PopCap Exec Dislikes "Casual Gaming"

[Andy Chalk]

PopCap Exec Dislikes "Casual Gaming"

Greg Canessa, vice president of videogame platforms at casual gaming giant PopCap Games [http://www.popcap.com/], isn't a fan of "casual games."

The term "casual" can have too many meanings, Canessa said in an interview with Bejeweled [http://www.edge-online.com/news/popcap-vp-pours-hate-casual-term] phenomenon, which saw casual gaming explode into the mainstream, these days the genre has grown to become a driving force in the videogame industry. "It's out of date. We've evolved past it," Canessa said. "I'm an executive of PopCap... but in the past I've specifically crapped on the word 'casual.' I don't like the term 'casual,' and I'm not going to defend it."

"It's a term of convenience for the industry," he continued. "They needed a name for these downloadable games for PC aimed primarily at women. So they called these games 'casual.' I don't disparage people, including PopCap, for using that term. But I don't like the term because it's not a precise term."

Canessa, who Xbox Live Arcade [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/68529], said someone who only plays puzzle games, but sinks 100 hours a week into them, is "probably not" a casual gamer. "But it's a known term," he added, "like it or leave it, and PopCap continues to use it." Canessa's preferred terms for the genre, meanwhile, may be more descriptive but don't roll off the tongue nearly as smoothly.

"I like 'games for everyone,' and I think that 'broad-appeal entertainment' is very descriptive," he said. "Something like that."




Permalink

 

[Slycne]

If I made as much money as PopCap does. I wouldn't be lamenting about what my games are labeled as. As long as they continue to sell well and bring in money, does it really matter?

 

[BobisOnlyBob]

PopCap isn't lamenting, just their CEO. He's still human and allowed to hold opinions, y'know. And I gotta agree with him, "casual" is not a fitting descriptor.

 

[Joeshie]

Casual is something that varies person to person, but there is a casual market. Trying to deny it exists is foolish. The only difference people have is when do they draw the line between casual and hardcore, which is extremely difficult to do since there is very much a grey area between them.

In my opinion, casual games are games that have very little depth or variety in the gameplay, and will rarely focus on anything other than gameplay (which can be a good and bad thing). This means, that games like Bejeweled, Tetris, and a large majority of the games we played during the Atari and early Nintendo years. Most arcade games are casual games.

A casual gamer is someone who either focuses exclusively on casual games (see above) or may occasionally play video games, even if the game is a core game. This includes people who are willing to spend 100 hours a week on Bejeweled and people who play the occasional game of Halo or Madden.

 

[shMerker]

I disagree Joeshie. While many arcade games from the 70s and 80s lack the systematic complexity of modern 'hardcore' games, the ones for which that is true made up for it with intensity. Sit down at a Missile Command or Robotron 2084 cabinet and you'll see what I mean. Those games punish you mercilessly for not giving yourself over to them body and soul. The casual games moniker is typically attached to games that are less demanding of the player and are marked by approachability, one of the things arcade games in the 80s increasingly lacked. I dare you to feel bad about how you play bejewelled or peggle. It's just not possible.

 

[HobbesMkii]

"Whiteboy" is a term with multiple meanings in context, but I still know that I am one.

Casual indicates that it's a game w/o the major trappings of mainstream gaming releases: namely storyline or defined characters, and includes a scaled back user interface and no requirement for a dedicated gaming platform. Generally, because of this, casual games gain higher replayability. Because they're generally available via an internet browser they have an easier access, meaning they appeal to people who use their computers for word processing, internet surfing, and not much else.

Personally, I like how flawed Canessa's own descriptor is. "Games for everyone" he says, explaining how they're "aimed primarily at women." How about: "Games for women."

 

[Theissen]

If I made as much money as PopCap does. I wouldn't be lamenting about what my games are labeled as. As long as they continue to sell well and bring in money, does it really matter?

Obviously, once you make enough money, nothing else is important...




On a more serious note, this has got to be one of the worst attitudes I've encountered for a long time.
Just because a person has success doesn't nullify everything he says. Dismissing his worries just because he's making a lot of money makes you plain stupid and ignorant.
Finally some developer is actually concerned about the industry rather than his bottom-line has a 4 or 5 digits surpluss.

I agree with his concern of the usage of "casual". The term has a somewhat blurred meaning and is fairly confusing in the game-sector where it not only describes games like Bejeweled, but also player attitudes and playstyles.

 

[raigan]

I prefer the term "PopCrap".

 

[GoldenShadow]

I bought Peggle from Steam. It is a nice game to play when you're bored and don't exactly have the requisite 2 hours to get into a full blown gaming episode. On the other hand, GTA IV actually takes up that role for me right now. I can jump into Single player and go on a quick rampage before I go to bed.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I think a good approach here might be to accept that the "casual" moniker in relation to videogames goes beyond the standard definition of the word. I'm quite fond of several casual games and they can drive me into spleen-rupturing paroxysms of fury, and while I don't know if my mom qualifies as hardcore, strictly speaking, she sure does spend a lot of time playing Zuma, Stoneloops and many others. So we're not all chicks, and we play the things more than 15 minutes at a time, three times a week. But instead of using a clunker like "broad-appeal entertainment" (ho ho it appeals to broads) why not just expand the definition of casual? It's a catch-all, sure, but if we can call Dungeon Siege a role-playing game then I don't think we can be too overly critical of other genre definitions.

 

[papamook]

Personally, I don't mind the 'Casual' moniker but I also agree with Canessa's descriptor "Games for everyone" which is exactly why I named my company "everybody's games" - www.everybodysgames.com

 

[shMerker]

Did you notice that the people who want the term "casual" replaced or expanded on most also seem to be selling something?

It's understandable that an executive doesn't want his product pigeon-holed or dismissed out of hand, but it also seems unlikely that people are going to stop saying "casual games", least of all in favor of something as awkward as "broad appeal entertainment." And that's the thing really. A label like that is about convenience and any label that supersedes it is likely to be just as convenient and prone to error. Genres are always imprecise and lack the descriptive power to really communicate something as complicated as a game.

 

[papamook]

"Genres are always imprecise" yep, just look at the "Hardcore" moniker

 

[shMerker]

Casual is also a kind of roundabout compliment to the people who were there first. As far as I can tell the term arose because gamers and people in the industry were so stunned that someone could make a game that everybody would like. I mean, really everybody, not just the 10-20 million odd people who call themselves gamers and are familiar with the language of the medium, but the uninitiated too. That's a power that only a handful of games in the past have had and suddenly whole libraries of software seem to be tapped into whatever it is that made those titles so special. There had to be a word for something that obviously stood in a class of it's own.

The ironic thing about games like Solitaire and Pac Man is that because they are so undemanding they can become addictions so much more easily. The amount invested in "one more round" is so small that you don't even notice it until "one more round" has become "It's WHAT in the morning?"

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Unfortunately the only "more accurate" term the gaming community could come up with is "console tard"