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A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessions, and require less learned skill.[1] They do not expect familiarity with a standard set of mechanics, controls, and tropes.

Countless casual games have been developed and published, alongside hardcore games, across the history of video games. A concerted effort to capitalize on casual games grew in the 1990s and 2000s, as many developers and publishers branded themselves as casual game companies, publishing games especially for PCs, web browsers, and smartphones.

Overview

Most casual games have:

  • Fun, simple gameplay that is easy to understand
  • Simple user interface, operated with a mobile phone tap-and-swipe interface or a one-button mouse interface
  • Short sessions, so a game can be played during work breaks,[2] while on public transportation, or while waiting in a queue anywhere
  • Often, familiar visual elements, like playing cards or a Match 3 grid of objects[2]

Casual games generally cost less than hardcore games, as part of their strategy to acquire as many players as possible.[2] Any game monetization method can be used, from retail distribution to free-to-play to ad-supported.

The term "hyper-casual game" or "instant game" arose in 2017 to describe extremely easy-to-learn games that require no download, being played in an existing app like a web browser or messaging app, and that usually monetize by showing advertisements to the player.[3]

History

Journalist Chris Kohler wrote in 2010 that Namco's arcade game Pac-Man (1980), which debuted during the golden age of video arcade games, may be the first casual video game, due to its "cute cast of characters and a design sensibility that appealed to wider audiences than the shoot-em-up Space Invaders."[4] It is estimated to have been played more than ten billion times during the 20th century,[5][6] making it the highest-grossing video game of all time.[7]

In 1989, Nintendo's Game Boy was released with Tetris as a free pack-in game. It was quickly learned and immensely popular, and is credited with making Nintendo's fledgling portable gaming system a success.[8]

Microsoft's Solitaire (1990), which came free with Microsoft Windows, is widely considered the first hit "casual game" on a computer, with more than 400 million people having played the game as of 2007.[9] Subsequent versions of Windows included casual games Minesweeper, FreeCell, and Spider Solitaire. The company published four Microsoft Entertainment Packs for casual gaming on office computers from 1990 to 1992.

Casual games started to flourish online in the 1990s along with the rise of the World Wide Web, with card games and board games available from paid services like AOL and Prodigy, and then from web portals, like Yahoo! Games and Microsoft's Gaming Zone. In the mid-2000s, more sites specialized in game hosting and publishing, such as Gamesville and RealNetworks. Some publishers and developers branded themselves specifically as casual game companies, like Big Fish Games, PopCap Games, and MumboJumbo.[10] The advent of Shockwave and Flash created a boom in web-based games, encouraging designers to create simple games that could be hosted on many different websites and which could be played to completion in one short sitting. One of the most prominent casual games, Bejeweled, started out as a Flash game that could be downloaded for a fee, or purchased at retail. As late as 2009, there was still a market for US$20 casual games purchased at retail or as a download.[11]

In 2008 and 2009, casual social network games rapidly attained mainstream popularity following the release of Mafia Wars for Facebook, and Happy Farm in China.[12] Happy Farm inspired many clones, including the most popular social network game, FarmVille (2009), which peaked at 83.76 million monthly active users in March 2010.[12][13] These games innovated in viral marketing by rewarding players for sending invites to friends and posting game updates on their Facebook Wall.

Casual games became popular on mobile phones, devices that turned ubiquitous among a wide variety of people during the 2000s, and these phones often had preloaded clones of classic puzzle video games like Tetris, Qix, or tabletop-based games. The phones gave all-day availability to the phone owner and helped popularize casual games for many. Newer smartphones, with large color displays and intuitive tapping-and-dragging user interfaces, gave way to a rising industry during the 2010s with high accessibility through downloadable app marketplaces.[14]

Video game consoles' primary audience is hardcore gamers, but there are some casual games on every game console, and Nintendo's Wii console's unique motion-sensing controller appealed to a more casual audience that was perhaps intimidated by other consoles' gamepad input devices. Wii Sports (2006), a collection of five simple sports games in which players used the game controller to swing a tennis racket or a baseball bat, was bundled with the Wii console in most territories and sold over 82 million copies as of 2019.[15]

Genres

Casual games can be found in many game genres. 2000s categorizations by Big Fish Games[16] and Gamezebo, a casual game review site[17] named seven popular genres in casual games:

