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What’s Really Wrong With the Game Industry
Edge offered me a soap box this week and I figured I’d grab it and address one of my biggest pet peeves about the industry today…
I’ve always hated those “the industry is screwed” editorials – mainly because they’re objectively wrong. They may sell magazines, or click-throughs, but year on year by any metric you choose (sales, users, number of titles) the industry isn’t just growing, it’s exploding faster and faster every year. There are simply more good games out there than you can play. So, the industry isn’t screwed. But it is making a mistake right now, and this mistake is getting more and more irritating.
It doesn’t have anything to do with sequelitis (players want sequels), lack of innovation (there’s tons of innovation every day), excessive violence (please!) or any of the tired usual suspects the pundits trot out with disturbing regularity. The mistake I’m talking about is one of semantics but it’s a serious one.
It revolves around a single word – Casual.
We developers need to ban this word. Or at least, banish it to a special, small, isolated place, where it can’t hurt the rest of us.
Large Audience
As the industry grows and games become more and more appealing to a larger and larger group of people, we seem to be struggling with how we describe games that are made specifically with a large audience in mind. Unfortunately, the current standard is to classify all of these games under the “casual” label and it’s starting to cripple us.
Within the industry, the word casual used to have very specific connotations. When you said the word “casual” to anyone, they used to think of simple puzzle games played online, mostly by females over the age of 35. It’s a good use for the word, and it accurately describes the bulk of the players -- casual players, spending small amounts of money to casually play a quick game while the kids are at school. They may spend a lot of time with these games, but they’re not interested in complicated mechanics, serious challenges, multiplayer, advanced graphics, or, simply put, depth.
Today, the word is being increasingly used in an extremely different manner. I’ve heard Rock Band referred to as the ultimate “casual” game.
I’m sorry, nothing that costs $150 to buy, and requires a $300 console to play can be accurately described by anyone as a “casual” game. Wii Fit is another example. I’d say that classifies as a pretty serious intention -- $90 for the game, $250 for the console, and a lot of effort if you want to succeed.
The accurate term for these games – and scores of others – is “mass market.” Games with plenty of depth, and pretty serious cash and effort prerequisites, that appeal to an incredibly wide selection of gamers, from Grandmas taking a break from Bejeweled to kids passing up Halo or Resistance to pick up a plastic guitar.
So What?
So… So what, you ask? Who cares what we call it? If you look at EA Casual, it has one of the most brilliant mass market publishing strategies we’ve seen in years – why should we be worried about a word?
In short, why the hell are you wasting our time?
Because words matter. Sort of. Frankly, they probably don’t matter to consumers – casual, mass market, or hardcore – that’s why I’m not petitioning EA Casual to change its name! But words really do matter to game creators, and they matter inside the industry.
I’m fortunate enough to have sat in hundreds of concept, pitch and pre-production meetings for console and handheld games, and no matter what meanings we try and cram into the word, whenever the word “casual” creeps into the conversation, every developer in the room thinks of his or her mom. Out goes the ambition and in come the minigames… In contrast, when we use the term “mass market” everyone gets it. Appeal to everyone. Leave the grognard combo moves at home, but make sure there’s enough depth for a Street Fighter nerd, but enough accessibility that you don’t need a manual or (even worse) a non-skippable tutorial.
There’ll always be room for casual games – that’s why we have cell phones and Flash. And there’ll always be room for hardcore games – that’s why our consoles play FPSes. Hell, there’ll always be hyper-hardcore, elitist, exclusionary games – that’s why we have mods and indy games (and for the record, this is where I spend most of my free time!). But more and more, our industry is moving towards the mainstream.
The fact that my mom can kick my ass at Rock Band (only on drums!) and does with disturbing frequency, but I’ve also seen a Halo LAN party dissolve into an impromptu Rock Band session tells me that this is where the industry should be heading. To paraphrase Wall Street: Mass market is good. Mass market works.
See, that’s what’s so great about the game industry growing so fast. We can still have all the games we’ve always played in the basement, or at our PCs – those markets aren’t going away – but now we have a chance to make games that can truly appeal to and entertain the widest possible audience. Let’s just make sure that the games we’re making are mass market, not “casual.”
I kind of agree - these terms don't work in the slightest. I consider myself a 'casual' user of most titles, but the titles I play tend to be ones that might be described as being for a 'hardcore' audience. Meanwhile my 8-year-old daughter is a pretty 'hardcore' player of games, but it just so happens that the games that ring her bell are Lego Indy and Endless Ocean. But she is anything but casual about it - she is a core-casual hardcore gamer.
I don't think the old 'mass-market' pigeon-hole works either. Remember when 'Goldeneye' was that ludicrous concept, a fps for consoles - what a ludicrous idea! Oblivion - that highly niche release for RPGers? That film about a pregnant teenager - what sort of mass appeal could that possibly have? 'Nobody knows anything' is as true for the games industry as it it for the movie industry.
I think as long as non-creative people at games companies strive to justify their positions and salaries, these silly buzzwords will continue to be applied - or 'misapplied' more accurately!
Gee, I guess the problem wouldn't be companies like Amaze/F9 releasing subpar games? Seriously, check yourself and some of the studios in F9, what are they doing that's so great?
Exactly.
Of course not, lets just blame it on terms like "casual" or "hardcore", or whatever flavor of the month term writers and analysts like to toss around.
As you imply, Chris, it's not so much the word that's a problem, more the interpretation of it. People relate 'casual' games with mini-game collections, puzzlers and so forth, and if that's what developers think of when the word gets used then it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy that that's what'll be created. The irony is, as you suggest, that the people who play 'casual' games generally have no idea that it's a casual game; it's just a game to them.
The issue I have with the word is just that it suggests that the opposite is almost a 'professional', full-time gamer. The word 'hardcore' to describe non-casual gamers is much worse, in my humble opinion. I don't play games every day, mainly due to a lack of time, but when I do I enjoy RPGs and similar games that people might class as 'hardcore', yet I really wouldn't want to be described thus!
In the end, though, does it really matter? Even if we got rid of the nomenclature, something would just replace it, as the idea that there's a fundamental, non-bridgable distinction between 'casual' and 'hardcore' will still remain. Surely we need to get rid of the concept rather than the symptomatic word? And that's not going to happen whilst developers are making either 'hardcore' or 'casual' games, rather than things which cross over the two. Smash Bros. Brawl is, perhaps, a very good recent example of a game which has made the effort: it presents an incredibly easy-to-pick up interface, and you can just have some simple fights with it if you like, but then there's a whole load of unlockables, game modes and so forth for the gamer who wants more depth. Having said that, my girlfriend thinks it's rubbish so two-player in-house fighting is unfortunately off the cards!
I agree, semantics are terribly important, perhaps more so than you say. It only takes one copywriter short of ideas to slip the words casual into an advert or point of sale desplay and suddenly consumers find themselves bracketed and clumsily segmented.
To define a gamer as "casual" or "hardcore" is to assume a lot about why they game, and to be honest I dont think those two words are genuinly adequate to describe all the reason why someone might pick up one game rather than another. If a family really bonds over a game of Wii Sports, to then call that experience casual and to do it openly is to undermine what it means to them as a family. There is still a lot of potential for emotional, rewarding and fulfilling experiences even in the most middle-of-road and accessable game.