In recent years, casual
games have become an increasingly popular and important part of
the videogame landscape. Proponents argue that casual games both open
up new audiences for games and make new styles of games possible, but
the genre has largely floundered in copycat titles.
One reason for
this is a lack of imagination about what casual might mean. I
propose an alternative: casual games that players use and toss aside -- one play stands, serendipitous encounters never to be seen again.
What Is A Casual Game?
According to the IGDA
Casual Games white paper, casual games are “games
that generally involve less complicated game controls and overall
complexity in terms of gameplay or investment required to get through
game.” The group contrasts casual games with “hardcore” or
“core” or “traditional” games -- games “developed for and
delivered on a dedicated game console” that “involve more
complicated game controls and overall complexity in terms of gameplay
or investment required to get through game.”
The whitepaper’s
authors admit that “the typical casual gamer is hard to define”,
but suggests that the name characterizes “gamers who play games for
enjoyment and relaxation.” Casual games are less complex than core
games and require lower commitment to both title and medium.
We might summarize the
industry’s conception of casual games along two axes: design
considerations and player resources. Because casual gamers don’t
play many games, or don’t play them very often, they are unfamiliar
with the complex conventions that might feel second nature to
hardcore gamers.
These games attempt to minimize complexity and
investment in player time, money, and control mastery. Casual games
sport designs and controls of reduced complexity that take little
time to learn and to play, that come at modest cost and are easy to
purchase. Casual games typically offer short gameplay sessions, come
at a lower cost than hardcore games, and allow play on more ordinary
devices like personal computers and mobile phones.
|
Time
|
Money
|
Control
|
Complexity
|
Low
commitment
|
Easy
access
|
Simple
|
Investment
|
Short
|
Low
cost
|
Existing
equipment
|
The typical design values of
casual games strongly resemble the early coin-op industry. Consider
controls. Nolan Bushnell’s cabinet version Spacewar!, which
he called Computer Space didn’t sell well. One reason for
its failure was complexity. As Bushnell explains, “You had to read
the instructions before you could play, people didn’t want to read
instructions.”
Pong fixed the problem. Bushnell: “To be successful, I had
to come up with a game people already knew how to play; something so
simple that any drunk in any bar could play.” The Pong cabinet
features one instruction: “Avoid missing ball for high score.”
One can easily draw a
connection between the taverngoing Pong player and the
after-bedtime Bejeweled player. The IGDA SIG explicitly
recommends mouse-only control for casual games (“The interaction
between the user and the game should be limited to the computer
mouse”). A mouse is something every computer user owns and knows
how to use. Simple controls on existing equipment seem to be
well-addressed design strategies in casual games.
As for money, the business
model for coin-op games is somewhat different from that of casual
games. When designing games for the bar or arcade, developers aimed
for short play sessions, usually around two to three minutes. Such
tactics maximized “coin drop,” the cash the game could acquire in
a fixed amount of time. Coin-op publishers looked to sell a large
number of lower priced plays of the same game, and to rely on repeat
purchases of that game. This dynamic naturally encouraged a
particular kind of competitiveness: players who get better at the
game can play longer for less money, effectively reducing the
publisher’s incremental profit while maximizing the value of
player’s own leisure dollar.
In their heyday, coin-op
games were easy to access—they were found in bars and convenience
stores and laundromats, places one would go regularly for reasons
other than videogame play. Coin-op games were also low cost, usually
just a single coin. Most casual games are purchased from online
portals. Players download, try, and then purchase online, usually for
US$20 or less. There’s no doubt that online purchasing offers easy
access, one of the industry’s design values. But is $20 really low
cost? While $20 is one-half to one-third the price of contemporary
console games, it’s still a considerable figure for a discretionary
purchase.
But the most contradictory
of these three player resources is time. A common design philosophy
for casual games is “easy to learn, hard to master.” Casual games
are supposed respect the value of their players’ time, making it
easier to learn to play the game. But the notion of mastery raises
doubt about low commitment in casual games. Individual casual game
sessions often do require only short amounts of time: a round of
Solitaire or Tetris or Bejeweled might take less
than five minutes. But the maxim “easy to learn, hard to master”
reveals that casual games actually demand significant total play
time.
Players are expected to string short game sessions together,
either at once or over long periods, to maximize performance. A
casual games proponent might argue that the player might choose not
to master the game, but rather just to play short sessions early
in the title’s progression (“games you can play for five minutes
or five hours”). But the business of casual games belies such
argument: for one part, the typical cost of a downloadable game
suggests that medium- to long-term player commitment is required to
get value from a purchase; and for another part, downloadable games’
1-2% conversion on try-before-you-buy purchases suggests that the
vast majority of players are satisfied with the gameplay experience
of the trial anyway. Mastery demands high, not low, commitment.
Scott Cohen, Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1983)