Nintendo Europe Marketing Director: “There is no casual gaming”

A lot of talk has been going on about how “casual gaming”  will be the way video games will be opened up to the masses. Well, the Europe senior marketing director of Nintendo has something to say about that. Specifically, the term “casual gaming.” Find out what he had to say in the full article.

Ever since the term “casual gaming” was coined, there has been a lot of talk regarding how it would be the evolution of gaming. Some even going so far as praising casual gaming as the method video games will be opened up to the masses.

The European senior marketing director of one of the perceived leaders in this movement, Nintendo, may have something to say about that.

Laurent Fischer pointed out that “There is no casual gaming. There is just a different way to play.” Pretty strange coming from someone who works for a company that produce games some individuals would call casual.

He explained that even those who play flash games on a regular basis (yes, I’m talking to you too) and fifty-years old who only play Brain Training but do so on a regular basis are not casual gamers but core gamers. He explained further:

I don’t like this word casual so much. Because people consider that casual needs to be something easy. If you’re good at any game you can play at a high difficulty level. Take Tetris. There is incredible gameplay, it’s very simple, very easy to understand, but it’s also very different. I think a game can be a light enough to enjoy and for all gamers to become a core gamer on it.

He makes a very interesting point since there are people who do play “simple” games much more than an average gamer would spend on more complicated titles such as Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) or Halo 3. This is not to say that they are more “hard-core” but that they are as much a gamer as everyone else.

Via CVG