I think I have the defining characteristic of a casual game.

Before that though, a disclaimer: I have nothing against casual games and never use casual as an insult.

When I sit down at my game computer there's lot's of things I can do.

I can open my RPG menu and take up my Oblivion character, or run CJ through the streets of San Andreas, or guide my crew through the world of Baldur's Gate. Whichever I choose I will have to think a bit about where I left off. Or I could start something new, maybe Skyrim or Witcher or Fallout.

I can open my Total War menu and either start a new campaign somewhere (probably not) or figure out where my Scottish empire stands in M2TW and see what progress can be made there. Strategy menu; I have a Civ4 campaign that's probably easier to abandon than figure out what's going on there because I haven't played it in so long. Econ Sims menu; I think I would start from scratch if I played Port Royale, and I haven't played anything else there since I rebuilt the machine so no saved empires to pick up.

In combat games I have a M&B campaign where my Vaegars are about halfway to turning the whole world green, and a Freelancer game that's barely started.

Then there's Chess. When I play chess against a human opponent it's about half a step short of a fist fight as far as my commitment to winning is concerned. I can list every person I've encountered in my fifty year life span who forced me to admit they were a superior chess player, and my teeth will grind on every one. But Chess on my computer is my 'casual' game.

It's the only game I can play where I do not have any 'where did I leave off' to think about. I start a game. I play it through. No save. No remembering where I left off. If I play again tomorrow or next week or take a year off, coming back next time will be exactly the same. I think that's what makes a 'casual' game.

Agreements? Better definitions?

I sort of agree with the concept behind this definition, but it still has the issue where people all have different qualifiers about what games fits into the "I don't have to think/remember stuff much" aspect.

For instance, to me Diablo1 is a pretty casual game, because all you have to do is go around clicking stuff, the quests are rote with nothing to remember, and saving the game isn't so I can remember what I was doing before...since all I was doing is going "clickclickclick" and selling loot. it's just so I don't have to repeat level 1-5 again with a lvl12 character, or whatever. I don't have to *think*, which is the whole reason I play those games. It's like watching a mindless popcorn/action movie instead of a deeper drama. While others may think of Diablo games as not being casual, even if they're simple gameplay wise.

But there are games - story-based RPG's, RTS, etc. where I do have to remember that stuff or at least play almost every day, or else the mental/emotional connection is lost and I have to start all over.

It's a term that I think has grown quite apart from it's origins. I always felt like it was originally invented by marketing teams trying to figure out why The Sims sold so well. Most game franchises you're catering to an existing target audience, right? You're making a game for people who play videogames, you make a game and you're selling to people who own more than one game. But then people started noticing these "niche" demographics where they'd only buy and play that one game - "casual" players, in other words.

Then that grew to encompass the growing market for facebook games, and following that to the smartphone market, etc. (At least that's how it seemed to me the term evolved.)

Now we have a case where those already within the target demographic took up the word and ran with it and started adding their own definitions. My sister, for example - she only plays The Sims, really. Maybe occasionally she'll get into a themepark managing game or build some rollercoasters or something. Somewhere along the line gamers started dealing with this idea that "casual" meant simple or without challenge, too. And I don't see that. Again with my little sister - she doesn't have that background of previous games to build on, or knowledge of common mechanics to be able to just pick up any old game and pretty much know how things work.

Every time a new Sims game comes out she has to struggle around with it a bit to figure out how the game works, get around the interface, etc. If she were what the "hardcoe gamers" thought of as a casual, then she'd have quit playing The Sims 2 after fifteen minutes of trying to figure the game out. But she kept going (and judging by how well that game sold, many others did too.) So it's this concept of "challenge" and "simplicity" that I don't think are relevant to the terms.

I'd say your idea is about as good a working definition as we're going to get for what the terminology has turned into, though. Myself, I'd rather we just did without it - as "casual" players don't really care what they are (as they're usually outside of the fanbase) and elitists just seem to make use of it to make themselves feel more "hardcoe." I kind of prefer to just give the term back to the marketing people and play the games I like to play without having to pigeonhole every game I play.

It's interesting how I look at this. I personally don't find a particular game to be casual or hardcoe, I differ players between the two. For example in Diablo I'd consider just going around, randomly killing stuff and aiming to just finish the main story casual gaming. Doing the best builds that use the most expensive equipment and aim at being able to do things such as pandemonium event by oneself is what I'd consider hardcoe gaming.

Well that's how I see it most of the time. But OP's post does make sense. I suppose chess or solitaire or tetris, or basically any other similar play and forget games are true casual games. Games like TES, Diablo, CIV etc require some sort of time and commitment for a much longer period of time.

