Tag Archives: Role-playing game

December 4, 2012

Casual Games… A New Fad or a Sign of Things to Come?

We are hard-core gamers. We can easily spend 5 or 6 hours at the dining room table with family and friends, playing a marathon session of tabletop games. I never really paid much attention to the categorization of tabletop games before but now that I am a game retailer, I am inundated with specs, data, and other marketing crap. Heck, I didn’t even call them tabletop games. We just called them games.

What is a tabletop game?

Board games, card games, dice games, even roleplaying games are all considered tabletop games. Almost any game other than video games and sports 🙂 falls into this category.

What is a casual game?

According to the brand-new Casual Game Insider magazine, a casual game is

Set up and taught in 10 minutes,
Played in under an hour,
Has lightly strategic play,
Is fun and accessible for everyone.

I also feel that price levels should be included on this list. I might pay a premium for a hard-core game that has lots of expansions available. I would probably not pay as much for a casual game. I do enjoy casual games, but they do not need to cost as much, especially since they don’t usually have a large multitude of game components. I think a casual game should be priced at $20 or less (maybe $30 if it is truly AMAZING and unique).

Some games can have a split personality!

Chess, backgammon, and many other timeless classics can be casual games and hard-core games. A novice or occasional player may approach these games from the casual player stance. The rules are quick to learn, setup is minimal and almost anyone can play right away. But as the old saying goes, “A few minutes to learn, a lifetime to master.” These games have a depth of play, hidden under the simplicity of the rules. Each time I play, my strategies can be developed into more sophisticated gameplay.