What Is a Casual Gamer?

I read an article posted today on gamasutra, it was an opinion piece about what are casual gamers. It was written by Russell Carroll who started righting a weekly column on casual games. I basically agreed with everything she said in the article except when he listed the reasons casual gamers play games versus the reasons core gamers play games.

I consider myself part of the core gamer category. I easily play 20 hours a week when I have a game to play. In the article he states that the core gamer plays games for entertainment purposes but that is not enough for casual gamers. I think that some casual gamers do play games just for entertainment. Entertainment is defined as "amusement or diversion provided especially by performers or something diverting or engaging" on Webster. All video games give you some sort of diversion from life meaning that all games are forms of entertainment. Core and casual gamers may be looking for different amounts of entertainments but I believe one of the main reasons anyone plays video games is for entertainment.

The other part of the article I disagreed with was what the different types of gamers expect out of a game in terms of reasons to play the game. The article says, "they may be looking for stress relief, learning, distraction, self-improvement, or simply a pleasant way to spend time with friends. Instead of looking for excitement, adventure or competition like the core gamer, casual gamers often want to feel that their time is being used beneficially." I don't agree that you can really separate the differences between casual and core gamers besides for time constraints. The biggest difference between casual and core gamers is that core gamers will spend more time playing games than casual gamers. Both types of gamers like playing the same types of games they just play at different skill levels and get different things out of playing. There are some games that are just too difficult for a casual gamer to play because they don't have enough time to practice but most games both types of gamers can play.

There seems to be a large stereotype that games for casual gamers need to be a certain way in order to appeal to them. But if you take a step back you can see that casual gamers are casual gamers because of time commitment not because of a particular preference for a certain type of game. The day someone figures out the way to make it so both casual and core gamers are able to get the same experience out of a game the game industry will go through a revolution...


Cyaz