Casual Games Association

An industry group called the Casual Games Association was founded in 2005 to promote casual games and to provide educational, networking, and market research resources to casual game developers and publishers.[10] It published a print magazine and hosted annual conferences called "Casual Connect" in Seattle, Kyiv, Amsterdam and London with what it said were "upwards of 7,000 professional attendees each year".[18] In 2018, the show was sold to media company Greenlit Content, who then rebranded the show "GameDaily Connect".[18][19]

See also

References

  1. ^ Boyes, Emma (18 February 2008). "GDC '08: Are casual games the future?". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 11 July 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2008.
  2. ^ a b c "Welcome To Gaming Lite". Computer Gaming World. September 1992. p. 74. Archived from the original on 2 July 2014. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  3. ^ "Hyper-casual: Mobile gaming's newest genre". AppLovin Blog. 3 August 2018. Archived from the original on 19 June 2017. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  4. ^ Kohler, Chris (21 May 2010). "Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating". Wired. Archived from the original on 16 April 2013. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  5. ^ Mark J. P. Wolf (2008), The video game explosion: a history from PONG to Playstation and beyond, ABC-CLIO, p. 73, ISBN 978-0-313-33868-7, retrieved 10 April 2011, It would go on to become arguably the most famous video game of all time, with the arcade game alone taking in more than a billion dollars, and one study estimated that it had been played more than 10 billion times during the twentieth century.
  6. ^ Chris Morris (10 May 2005). "Pac Man turns 25: A pizza dinner yields a cultural phenomenon – and millions of dollars in quarters". CNN. Archived from the original on 15 May 2011. Retrieved 23 April 2011. In the late 1990s, Twin Galaxies, which tracks video game world record scores, visited used game auctions and counted how many times the average Pac Man machine had been played. Based on those findings and the total number of machines that were manufactured, the organization said it believed the game had been played more than 10 billion times in the 20th century.
  7. ^ Steve L. Kent (2001), The ultimate history of video games: from Pong to Pokémon and beyond : the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world, Prima, p. 143, ISBN 0-7615-3643-4, archived from the original on 17 January 2023, retrieved 1 May 2011, Despite the success of his game, Iwatani never received much attention. Rumors emerged that the unknown creator of Pac-Man had left the industry when he received only a $3500 bonus for creating the highest-grossing video game of all time.
  8. ^ "Tetris' Maker Has His "A" Game". 23 November 2005. Archived from the original on 25 June 2012. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  9. ^ "Casual Gaming Worth $2.25 Billion, and Growing Fast". 29 October 2007. Archived from the original on 11 May 2012. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
  10. ^ a b "CGA :: Casual Games Association". 17 February 2009. Archived from the original on 17 February 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  11. ^ "CGA :: Casual Games Association". 17 February 2009. Archived from the original on 17 February 2009. Retrieved 29 May 2019. Some websites charge $19.95 per downloaded game others offer unlimited subscriptions for $10.00 a month and others supply advertising supported games.
  12. ^ a b Kohler, Chris (24 December 2009). "14. Happy Farm (2008)". The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade. Wired. p. 2. Archived from the original on 2 October 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  13. ^ "Zynga's CityVille becomes the biggest-ever app on Facebook". VentureBeat. 3 January 2011. Archived from the original on 5 July 2018. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  14. ^ Astle, Aaron (17 October 2023). "A casual revolution: Why even console devs want in on hybridcasual". www.pocketgamer.biz. Retrieved 31 October 2024.
  15. ^ "IR Information : Financial Data – Top Selling Title Sales Units – Wii Software". Nintendo Co., Ltd. Archived from the original on 31 October 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  16. ^ Big Fish Games (1 March 2002). "Casual Game Genres on Big Fish Games". Big Fish Games. Archived from the original on 20 September 2008. Retrieved 1 March 2002.
  17. ^ Gamezebo staff (1 March 2006). "Casual Game Genres on Gamezebo". Gamezebo. Archived from the original on 24 February 2010. Retrieved 1 March 2006.
  18. ^ a b "Casual Connect joins the Greenlit Content family". GameDaily.biz. Archived from the original on 30 May 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  19. ^ "Casual Connect Rebrands To GameDaily Connect". GameDaily.biz. Archived from the original on 30 May 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
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