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Casual Gamers Not So Casual

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the gameaholics dept.

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."

15 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Gamer? by theelectron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In general parlance, could someone who plays in increments of less than 15 minutes be considered a 'gamer'?

    1. Re:Gamer? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is there a difference between someone who plays a game for two hours (120 minutes) straight versus someone who plays eight times at 15 minutes each (120 minutes) during the course of the day? You obviously never the experienced the joy of doing multiple loads of laundry and playing a game for 15 minutes between loads.

    2. Re:Gamer? by vertinox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In general parlance, could someone who plays in increments of less than 15 minutes be considered a 'gamer'?

      Actually, I think they got their definitions backwards.

      Could a peice of software be considered a "game" if it takes more than 15 minutes to play before you start to enjoy it?

      I think that is what is meant by causual gamer. You pick up a game and in 90 seconds you are enjoying yourself and not after 90 minutes of hack and slashing... Oh and don't forget that if you can't simply save and put the game down without loosing enjoyement in 15 minutes of you decided to quit (ie save points, having to remember what exactly you were doing, and where you were going) then it isn't a casual game either.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    3. Re:Gamer? by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a lot of games which take less than 15 minutes a day to play. One example is Nation States, which takes less than 5 minutes a day to play. Something non-gamey, like Brain Age, doesn't require much more than a few minutes either.

      I've read a lot of comments on handhelds that like their instant-on/resume feature (specifically, the DS and the PSP) so they can play games while "on line at the bank" --- now, I'm not jubilant about the service at my bank but even when it takes a long time I'm in line for no more than 5 or 10 minutes. So clearly there's people who buy these gadgets to play for minutes at a time. A review I read for Tetris DS lauded it for the ability to be online and playing someone else within 60 seconds. Heck, I bet you can get in a Halo 2 game in or two in 15 minutes.

      If you look at older games there's a lot of games which can be satisfying in 15 minute increments. Take Geometry Wars or Bejeweled for example. Games that you find on XBLA or other compilations.

      Or, if we're talking table top games, stuff like Checkers or Othello or Backgammon or any number of simple card games. Not every table top game needs to be as long as complicated as Risk or Settlers of Catan or Monopoly.

      It sounds insincere and hackneyed but gaming is about passion. If you like gaming for gaming's sake (not just to pass the time a la MS Solitaire) then it doesn't matter if you only play half an hour a day or 3 hours a day.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    4. Re:Gamer? by dominion · · Score: 5, Funny

      Possibly.

      I'm sure a lot of women whose husbands only have sex in 15 minute increments a day would consider them to be "fuckers".

    5. Re:Gamer? by ClamIAm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Could a peice of software be considered a "game" if it takes more than 15 minutes to play before you start to enjoy it?

      Could a piece of video be considered a "movie" if it takes more than 15 minutes before you start to enjoy it?

      Could a piece of text be considred a "novel" if it takes more than 15 minutes before you start to enjoy it?

      Could a piece of metal be considered a "tool" if it takes more than 15 minutes before you learn how to use it in a way that makes it useful?

    6. Re:Gamer? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Could a Slashdot comment be considered "redundant" if it takes more than 15 minutes to figure that out? :P

    7. Re:Gamer? by Doches · · Score: 4, Funny
      If you like gaming for gaming's sake (not just to pass the time a la MS Solitaire) then it doesn't matter if you only play half an hour a day or 3 hours a day.

      Stop, pause, and think about that. Let's try an analogy, shall we? I like sex for sex's sake. Does it matter to me if I have sex once a day or seven times a day?

      I think so, yes.



      Dear God, did I just compare gaming to sex?

  2. Not Surprising by Gnostic+Ronin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. The Casual Combination by Lance_Denmark · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'd have said that casual was a combination of time spent, money spent on games and how generally important games are to a person. If you end up playing two hours a night five nights a week but go out on the weekends and don't think about gaming, I'd say you're casual. Also you can usually identify a 'hardcore' gamer by their willingness to 'play until it gets better'. After criticising a game for being shite from the offset I'm often told 'You have to play for a bit for it to get better' and you are usually talking to a pretty hardcore gamer there.

    Nope there is more to it than time alone.

  4. Nedulous Definitions by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 4, Interesting
    No one would consider my wife to be a gamer. She doesn't like the Xbox and could find any of a million things to do other than play a game. Except Solitaire. Once every couple of weeks she'll play Solitaire on the PC for a couple of hours. Does that mean she's a casual gamer? By some definitions, yes. In reality? No.

    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?
  5. All relative by entmike · · Score: 4, Interesting
    A recent study reveals that nearly one-third of casual gamers play for over two hours per gameplay session

    A 2 hour game of poker would be considered casual by many.
  6. Re:15 Minute Increments? by tmjr3353 · · Score: 4, Informative

    A lot of Nintendo DS games. Brain Age, for one, can be played in 15 minute increments. On top of that, closing the DS puts it to "sleep," so you don't even need to wait for a save point in those RPGs. :)

  7. Consider this contrast.. by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Funny

    People who have casual sex rarely break the 15 minute mark.

    Interesting. Indeed.

    Titties!

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  8. This came up on the WoW boards a lot... by CaseM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...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.