I fucking agree! There's no such this as casual or hardcore games; just good games and bad games.

Casual games is a misnomer. For example, the most hardcore coin-op arcade titles like Defender or Street Fighter? Casual - just with a cool veneer. There's casual and then there's casual. Hidden object games are very casual, even when done well (Cate West springs to mind - try that IP out.)

Casual exists cause other wise we'd just have to use the word shit. Yes there is a difference because it can be good and still casual. Casual means a game for which the requirements of skill are lacking. I honestly don't think it's all that confusing.

It's just another term for:
Elite = Hardcore
Noob = Casual

Hell Microsoft took it to a whole new level they named a SKU after the term. So these terms are deep into the gamer psyche.

Remember when good games were good games and bad games were crap, it was such a long time ago, but I remember it like yesterday.

@slayer
Yes shovelware is still acceptable because quick crappy cash in just doesn't roll off the tounge.

I love owls. Is the right one hardcore, and the left one casual? I think casual is a good descriptive word. Difference is, I don't equate casual with shit.

I was going to write, how this was actually useful sliding scale (not 0 or 1 distinction), but had a problem with pointing a few examples. Which kinda, sorta, seems like you guys are right.

But I'd still say that you can say that one game is developed for casual ... audience and another for hardcore one. Some concepts are evidently watered down and made as accessible as possible. It doesn't necesserily mean that games made this way are shovelware, but that they'll be - as planned - accessible for certain audience. Thugh still, if a game is very good, everybody will play it regardless.

I still dont get the idea or meaning of the word "casual" in gaming, -_-

Make not shit games then.

If you can enjoy a game for 10 minutes, then put it down, and enjoy it for 10 minutes tomorrow, I would say that is a 'casual' game. Also, if a game is easy/accessible/un-challenging then I would say that it is causal. If a game requires 10 hours to even start, or has a steep learning curve, I would say it's hardcore. I think the terms are relevant and helpful. Not to defend the casual use of the word casual, as it is often used to denegrate, rather than describe, but even then it's fun..

Holy crap, they actually do that! And here I thought the one-visible-leg thing Hoothoot does was completely made up.

Right on! Stick it to the man. Games are definitely games where I come from.

While I disagree with the two broad categories, I still think there's a place for the concept of a "gateway" or "entry-level" game. I mean lets be honest here. Some games are simple, and while entertaining, are designed for people who don't spend significant portions of their day in front of a console. Are they lesser games? Not really. Are they games that are apt to bore the more experienced gamers more quickly? Bloody likely.

Rambling aside, I'd say that while the hardcore-casual dichotomy needs to go, there is still a tier/style/scope of game that is geared toward the casual gamer and fully deserves the label.

Yeahwel yousee, but most of those games suck dick and have a common objective, so it's hard to not divide them at all.

The thing that bothers me is that people are using casual for games that can be play for a few minutes and put back down. You're pretty much saying that about every game on the DS and PSP. People like to have the *option* to play a game for short bursts and then come back to it later. Maybe that's why handhelds have been a pretty lucrative market (especially the DS).

The thing is, I'll play games on my DS or PSP for a short period of time when I was at work during break. But when I go home, I play those same games for hours if I can. I do this on every game platform I have, from the PS2 to the my PSP, and from my DS to my Wii. I'll play whenever I can, for as long as I can. If that's for a short period of time, that's fine. If it's for hours on end, then that's fine, too.

Probably the one game I've invested the most amount of time into over the past few years has been Monster Hunter (all of them). The level design lends itself well to being able to play the game in short bursts or as long as you would like, even more so with the PSP games. I've played Monster Hunter at work for a few minutes at a time, or for hours on end till the witching hours of the morning on xlink kai. And the game itself is extremely challenging, so its accessibility is balanced out by its challenge. That's not catering to "casuals", that's just good game design.

Hardcore vs. Casual is a stupid argument over stupid labels coming from stupid, knee-jerk, reactionary buffoons who are incapable of giving more than a few minutes of thoughtful reflection and rational meditation on the nature of game design.

I would disagree. Though I think that the true meaning of "casual" just isn't represented.

Risk vs Reward: The greater the risk, the greater the reward. This is true in many things, including video games.

"Casual" games do not seek to put up a barrier of risk. They tend to straight up dodge the issue of great risk and challenge to the player because they want it to be approachable by anyone and everyone to play and enjoy. And there are many players who will find enjoyment in playing casual games, but Casual is the Yin to the Hardcore's Yang.

Hardcore games move in the opposite direction, actively seeking to use difficulty as a means to ramp up the risk so there is a greater sense of reward for overcoming the obstacles. Not everyone wants a stroll through the park simulator, some want small health totals, jumps with instant death if you miss and grenades. Lots and lots of grenades.

Neither is "better" than the other, it's all subjective to the player's preference. Some players ("casual") would be so turned off my Seth's difficulty they put the game down and move on to something else because they're seeking reward without great risk. Some players ("hardcore") would feel compelled to fight again and again and again to learn his patterns and tendencies until they beat him, then jump up and dance a jig because he was pretty intense.

Again, neither player is better than the other, as some just don't want a lot of risk and some thrive on getting more of that risk. It's akin to adrenaline and sports, Bowling is a low-adrenaline sport compared to Wing Suit BASE Jumping, both are sports but one is way more intense than the other.

But to call for the abolition of the term "casual" tells me you don't risky games for the "hardcore" and are tired of being labeled for making pussy games! ...pussy!

Casual games do not exist. Casual is not a genre. Casual is a word to describe either the frequency of play or the attitude towards said action. All games have real genres and people need to use them. The whole casual/hardcore thing are just terms to describe how the person is playing, not what the person is playing.

Let's take Peggle. It was created to cater to the simplest desires. A quick game here and there, with shiny expressive graphics. People call it a casual game. This is wrong. It is a puzzle game. A good puzzle game because it offers more to the player than other puzzle games.

Calling a game casual because the developer intends for that type of play is irrelevant. It's still of a certain genre and that casual word still describes only the way they want to play it. But I can assure you that plenty of games where that is the intention are played quite seriously by more than a few people.

No, Peggle is definitely a casual game. There is no loss for losing, only not meeting the win condition if you don't destroy all of the orange pegs before you run out of balls.

If you don't beat a chapter with that chapter's character, you don't have to start all over from the beginning. You just don't move to the next level until you beat that one. Very low risk.

Now the WoW version of Peggle introduces a mode that would make it a hardcore experience, and that is needing to clear EVERY peg, blue and orange, in order to beat it. That typically tends to be very, very hard on some levels (FUCK YOU DARNASUS!) while only very hard on others. That ramp up in difficulty makes it hardcore. But it is an opt-in mode as clearing every peg isn't the new win condition parameters, you can still achieve victory by only clearing just the orange pegs.

And that doesn't include the random elements, like the location of the orange, green and purple pegs changing location, either. If Peggle were hardcore, they would be fixed and intentionally put in difficult locations with a planned optimal path and sub-optimal paths to take as well. The fact that you can luck out and have a bunch of orange pegs cluster together, making it easy to take out a bunch of them in one shot further detracts from the risk of that frame of play, thus further promoting a casual difficulty.

Why do people continue to make the assumption that only casual gamers play and can enjoy casual games and hardcore gamers play and can enjoy hardcore games?

There are no objectively casual games, just casual players. And you can be a casual player one day and a hardcore player the next depending on how much time you want to spend.

And I'd just like to add that the notion that so-called 'casual games' take away resources from 'hardcore games' is not only silly because of the above statement; it is also silly because it assumes a zero-sum game where game companies never expand and only have a permanently set amount of resources to make games.