Serious Gamer = A person who considers gaming their main
source of entertainment.
Casual Gamer = A person who considers gaming just one of
many sources of entertainment.
Something that I find interesting is people worrying
about devices such as iPhones and iPads taking potential customers away from
the 3DS or Vita. Who’s to say they were potential customers? Because someone
purchases an iPad, does this mean it is a foregone conclusion that they would have
bought a dedicated handheld gaming device such as a 3DS or Vita if the iPad did
not exist? I don’t think so.
Back in the days of the NES, Master System, SNES, and
Genesis/Mega Drive, the majority of the gaming audience were "serious gamers".
The minority of the audience were "casual gamers". I think it goes without
challenge to say that period of gaming was successful in terms of money being
made by most console manufacturers and publishers. Business was booming.
Fast forward to today. There are millions of new players who
are considered the gaming audience. The serious gamer is now the minority, and the
casual gamer is now the majority. There are more serious gamers than ever
before, but there are now out-numbered by casual gamers. Much more money is
being made due to the larger audience. But, business is kind of a mess. It
certainly is not booming; at least, not for everyone.
Console manufacturers and video-game publishers who can
capture the imagination of the casual gamers win. Just look at the success of
games like Nintendogs, Farmville, and the recent Call of Duty titles. I know, some
of you are thinking I’m insane for lumping Call of Duty into the same category as
Nintendogs and Farmville, but please hear me out.
I believe (and you’re welcome to disagree) that the
majority of today’s Call of Duty players are dedicated casual gamers. Yeah, I
know that sounds counter-intuitive. What I mean by this is that the dedicated
casual players of Call of Duty devote their time to one game series. Sure, they
might dabble in other titles while they’re gracing us with their presence in
the gaming scene, but their main source of gaming entertainment is Call of
Duty. They might in fact spend countless hours playing just Call of Duty,
pushing other previous sources of entertainment to the side. But, when the day
comes that they no longer wish to play Call of Duty, their interest in video-games
is put back on an equal footing with the many other sources of entertainment.
Whereas a serious gamer would naturally move onto the next game.
You might be saying to yourself, “What does this have to
do with ‘3DS or iPhone?’?” That’s a great question. The reason I make the
conclusion above is to draw light to the fact that the casual gamer is fickle
when it comes to games. There’s nothing wrong with this, unless you bet your
business on it.
The serious gaming audience is larger than ever before, but it just isn’t enough for today’s
greedy businessmen. They see the larger casual gaming audience alongside the
serious gaming audience and they want it all! Good luck with that. I say, target
the serious gaming audience. You can count on them. They love games. Games are
their main source of entertainment. You know what the irony is? Serious gamers
want ‘real’ games. They don’t just want watered-down interactive movies that
cost tens of millions to produce where ‘story’ is the focus. Sure, the occassional one is great, but they also want
challenge. They want gameplay!
So, yeah it’s easy to say that iPhones and the like are
taking customers away from the 3DS and other gaming platforms, but at the end
of that day, were these customers really ever interested in gaming beyond a
casual flutter? Probably not. Let the touch-control app world that is dominated
by inexpensive crumb-flicking simulators have their five minutes of fun and let
us get back to serious gaming business.
