The other night we had a barbeque at my house. After it got dark and the potential for snow started looming (stupid Utah winters), we went into the living room. After chatting for a bit I noticed my friends girlfriend looked a little bored and for whatever reason suggested she check out Peggle since I just got it for Xbox. After playing a round after she insisted I show her how, I handed her the controller. She enjoyed it’s addictive and simple gameplay like everyone does, but what I didn’t expect was the rest of the rooms reaction. Though maybe I probably should have.
What ended up happening was the room full of primarily non-gamers, who used to play a bunch in high school and could therefore at least hold their own with most "hardcore*" games they had fifteen minutes with, all started asking for the controller. I left for ten minutes to take my sister home and when I got back they had started passing the controller around in a circle all working on various challenges the game had to offer. All these guys rarely play games anymore, but when they do its generally things like Smash Brothers Brawl, or more recently Left4Dead, I was definitely not expecting them to take so easily or immediately to Peggle.
I’ve always been kind of curious about the casual games side of my hobby of choice. Whenever I hear statistics trying to claim a broader demographic including women and older people play games, it generally includes people that only play these simple casual games. There is nothing wrong with that, and as the Wii has proved, there are tons of formally non-gamers that eat that stuff up. They are however completely oblivious to the other side of gaming.
Where do these casual games fit in? I love games like Tetris, but the main reason I’ve been playing games, at least for the last few years, is the unique potential for interactive storytelling. The narrative combined with fun and interesting gameplay mechanics provide a unique experience. Most casual games don’t have that. They don’t even want that. These are games in the purest sense of the word.
I wonder if this casual movement will eventually lead those gamers into our world or if they just have no interest in the more “hardcore” side of things. It seems like there has never been a better platform than the Wii, if this is going to happen. More and more people are picking it up, and even though the more traditional titles are a little lacking, there are more than enough decent titles and okay ports to give a taste of what the rest of gaming is all about.
Another potential idea for recruiting new gamers as I mentioned before, is the design philosophy behind the new Prince of Persia. PoP is still very much a “hardcore” game, but it really is easy and forgiving enough that anyone could pick it up. Even the epilogue content, which is definitely harder, is perfectly doable using the skills you obtain in the main game.
Either way, I’m glad developers seem to be at least slowly moving toward that direction. Everyone finally seems to be getting over the “Nintendo abandoning us” thing, myself included, and no longer think the casual movement is a bad thing. Besides, I heard an interesting argument the other day that it was really us that abandoned them during the N64 and GameCube days by not buying anything.
Now the question is, do the casual gamers even want to play all those other games? The way my BBQ anecdote goes, it seems a lot of formally "hardcore" would rather play the casual games.
*I write "hardcore" with quotations because as you may know, hardcore can potentially refer to several things these days. When I use the term I am referring to gamers like me, who play the more complex games like shooters and RPGs.
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