Comments on: August Round Table: Casual and Hardcore Games

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:21:45 +0000

@chico glad you liked it! It’s really a timely roundtable, since these kinds of thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for a while. I finally had an excuse to make them coherent ;)

By: chico

chico — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:19:49 +0000

I get your point. Like you, I also play what you would call non-casual games in a casual manner (when I have time to play them, that is). However, when you say something like “use established control schemes wherever possible”, you might be forgetting that there are players who donÂ´t know how these schemes operate. In fact, some wouldnÂ´t know that are such conventions exist!

But that was a good post – IÂ´m glad someone pointed out that there are ways of playing hardcore (or just core) games casually.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:12:50 +0000

@Marcus – oh wait, we do get a new Gran Tourismo every 2 years… ;)

I really think that the “you can’t save anywhere” thing is mostly a product of developers not wanting to build different games for the console and the PC. I’ll have more on this in a later post, I think.

By: Marcus Riedner

Marcus Riedner — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:05:56 +0000

Ubiquitous Saving would be a fantastic feature period, no matter how or what game you are talking about. I don’t think it is presumptuous to think that it is only an oversight that prevents things from ending up in more games. I think a lot of the game developer head space is full of faulty logic and oversights that are leading to all sorts of problematic issues.

It is really important that people jump up and down and say ‘This is stupid’ every now and then. Otherwise it just ends up being the same incestuous idea pool, and we get a new Gran Tourismo every 2 years…

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:02:45 +0000

@Chris: It’s a good point, and I toyed with the idea of saying “hibernate anywhere” instead of “save anywhere,” but I think that if you’re trying to bridge the gap between the two styles of play it’s OK to add a two-click save process.

I’ll be surprised if you find a significant group of casual gamers who can’t be buggered to hit “ESC” + Save in something that isn’t Tetris of Bejeweled. So I guess I mean “save anywhere” in games that it makes sense to have “save anywhere.”

Also, RE: “just a gamer,” – I mean to say that I have no idea how hard it is to implement any of my suggestions. It’s a little presumptuous to think that it’s only oversight that prevents them from ending up in more games.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:29:32 +0000

Why should it be that as a player of games you have less authority than those who make games? Personally, I feel a lot of the people who make games would learn a lot by talking to, and observing, people who played games more often. A lot of assumptions lead the videogames industry, and not many of them are that valid…

However, I would say that for a “Casual” audience, “save anywhere” is not necessarily good enoughl. For someone like you – somewhere between “Hardcore” and “Casual” – that’s about right, but as it happens many Hardcore players want to “save anywhere” too.

I’d say the Casual audience as a whole doesn’t want to be bothered by save mechanics at all. Invisible save mechanisms that allow you to quit at any point without loss of progress, that perhaps is the ultimate Casual save mechanism.

Anyway, must fly! Have fun!

Chris.

By: Man Bytes Blog: A Frenzy of Lexicological Optimism » August ‘07 Round Table - Updated 8/23

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:55:27 +0000

[...] Jason Preston joins in with some thoughts on means by which a game can have causal appeal(link). [...]