I look at it the same today. But I think there is a good reason. People crave for challenge. That's why they come up with these little rules, or go out of the way to play the game to the 100% completion, or in case of TES games mod the challenge in. I remember when I was a kid (and compared to some games on these boards even that was very recent) there was no handholding. Not even in kiddy games, ordinary platformers such as Crash Bandicoot had areas in several levels that make me bleed through eyes today, let alone when I was 6. I don't see that in today's games. Even in games that marketing claims is for elder audience still treat us, the players as morons and games offer no challenge whatsoever, and people who find themselves to be "elitist" because they play on the hardest difficulty are playing what would be normal 10 years ago.

But yes, self proclaimed elitist are silly. No one gets to say "I'm better than this guy cause he didn't find this sword". We're talking about video games. It's a hobby, something to fill your free time which not everyone have the same amount of.

Personally, for me, a casual game is something that I play (and yes, I do play the occasional casual game, despite most of my games being far more "hard-core" in nature) to just mindlessly occupy my time. Similar to arcade games. Games like Super Platform Shooter Deluxe, Jamestown, Pac-Man, bejeweled blitz, etc. When I'm in the mood to just relax, and not think. Otherwise I most play games like skyrim, dark souls, deus ex, stalker, dishonored, etc. More niche games. I also have penchant for indie games. I'm not a casual gamer, but I play casual games. You don't have to be strictly one or the other.

To me a casual game is something that I pass the time with, or do not need to think about or prepare for. So, for the most part, the same as your definitions. However, I will also add that to a casual game can be anything that I can finish up in a 10 or 15 minute session. So, to this end, TES or FO can be a Casual Game if I am firing up it up to finish up a quick fetch quest or do some character maintenance or something like that. Of course, a faction or main quest line or starting a new character does not fall into those categories. Of course some games like Crush the Castle are solidly in this category no matter how time I may spend on them in a session.

As far as Chess goes? I will slap the smirk off of your Queens face with my Bishop as I advance on and pound your King into Checkmate with my Knight.

j/k, I svck at chess

I see casual gaming as more of an experience and a way of playing games rather than a label certain games or genres should be pigeonholed into. There are many games (including chess and FPS games) that offer an extremely casual "pass the time" experience, as well as an extremely hardcoe competitive experience. They're like sports in that regard. On the one hand, some kid can kick a football against a wall for fun, and on the other you have professional teams playing at the highest level with an incredible amount of skill, fitness and tactics involved.

And even for games that only really offer a layed back casual experience (like a lot of story-driven singleplayer games), I would hesitate to label fans as casual, because what if they're sinking hundreds of hours into such games? That's hardly a casual hobby.

Quick note...I was talking about casual games, not casual gamers. No matter what game I play on my computer it's basically to 'pass the time'. Although I have heard of some professional Starcraft players in...Korea, maybe?...I'm not looking to make gaming into a job and don't think I know anyone who is. Okay, wait, I do know a guy who runs an MMO for a living and spends a lot of his time participating in order to promote and improve it, but that's different. As to 'hard core competition'...to me that involves multi-player games, which is a whole different subject. I guess I've just never been into the 'I can beat this game better/faster/more than the next guy', myself.

Any game you pick up and play for ten to twenty minutes would be casual to me. (most mobile games)

I play a lot of MMOs and I'm the casual players that people in MMOs hate so much. I care nothing about about grouping or raids or PvP or getting the best gear. I play solo and spend a lot of time wandering around and looking at the scenery. My favorite MMO is Lord of the Rings Online. I read all the text quests and look at the places that are in the books.

I'm the casual player that the Morrowind players despise. I love Skyrim because it does away with the menus and spreadsheet mentality and lets me actually enjoy the world that Skyrim has. They call it dumbed down. I call it more user friendly.

I play games to relax, not to have a challenge or spend time thinking. I play games that don't require an entire evening.

I think casual players like myself get a lot more hate from the MMOs than here though. The Behesda forums are tame and ciivil compared to the MMO scene as far as bashing casual play goes.

I think my definition of a casual player is one that has no problem with playing only thirty minutes and doesn't even think twice about it.

It's more like that most TES players are just like you, lets hang out in the world of TES and see what I can do tonight. Plus, how one person plays the game has nothing to do with, at all, how someone else plays a Single Player Game, and we all recognize that. This has nothing to do with how serious or not serious one approaches the game, because you can be as serious or as casual as you want to be. And that can change from session to session.

Plus, we don't let people bash other people around here, otherwise we bash them with the ban hammer.

It is a game by game thing for me. It is simple time investment that determines whether someone is casual or not. Not really a good or bad thing either. Even then it is a pretty blurred definition and I don't really care. The only time I care a little bit is if the game's experience is being negatively affected by the 'transient crowd' for me. But, at the end of the day, I just walk away from a game that does that. It has lost my interest, I won't play it or its sequels unless they actually fix the issues.

