Casual gamers killing the market.

In no way should offense be taken to this but I have to ask: If you have such an attitude towards casual games and that they are taking over the market ( which on one hand I could see, but on the other I couldn't) why do you take time out of your day to spend time with a community/program that is mostly geared towards the creation of such games that are taking over the market?

To be perfectly honest, there are few games made via Flash/iOS that would be considered non-casual and contain more of an in-depth story and game play. While Stencyl and the community will make it much easier for these types of game to be created, I still think that a large majority of the games being created will still be casual games.

In addition, there a multitude of reasons why casual games are huge right now. With technology advancing at such an exponential rate casual games are becoming easier to produce, hence more of them being produced. However society, at least here in US, is becoming more fast paced and everyone wants something, whatever it may be, now.

We go to fast food restaurants because we don't want/have time to cook. We use the internet to find answers for whatever we are looking for. We use cell phones to call someone on the road because we choose not to use a pay phone. We text someone because it is easier to have a conversation or get in touch with someone when doing other things. Corporate America expects us to multitask to produce products/answers in mere seconds to save/make money. We use Learning Remotes to control every device in our home from A/C's to TV's to lights to security systems. We drive everywhere we go rather than taking a bus or a bike or carpooling.

People in general are becoming more and more lazy. I blame technology for that. But technology has provided a vast amount of benefits. Anyway, my point is that people have become so cultured around having everything done for them or having things done quickly or when they want them that it also shows in the type of games we play. People don't have/want to make time to sit down and play a really in-depth "hardcore" game and wait 5 minutes for the Epic cut-scene to end. If they wanted to watch an epic cut-scene they would go to the movies or watch 300.

Another reason for the casual games being huge right now is the major Gaming companies find it far cheaper to make a few minor changes to a game and release it with a # on the end rather than pay creative people to come up with new ideas. We see this in movies as well, where a lot of "new" movies coming out really aren't new. They are just remakes of older ones with different people and slightly better graphics. Because there are fewer NEW games coming out these days, people turn to casual games. Indie game developers can make some really awesome games and they tend to make far better games in many cases, as well new, innovative, and creative games.

Just thought I'd plop my 2 cents in there.

In all likelihood, casual gamers would be non-gamers if it weren't for casual games.  It's not like hardcore gamers are being transformed into casual gamers.  I see no threat to the market.

If anything's "killing the market" for hardcore games, it's the rising development costs that make these games harder to recoup costs on.  I think we'll eventually see the emergence of a "middle ground" between indie and full-price games; a class of semi-budget games that skimp on the graphics, but has fully-developed gameplay, selling for $30 or so.  Well, at least that's what I hope to see.  Nowadays, games have to sell far too much to recoup dev costs, so releasing a game that's "only decent" ends up damaging the developers. 

When it comes to the hardcore and casual game thing, I mostly just take the categorization with a grain of salt because a good chunk of the games I play are basically in the middle of the two.

Take Heimdall 2, for example; compared to most of MS-DOS platform RPGs (trust me, they have hardcore written all over their foreheads and in capital letters), it's not that complicated of a game. I mean, yes it's definitely not a coffee break game since it takes a while to beat, but at the same time, there isn't a whole lot of dynamic gameplay outside of the puzzles and exploration.

In my opinion, it isn't a threat to the market at all. In fact, it's just expanding the market for people who want simple, quick entertainment. These days, every business is lit up and their motto almost always does with happiness. The same for new, coming games. Take Angry Birds. It's a quirky game that has innotiative design. Sure, Angry Birds is fun. But it's nothing compared to stuff like Half Life, or Amnesia, or Bioshock. That industry will always be around, most people who play games are people who like these sort of games. The other side is soccer moms, the elderly, and little kids. So don't get worried about anything.

Is it really casual games 'killing' the industry, or is it a lack of innovation from large developers causing a stagnation in the hardcore game industry?

With the progression of technology, major studios seem to follow the mindset of 'going big or going home'. An individual project could range in the millions of dollars to produce- usually to top the graphics of their previous effort, voice acting, and an epic soundtrack. I'm all for creating a compelling environment, and all, but mechanics-wise developers seem to be averse to taking risks. Most new games are sequels of previously successful games, as seen with the burgeoning Call of Duty franchise, and each new sequel (even other titles in the same niche) are presenting less and less innovation that when you put them next to each other, they all look the same.

Well that is different, when games were first being made, it was a lot of effort to churn out a simple arcade game. But as time progressed, that's why the arcades virtually died later on, because people preferred the quality of console games.

I don't really think this perceived "quality" you speak of exists, I'm more inclined to believe that people preferred not having to pay quarters every ten seconds and it is quite cost prohibitive to own a single arcade game, let alone the sheer convenience of not having to go to Seven Eleven for hours on the weekend and being able to play in your pajamas.  Furthermore, there exist arcade games that were of higher quality before they were released on console systems.  (For starters Bubble Bobble!)

Casual gamers also demean gaming as a whole. No casual gamer will ever see a game as anything more than a form of quick entertainment. They will never see gaming as an art, and no casual game has things like memoral characters, worlds, locations, iconic greatness. I mean compare a game like Banjo Kazooie, one of the most well crafted games ever created on the Nintendo 64, to a casual game.

To get the obligatory out of the way, you won't get much mileage out of me with Banjo Kazooie, as I despise everything in that game and find it horribly a chore to play.  But more seriously and on topic, quick forms of entertainment are certainly encompassed by various arts.  One Act Theatre certainly didn't destroy that art form, and those are just as capable of atmosphere, emotion, and empathy as their overbudgeted, overdeveloped, and overhyped longer brothers.  Just because something's short and inexpensive doesn't mean it has to be crummy, just like how just because something's long and costly doesn't mean it has to be good.

One of the defining moments of a game is having a "start" and "finish" to the adventure, as a kid, im sure everyone asked about the ending of games, and always looked for ways to "beat" the game.

Another defining moment of a game is when your score exceeds your friend's score by the time the clock runs out.  Likewise, entering your initials on the high score table.  Such concepts are difficult to recreate on less casual games, and it sure would be a shame to lose them forever.

Casual gamers have existed for quite some time, the label less so.  I'd rather leave the buzzwords to marketing, playing a video game is playing a video game.