An Opinon on Casual Gaming

I've given this an inordinate amount of thought over the past few days, and I've found myself developing an opinion in opposition to even my own up until this point about casual gaming. I'm not sure why I started thinking about it, but I inevitably did and I even trapped my girlfriend into talking about it with me. And I came up with an opinion.

Casual gaming is bad for video games, but not for the reason that everyone might think.

You see, I've been a huge supporter of the concept of video games as an artistic medium and it's something I've argued for for a good many years. I think that video games are just as legitimate of an art form as film, music, or print, and are in many ways a superior medium due to their combination of visuals, sound, text, and interactivity. The acceptance of video games as such has gained a huge foothold in the mainstream over the last two generations, and things have been good.

The Casual Gaming Revolution, however, looks like it might threaten to defeat all of the progress that games have made thus far. Not because it will end to the "end of hardcore games", or even the "end of hard games", but because it could potentially alter the public mindset that games are, ultimately, just toys.

There is nothing wrong with a Wii Fit game. Certainly, games like Dance Dance Revolution have existed for many years and have thus far not lead to the downfall of gaming due to the inclusion of a dance mat. I do, though, see there being a problem with a huge scale proliferation of games like Wii Fit wherein the only reason individuals are buying the console is to purchase the game. People see the game as the reason to own the console, as though it only exists for that purpose. They see no greater meaning in their Wii because hang-on developers continue to put out me-too titles and publishers refuse to give games worthy of recognition the advertising they deserve to actually make an impact. Suddenly, the purpose of a game is not to transport you to a different time and place, and allow you to take what is both a cinematic and genuinely entertaining and engaging journey--but instead now the purpose of a game is no more profound than to be played. Not all games need to be a profound experience, but then not all games don't.

Now, I'm not calling for an all-out coup on casual games. Far from it, because they've always existed and they will always exist. Sometimes, to have fun, all you need is Mario characters playing mini-games in the context of a board game. What I worry about is when this proliferates to the point where it is all the mainstream consumer wants. When they don't need storylines, cinematic experiences, and intense audio packages, they're not going to be given them.

I look at games like LittleBigPlanet and Super Mario Galaxy and I see what a great casual game should be: Immediately accessible to everyone with many layers of depth hidden not too far beneath the surface. You play to the casual gamers without patronizing them, and certainly without excluding the great experiences that brought games to where they are today. In this way you--for lack of a better word--indoctrinate gamers into the fold in the way that the best games of the NES and SNES did.

To repeat myself: Casual games are not inherently bad. Sometimes all a person needs is five minutes to play a round of Tetris to be happy. An entire generation picked up a Game Boy for just that reason, but quickly found themselves engrossed in strategy and--there's that word again--depth. I make a call to all gamers who might read this humble little post: Support games that support art, no matter who made them and what system they're on. If you have the means, go multiplatform so you can play more good games and have more fun and prove to the video game industry that we as a whole still want games that take us to that different place and time and make us truly experience something with--dare I say it?--depth.