So, Mirror's Edge then? Some years ago, whenever I had some 10 minutes to spare, I would launch Mirror's Edge, run thru a level and then quit. Which eventually also gave me some very good Speedrun times.

Same with the Jedi Outcast demo many years ago, would just launch it, run thru the demo and quit. Most have been the game demo I've played the most.

I wish I had met you 10 years ago, back when I played chess regularly, against as many different people as I could. I'm not even half my old skill level nowadays though, and like you, I HATE losing to real people, it raises my blood pressure a good deal.

A causal game lacks depth. If you can't learn anything (skill/challenge, lore, real facts) new from playing the game and it's pretty much the same thing as when you started 20 minutes ago; then it is casual.


It's easy to call CoD a casual FPS, wile it does in reality have some depth. So, the word is used often in such a manner, but that is not necessarily incorrect as CoD may have some depth, but it lacks in depth relative to other FPS games out their like Team Fortress 2.

Keep in mind though; casual playing style =! casual game.

Most games can be played casually, so that itself means nothing.

I was pretty rusty, but for the past couple months I've been playing 15-20 games a day of 'speed chess' against Chess Titans. It isn't a really strong program, but it will punish gross errors so it seems useful as a trainer as long as you play fast.

I have nothing against casual gamers with one noted exception (so far). If they come into a hardcoe game that is clearly marketed towards gamers like myself. Then start demanding changes to suit their needs because of a lack of time. So something like Total War (not that it's happened yet) is a good example. Sometimes you have to face the facts of life, there are games that one side or the other will never get to play. If you don't have the time to commit to those games, don't complain for them to change to you. Simply accept the fact and move along. I don't go on the Halo forums and complain about it not being on Playstation. To compromise the vision of a game is quite selfish. There is a difference I find a lot of casual gamers mistake. Ease of use vs depth of gameplay.

They make the assertion that sometimes too much stuff is too complicated. Developers also might make that mistake rather than attempting to make all of that stuff as easy to use as possible and learn they simply cut down on features to avoid confusing people apparently. It would be like removing the ability to place floor blueprints in the sim series and have to rely on prefabricated building layouts. This doesn't address the fact your removing gameplay, not actually improving it. In this case if there was a problem fix it by making it simpler to use, or a tutorial or something. It's a pretty big fallacy, and there was a reason I used a simpler game to illustrate my point. It's something most anyone would be able to understand. Now imagine how I feel when a simulator game gets torn to pieces sequel after sequel in a mad dash for casualization, and never getting the sales it wants. It it drives you mad that something so basic would be destroyed in a sims game, just know how I feel about a lot of games with more intricate and in depth gameplay that gets torn out and removed. When all they needed to do was make it simpler to use and learn. This also greatly bothers me. Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Edit

On an unrelated but funny note. Argh man I can't even play with casuals. I tried on this one TF2 server. I made them all rage quit. No offense or anything, but I haven't been able to play TF2 in a long time since it went f2p. I'll find an fps community worth my time one of these days. Ah should have seen them run. Hahahaha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q0Rer4vfzk#t=0m51s. I went 31 and 0 before I left since no one was around.

Edit2

There is a downside to this skill though. I tend to be a lonewolf, so I rarely team up with anything larger than a few people. Even then I'm so distracted accomplishing my objective they usually die off like fruit flies. Oh and I don't use mics, for the most part. I find the http://www.superbwallpapers.com/movies/boba-fett-star-wars-14304/ drives my prey more mad than any taunt ever will. Good opponents who might have beaten me have been defeated simply due to the fact that I say nothing.

Had no idea what the OP was trying to say tbh.

A casual game is thus... health regen, killcams, button prompts for simple actions, linearity.

To Me, "Casual" games are games where not a lot of time is needed to be invested in, and subsequent sequels don't offer any change or very little change. Usually, it happens in shooters, where the campaign is shortened each time, and is made Easier with each installment. Why Bother getting to know a weapon when they all perform the same and the game locks onto targets? The Challenge in "Casual" games is non-existent.

As I have less and less time to play, I usually spend my time on RPG's now, and seldom do I play FPS's anymore. There's one FPS's I'll play, but I have to be in the mood for it, as to me, It got very easy, even without the help of my clan.

Every game is a casual game.

Don't be racist.

Only the best players are Korean but there are professional players around the world.

That's not being racist. Everyone knows Korea is famous for its too notch Starcraft players.

Don't take things so seriously (I.e. I was kidding). Besides, lots of European players are making a name for themselves.

Oh dear, two people

I've never heard of Chess being referred to as a casual game, maybe it's cousin Checkers could be considered casual but certainly not Chess imo.

For me, a "casual" game is one that's easy to pick up and play with little to no thought involved in playing it.

This. This is exactly what I consider a casual game to be.