Hi, my name is Peter and I’m a casual gamer.
Given the fact that I work at a company that makes games, I hear a lot of games talk. Especially about games that I haven’t played. More often than not they talk about games that I will probably never play. Even if I had a million years to do so.
The thing is you see; I’m not a “gamer” – The hard core gamers of the studio makes sure to point that out to me from time to time, just to make sure that I wont forget. Sometimes they even threaten to take away my “gamer license”, only to add laughing a few moments later – with perfect comic timing – “Ohh wait! You don’t HAVE a gamer license!” which of course cracks me up every time.
Maybe I should clarify:
When I play a game, I want to have fun from the first moment. I don’t want to read manuals, memorize control schemes or read long storylines to play. I expect to be entertained, and constantly met with a fine-tuned cocktail of challenge and problems followed by the pleasure of overcoming them.
I don’t play games that require me to sit down for several hours, nor do I play games that would require me to have honed my mad skillz since 5th grade in order to keep up, unless I have indeed played them since the 5th grade which I probably haven’t.
I do however play games that I can pick up, play, have fun with and move along. I play action puzzles; Tetris / Arkanoid / Zuma / Lumines Live-style kind of games with really simple controls, close to non-existent learning curve and constant positive audiovisual feedback to get my endorphine flowing. I play anything with a tendency towards a quick easy fix, rather than a long immersive experience.
I’d play Burnout 3 over Half Life 2 any time. In fact I haven’t even played Half Life. Or any other major FPS since the original Doom for that matter (with the exception of a short fling with Unreal).
If someone was to characterize me and my household by the games I’ve played over the last few years, my guess would be, that I would turn out to be a woman aged 40+, possibly single, with a motor headed 12 year old pre-pimpled son.
Not that I’m trying to make a clever point out of all of this – I’m just confessing. Although I do think sometimes, that my tendency towards casual games actually makes me better at my job. Maybe by putting myself in the casual gamer’s place I can challenge some of the ideas that surface in the studio…
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to make a sci-fi themed FPS ad-game to Company X Ltd. who manufactures orthopedic shoes?”
What do I know? I don’t have a gamer license after all…