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Casual Gamers Not So Casual
Next Gen is reporting on a study indicating that casual gamers actually play quite a lot, putting the term 'casual' under a microscope. From the article: "'Our survey has determined that mainstream audiences dedicate a substantial amount of time to gameplay — not just in 15-minute increments as previously thought,' said Loren Hillberg, executive VP and general manager of commerce at Macrovision."
In general parlance, could someone who plays in increments of less than 15 minutes be considered a 'gamer'?
Doesn't surprise me. Other than RPGs, I think I'm pretty casual. And I usually end up playing a few hours. What makes you hardcore is when you do nothing else.
only a matter of time before the casual/hardcore debate slops over from the official wow forums to slashdot...
15-minute increments
... RPG's usually take longer than that in between save points ... what games were they thinking? Pacman & Frogger?
What game nowadays can you play in 15 minute increments? Absolutely no sports games
Nope there is more to it than time alone.
I think of myself as a gamer, but the reality is between work and family I don't have the time to play as much as I want. I'll play a game of football, do a mission on Halo, or play SSBM with the kids maybe 3 times a week. I, too, would be considered a casual gamer, but I am not in the least interested in the "casual game market," nor would I likely put casual in my descriptor.
I'm reminded of a point made in regards to creative writing: write something you want to read. Not something you think others would like to read, but something that you would enjoy reading. Maybe gameshops should work more towards making games that they enjoy than trying to capture a certain market segment.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
A 2 hour game of poker would be considered casual by many.
They seem to think that windows rebooting every 15 minutes is the same as sepreate gaming sessions.
This is a little underwhelming. Who does anything for just 15 minutes unless they're interrupted?
It's not about how long you play for, it's about how dedicated and obsessed you are with gaming. It's about your taste in games, what games you play, what consoles you own, how long you've been playing, the variety of gaming experiences you've had, and many other factors. It's not just how long you spend playing that determines whether you're casual or hardcore.
Show me a game where I can have fun and make some progress in a 15-minute increment, and I'll show you Solitaire.
Just try playing WoW for 15 minutes, and see how much you can do...
People who have casual sex rarely break the 15 minute mark.
Interesting. Indeed.
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I think the difference lies in the kind of games you're talking about. Usually, casual gamers play flash-based or card games. Games like "Diner Dash" are very short, and you won't spend much time trying to beat it. Ok, you can spend a 5-hours session playing it (I won't discuss if you actually do it or not), but the game won't take more than a short amount of time out of your life, in comparison to big games like RPGs, MMOs or others. In the end, the casual gamer will beat the game (or get bored of it) and move on. The hardcore gamer will seek another game. That's the difference. And that's why a lot of us feel like hardcore gamers because games are part of our lives. Casual gamers don't. They use games for entertaining, but they don't make a huge deal out of it.
This is my honest opinion, and can be debatible, of course.
Real Life introduces "Casual Gamers Anonymous".
would be considered normal. That's what gets me. Most families watch hours of TV a day, and somehow that's seen as no problem. But if you want to spend the same amount of time playing a game, somehow you are "hardcore" or even an "addict".
I think the problem is seeing gaming as something that should be a short-interval kind of thing. No, it's not. I mean it can be but it doesn't have to be. There are many things in life that are fun when done in longer periods. For example I don't think you'd seriously suggest you should try mountain biking in 15 minute intervals, but I also don't think someone who does it once ever two months on a weekend for 3 hours would be considered anything but "casual".
I would say a "casual" gamer is just anyone who plays games for fun in their free time, and doesn't plan around them. You more in to a more professional or hardcore context when games become an activity you schedule around and do regularly. Same thing with sports. You shoot hoops at a rec centre when there's time? You are a casual player. You are in a league with plenty of regularly scheduled games and practises that you work your schedule around, you are more professional or hard core.
I also personally don't see any problem with being really in to something unless it interferes with your life. Do what you like, so long as you have time for the things that are important (family, work, chores, etc) what's the big deal?
...but at the end of the day the difference between "hardcore" and "casual" I settled on wasn't necessarily how long a person played, but how hard it was to save/quit/get out when you had to put the game down.
This applied specifically to whether or not a person could raid in World of Warcraft, but I think it applies to gaming in general - it isn't that "casuals" wouldn't play for 4 hours at a stretch, it's that they couldn't commit to a playing schedule and actually keep said commitment consistently enough to a) not piss of the other raid members and b) not upset Significant Others.
The point isn't about playing 15 minutes a day, it's about being able to play in 15 minute bursts, if I so choose. You know, if someone's on the phone, or I have to get the laundry from the washing machine, or I'm playing just a quick round before going to work, or whatever, don't make me search for a save point for half an hour first and don't make me freakin' need a 40 man raid for a long mission. Just let me save there and then, or park my character in a safe place, because I need to take a break _now_.
