Year of the casual gamer.

[lord of the mark]

Lets see, we've got Myst 4 coming, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, The Sims 2, and even a Sims clone.

The perfect storm of casual gaming, no?

Is the industry betting too hard on this? Or is this the time to get the casual PC games out, when consoles are at a weakspot in their cycle - (note, PC game sales actually declined in 2003, while console game sales increased - of course the industry data doesnt include internet sales IIUC)

[Adagio]

Aren't there also going to be relased lots of action games?
Every year there's a lot of games for 'casual gamers', not it's not always famous titles being released...

[Traianvs]

MYst is not really a casual game, it's got some difficult puzzles in it.. At least myst1 was pretty hard

[Dis]

now if they would release another decent rpg

[Zero]

no way, this is the year of competitive gamers. casual still dominate, but this year, competitive players are getting a lil treat...

even as far as revival of the tourney scenes we saw during early 90s? who knows.

All the SF games going ONLINE, Isuka going ONLINE, VF4 getting another REVISION, T5 coming out this year.

Doom 3 coming out, Half Life 2 Coming out.... I wonder if i have time for all this. I m gonna have to drop one genre out of thre i play lol.

A lil lacking on RTS department, but wc3 and sc will still hold fer while....

[Skanky Burns]

Although it has been "dumbed down" significantly, Thief III can not be considered a casual gamer's game. The dumbing down takes the form of options, so you don't even need to use the cheat-like 3rd person view for instance.

[duke o' york]

Oh.
I thought they were modernising the Chinese calendar.

I'm not too concerned about the future of gaming. These things tend to go in cycles anyway. Besides, I own so few games that I have to get busy catching up with all the stuff I've missed since I threw my Amiga out. I have a PS2, but don't use it, apart from playing DVDs.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Although it has been "dumbed down" significantly, Thief III can not be considered a casual gamer's game. The dumbing down takes the form of options, so you don't even need to use the cheat-like 3rd person view for instance.

Well if you ever read my serious posts on this ( ) you'd know there are 2 separate but related trends.

Btw I don't know anything about Myst4 so tell me why is it is lumped with those Tycoon/Sim games.

[Skanky Burns]

The best thing is well designed games can be played over and over for years to come. I still play games that were released a decade ago.

@ Chinese calendar being modernised.

[Dis]

a decade might be a little too old for me.

although isn't civ2 going on the big 10? Although I never play that game.

The oldest game I'm currently playing is Baldur's Gate.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Well if you ever read my serious posts on this ( ) you'd know there are 2 separate but related trends.

If you wrote it, I would have read it. But refresh my memory.

[duke o' york]

Civ 2 was released in 1996, and BGI was released in 1998.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns

If you wrote it, I would have read it. But refresh my memory.

Well the increase in proportional terms of casual gamers is one trend, and another is the consolisation, or dumbing down of more mainstream titles. I think the 2 trends potentially have similar roots (and sometimes similar effects), but they are distinct.

[DrSpike]

I'd add that RCT has a reasonably wide appeal. It's more of a borderline game than a casual game. As I said Myst4 also looks strange in that list. That leaves the poster child Sims games, and you may recall my opinions on them.

[duke o' york]

Yeah - you really can't get enough of them can you?

Myst isn't a proper game. It's a slideshow with controls. The game itself is mindnumbingly dull, and as such, it's just a collection of pretty backgrounds. I have no idea how they got the first one off the drawing board, let alone be in the position to release a fourth!