Articles:The Strange Case of the Casual Gamer
From unthinkMedia
Contents |
Target Market
A good casual game is played by people of all ages, genders, and game playing experience. For this reason you must design a game for everyone.
This is a challenge, because the audience has expectations and experience of what they consider to be intuitive, challenging and fun.
The downloadable market is women in their forties and fifties, and makes up 50-70 percent of the purchasing audience. This new and soaring market has little to no gameing experience.
The Wii has sprung up in retirement homes for people in their 60s. 70s, and 80s.
Considerations (ch10, paragraph 9)
- Casual gamer players do not approach games with the same skill sets as hardcore gamers, and thus have different levels of self motivate exploration and patience for failure.
- The interface of casual games are less informed by prior games then by other digital and real world experiences.
- Information display and feedback that casual games provide require an extremely high level of clarity.
Gamer vs. Casual Gamer
- exposure to gaming conventions. What might seem common knowledge for a hardcore gamer like ASDW for key board controls, is not for a casual gamer. Analog joystick to control camera
- experience player often just need the name of the genre to know how to work the controls and navigate the interface.
- primary teaching technique for hardcore gamer is trial and error. They are accustom to harsh consequences as part of the learning experience.
- Part of a hardcore gamer fun is the struggle.
The Hard Core Gamer
- Gamers learn complex unforgiving systems through exploration and repeated experimentation till they succeed.
- The more games they play, the more gaming conventions they are exposed too
- trained to experiment with control schemes and environmental exploration
- Expect failure, and are tolerant of frustration and struggle.
- May tolerate faulty design as part of the challenge
The Casual Gamer
- Casual gamer where predominately internet users that didn't see the computer as a gaming platform.
- Not familiar with the gaming lingo and conventions
- Are not conditioned to deal with failure
- Frequent dying would be considered a flaw rather then incentive
- Games should be more guided, less open ended.
- Shorter simpler games
- Majority of casual games played with just the mouse.
Casual Gamer Controllers
Player should be asked to do physical actions that they are already familiar with.
- Stylus: Drawing, writing, mouse like taping. (Nintendogs petting with stylus)
- mimicry: Stirring, cutting (Cooking Mama)
Casual Game Design Principles
- High amount of positive feedback
- Focus is clearly on rewarding
- level achievement rewards, plus moment to moment micro rewards.
- Failure sounds more minimal.
- levels are short, should be 3-6 minutes
- literal progress checklist
- unlock trophies at every level
- achievements to greater chunks of play
- a series of short-term moves that the player regularly achieves.
- make it impossible for player to ignore what is going on
- detailed instructions do not make the gameplay more manageable. NOBODY READS INSTRUCTIONS!
- instead Lock tutorial and force them to do an action to continue.