The worst in that aspect was a game which made me play for 10 _hours_ before giving me a save point. FFS, 10 _hours_. It's insane. Noone who has even the bare minimum of a life can put up with that. Heck, it was at the apex of my gamer-without-a-life times, and even I didn't find it funny.
And let me get back to the idea of trying to squeeze in a mission before going to work, or while the pizza is in the oven, or whatever. I do that a lot. E.g., I've been known to squeeze in one COH mission between the morning shower (right, I'm probably losing geek points here;) and going to work, while my hair dries. I don't want a 2 hour raid there, complete with a major elite boss fight. I just want to jump in as my Scrapper (think: Fury spec Warrior, in WoW terms) and run through some warehouse punching any Carnies/Malta/whatever in the way, then get the mission bonus and run to work.
And let me also say: this isn't just for casual gamers. I can imagine that a lot of the generation conflict and "Auugh! My kid is addicted! He keeps playing and/or throws a tantrum when I tell him to turn off the console and clean his room _now_!" angst actually happen when the poor kid is actually desperately looking for a save point. Noone wants to just lose the last hour of anything. So a lot of it might be just that, rather than true addiction and being unable to put the controller down.
And the sooner the game industry finally figures out that they can let them save and put the controller down, the better we'll all be for it.
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These days, most of my gaming is what I'd call casual: I pick up games that can be completely played in 5 minute blocks.
Now it just so happens that I'll likely get hooked once I start and play a good dozen of those blocks and find an hour has gone by - often longer still. But, if I knew I had to invest an hour to even try, I likely wouldn't pick up the game in the first place.
So, yes, casual gamer play sessions are often much longer than one five-to-fifteen minute block. But, no, that doesn't mean you can create a game that requires those longer average play times and still capture the same market. It's a false conclusion based on completely missing the low barrier to entry aspect and fixating on average playtimes.
In short: Casual gaming isn't about short play times. It's about the ability to play for short sessions and thus having a low barrier to entry that then leads to those longer play times.
And with that, I'm off for just one more game of sudoku.
Coincidentally, casual gaming is the topic of today's strip at real life comics.
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My observation on Casual Gamers, in MMORPGs atleast - is quite often, many of them seem to put in more time into the game then the 'hardcore, uberguild-raiding type'.
/played. My friend, was level 35 with around 50 days /played time.
/very/ well and very efficently. They were more like robots then players.
I'll use myself, and a friend as an example.
- We both started playing EQ at the same time, and for the first month of play we stayed pretty much neck in neck in terms of levels. We'd duo allot, goof around, have fun, explore. Somewhere along the line, I got bitten by the 'power-gaming bug', and ended up taking off in levels past him.
We started to play together less and less as our play styles started to differ. A few months passed by, and I was level 50, farming items in Lower Guk and raiding Plane of Fear when I had the chance. I was level 50 with around 32 days
IMO, he was a 'casual gamer', not because of time invested, but because of how he chose to spend his time playing the game.
Many 'uber-guilds' in EQ had the reputation of playing '24/7, having no lives, etc, etc'. While there may of been a few individuals in the guild like that, that wasnt the norm. With the exception of new expansions or new level caps, in which many people would take a few days off work to max out as fast as possible. The typical play routine for many of my guild mates was
- Logon about 30 mins before a raid was to start, play for the duration of the raid, and then logoff directly after. If it wasnt a raid day, they wouldn't logon.
Trying to find more then maybe, 10 or so people from the guild online at once outside of raiding time was pretty damn rare (with the exceptions of a new expansion).
To me, casual gaming isnt so much the time invested, but HOW you use the time that you invest while playing. Some of the most hardcore power-gamers I know played the least, but just played
If you look at what results are really being looked at, you'll see that the sample of "gamers" was all people who go to the Trygames site, which IMO is not exactly the mainstream outlet for gaming. That over one-third of these people are 35-49 years of age, etc., is probably not representative of the gaming community that most are familiar with (console and popular PC games). I was at first very confused as to how anyone could have *ever* thought that "casual" gamers only play in 15-minute intervals (meaning that 20 minutes is teh hardc0re?), but then again a hardcore gamer wouldn't be able to stand Trygamer's offerings for more than 15 minutes anyway. ...Well I'm not sure where I was going with that, but in any case I wouldn't be confident to claim this is a very comprehensive study of the market if I were Macrovision. That is, when they say things such as "what the industry previously thought," I'm not sure who exactly makes up this "industry."
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People who drive slower than me are idiots, people who drive faster than me are insane.
Likewise gamers: if you play more than I do, you're a hardcore powergamer no-life. If you play less than I do, you're casual.
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ohh, so your a TRUE gamer!
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