Casual Gaming Gets Serious
There is, and has been, a lot of talk about casual gaming in the past few years and although not really officially explained, it’s pretty easy to understand what a casual game is and does.
The next ‘big shift’ in console-based entertainment will come in the form of serious gaming (shit name I know).
Aside from the fact that this is quite the reverse of casual, it’s not quite as obvious in its title. And, to date, there is no single definition of a serious game, though they are generally held to be games used for training, advertising, simulation, or education that introduce useful life/professional skills or benefits to the ‘player‘. Serious games are of course not a new phenomena – the first considered to be Army Battlezone (Atari 1980), designed to use the Battlezone tank game for military training.
Serious Gaming titles are already available in your local Asda, and derivatives have been for several years. Full Spectrum Warrior is a good example of a ‘serious’ title – beginning as a military training tool and converted into a commercial game later.
More recently Brain Training and the highly anticipated Wii Fit, both from Nintendo, have fallen into the category.
There is obviously a link between some casual and serious games and both vaguely sit outside the confines of what I would determine as the hardcore. There is also little doubt that, given time, a good number of companies will adopt serious gaming for a range of applications (particularly training/advertising).
I guess this is a natural evolution for the industry, as we have seen with the interweb, increasingly digital consumers need more from their increasing interactions.
Either way, I can’t wait to start doing some digital press ups.
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