Some Thoughts on Casual Play

I finished reading and reviewing the book on Casual Play that I mentioned last week. The author argues his point well that casual players outnumber hard core gamers and that this may represent a revolution of sorts in video game design. However, despite the increasing use of casual games, I don't think hard core games are going anywhere. That is to say that I think this segment of the industry will continue to thrive and continue to grow. At the same time I would also acknowledge that the casual segment may well thrive more and grow faster. I think a couple of analogies are in order to explain this.

The first analogy which I used in the review said that you cannot judge the audience for performing art simply by considering those who attend Broadway plays. There is also an audience for shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and while the later audience may not be as lofty as the former it dwarfs the former in terms of numbers and revenue generation. One end of the market is where the art is advanced. The other end of the market is where it is exploited. Both ends are important to a vital industry. So designers who serve the hard core audience will continue to advance the state of the art while casual game designers will continue to broaden the audience.

The second analog which I mentioned in the review but did not explore was the comparison between hard core gamers versus casual players on one hand and command line users versus those who prefer graphical user interfaces. There is still a use for command line interfaces and there is stil a hard core audience who prefers them. However, graphical user interfaces expands the audience and makes computers available to a large number of people who would never use them if they had to learn how to use the command line. I think this comparison is apt because, overwhelmingly, most potential video game players will not invest the time and intellectual energy required to play hard core games. They will, however, play games that are effortless to play and represent diversion and entertainment.

On one hand it is exciting to see the field of video games grow and expand and become more complex. However, from a research perspective, it becomes increasing more difficult to make any statements that are true for all video games. We may get back to Wittgenstein's family resemblances and see video games as collection of overlapping concepts that do not have any attributes in common across all categories.