Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
AAA games are played by the stereotypical hard-core gamer. AAA franchises
that are so beloved by the hard-core are the following: Halo , Grand Theft Auto ,
Madden NFL , Call of Duty , World of Warcraft , God of War , Gears of War , and
Grapes of War . Oh wait, that was Grapes of Wrath , and it was a book by John
Steinbeck and a movie starring Henry Fonda. Sorry, I got carried away. If a
gamer is someone who plays games, or even more narrowly, someone who plays
video games, then what on earth is a hard-core gamer? Do they play naked?
Well
yes, sometimes, but actually the term means something else.
...
Hard-Core Gamer
A hard-core gamer is someone playing games with complex rule sets and mechanics at the expense
of most other essential activities such as work, relating to other humans, eating, sleeping, and
so on.
Oh and yes, I confess that I am a borderline hard-core gamer, even if I have
managed to wean myself from Red Bull, Fritos, and all-night boss raids. Well, I
almost have. Yet, one thing should have been clear to researchers long before the
Wii showed up in your granny
'
s den. Games have never been solely for the
stereotypical hard-core gamer.
We can trace the advent of casual video games back to 2006 when the Wii first
captivated our grandparents; or 1997 when Deer Hunter , with its retro graphics
and simplistic gameplay, charmed hunters out of their blinds; or 1990 when
Solitaire was first included in Microsoft Windows; or even farther back into the
dawn of all video games. Pong anyone?
And ever since the first casual game, we
'
ve had the stereotypical casual gamer.
Casual Gamer
A casual gamer is someone who doesn
t mind the lower quality graphics, or the simplicity, or the
fact that you can often finish a session of a casual game in a few minutes. In fact, casual gamers
embrace all of these.
'
By 2009, we were well into what Jesper Juul documents and demystifies in his
book, A Casual Revolution :
...
a breathtaking moment in the history of video games. This is the moment
in which the simplicity of early video games is being rediscovered, while
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