly function as a genre. A genre has a set of attributes and in terms of video games all games with those respective attributes fall under that genre. So then lets try this out; Is Super Monkey Ball as a casual game?<\/p>\n The issue here is that if casual games were a genre then each game would have to be manually placed into that genre because there are attributes which make Wii Sports a distinctively casual game and Monkey Ball not so. Even though they both fit under the previous defined rules. One could argue that the attributes that define casual gaming as a genre would therefore need to be adherently more complex but then where do we draw the line in the sand? We can’t without getting messy.<\/p>\n If the previous paragraph confused or at least made your brain sweat then point in case. The difficulty in actually understanding what this casual gaming business is all about has been a strong contributor to the mess surrounding casual games. It opens the door for a lot of confusion and continual typecasting.<\/p>\n Out of all of the misconceptions this one probably holds the most water. The mass market nature of casual games ensures that there is a lot of money to be made for publishers of casual gaming and due to their simplistic nature it is cheap and easy to quickly create a successful casual video game. Even if the game is only a moderate success a lot of money a significant amount of money is made as production costs are kept down.<\/p>\n So as a result of these two things it becomes clear why some developers have seized the opportunity and released countless clones ripped from other, more successful titles or, on the flipside low quality casual games. This in turn has oversaturated the market. Its quite sad that in a genre<\/span> field where innovation and good game design is the key for a massively successful game that these other developers have come in and destroyed the casual gaming ecosystem.<\/p>\nWhat is Casual Gaming?<\/h3>\n
What Defines a Game a ‘Casual Game’?<\/h3>\n
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All Casual Games are This Type of Game<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nAll Casual Games are Bad Games<\/h3>\n
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The previous misconception follows directly into this one. To continue on; if Casual Games are<\/em> mostly of poor quality, polluting the gaming landscape then this is clearly a problem. A problem which all casual games are to blame for. Essentially as the title goes casual games are destroying the industry with their inferior, budget quality.<\/p>\n![\"zuma](\"http:\/\/www.nexfinity.net\/danielprimed\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/zuma.jpg\")
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