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The Wright Stuff: Rethinking mobile's casual games

The mobile games veteran tells it how he sees it

The Wright Stuff: Rethinking mobile's casual games
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If one more person tells me the future of mobile is 'casual', I may well throw something 'hardcore' at them. What a meaningless statement.

The fact is the term 'casual' is useless. No one knows what it means. It's like the joke about 10 psychiatrists with 11 different opinions. (One was schizophrenic.)

So while people will use vague examples and genres - web games, spinning plate games like Diner Dash, or match 3 games like Bejewelled, all of which are games that appeal to a wide audience - they don't define casual games, because casual games don't have to be low tech, 2D and lacking narrative. But that's what the definition of what a casual game has seemingly become. It's like saying Nintendogs or GTA: Vice City define hardcore games because they have 3D graphics and people play them for hours at a time.

Another misconception is that casual games were invented by the DS and Wii. No. Casual games have around since the start of the games industry, only back then we called them arcade games.

Arcade games weren't just shoot-'em ups and beat-'em ups. Consider some of the most popular arcade games of the 80s. From Tetris, Mahjong and Pong, to Mr Do, Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man - by their commercial nature, they got players into the game with minimal fuss and instructions. With the regular drop, drop, drop of coins, they provided simple, visually appealing interfaces and short bursts of fun.

Now don't get me wrong, arcade games were designed very specifically to extract money out of people's pockets which meant they often had very punishing difficulty curves. But the basic concept was to get someone to walk past the game, put money in the slot and within 60 seconds not only understand how to play the game but also enjoy the experience enough to come back for more.

This is why so many arcade games work well on mobile today, but the future can't be recreating the past. The real opportunity is to take the features that made this type of immediate experience and recreate it for modern platforms. Companies like Namco, Sega and Capcom have that understanding of what made arcade games great. If they can bring it to the new generation of mobile they have a huge opportunity to dominate this market.

Because what is undeniable is it's these features that will define the winners in the 'Casual' space and not the companies that keep on churning out ever more complex variations of spinning plate, match 3, hidden objects and puzzle games.


After 12 years in the games industry, the last eight as head of production at I-play, Chris Wright finally has escaped. He now runs his own consultancy firm focusing on casual games. He thinks his greatest achievement is being called a 'veteran of the mobile games industry', while his greatest regret is not completing Gears of War, even on the easiest setting. He can be contacted at chris[at]gamesconsultancy.com All opinions expressed are the author's own.
Chris Wright
Chris Wright
After 12 years in the games industry, the last eight as head of production at I-play, Chris Wright finally has escaped. He now runs his own consultancy focusing on casual games. He thinks his greatest achievement is being called a 'veteran of the mobile games industry'. His greatest regret is not completing Gears of War, even on the easiest setting.