Breakfast Topic: Casualties of casual gaming
by Zach Yonzon 
Jul 30th 2010 at 8:00AM
My wife and I looked sheepishly at each other and hung our heads in shame. This is what it had come to. While we're committed to playing together come Cataclysm, we had now been reduced to the most casual of casual gamers -- playing browser-based games with no real, complex story or engaging gameplay. At least, nothing as complex or engaging as the World of Warcraft. But the reality is that casual gaming is a bigger phenomenon than we can imagine. Zynga's Farmville has over 61.6 million active users -- that's almost six times WoW's 11.5 million subscriber base. Never mind that World of Warcraft is subscription-based and that not all of Farmville's players are paying customers. Forget about revenue for a moment. That's 61.6 million gamers playing one game.
Social gaming is an entirely different animal altogether and has turned people who wouldn't normally consider themselves gamers into game addicts. Farmville's evil, real-time component forces players to log on at specific times or risk losing valuable crops. We've seen this kind of mechanic before, such as harvesting in Final Fantasy XI, but nothing has quite gotten people so hooked as these new social games. It's gotten so bad that Time magazine listed Farmville as one of the 50 worst inventions. Be that as it may, social gaming is here to stay. One might even say that it will dictate the future trend of gaming. Take Blizzard's Real ID, for example, or the new Battle.net -- baby steps in the social gaming direction.
It merits a longer discussion, certainly, but how do you think these casual, social games affect World of Warcraft? I'd like to see it as a positive. Since more and more people play games now, they're more open to playing more intensive games, and I can easily broach the subject of WoW to these people using browser-based games as common ground. On the other hand, one could also think that these games -- since they're free and require variable time investment -- can whittle away at the game's player base. Or do these two player bases simply not intersect or affect each other?
| It makes people more open to gaming, and consequently might entice them to play World of Warcraft. | |
|---|---|
| It tends to lure away players from World of Warcraft. | |
| Social games don't affect World of Warcraft in any way. |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Tomatketchup Jul 30th 2010 8:06AM
I don't think they have much of a relation. And I certainly hope not, because I'd go NUTS if my family started playing WoW, since WoW's basically the only thing I have when I want to be for myself.
Let FarmVille stay. The game sucks, but I won't care that much until my family starts playing WoW.
bui Jul 30th 2010 10:19AM
Did you somehow forget in your infinite wisdom that a lot of people have grown up while playing WoW and now have families and jobs and bills to contend with or college, ya know where real life beings. I would venture to say that a majority of WoW's players now a days are casual rather than hardcore. I mean if you started playing WoW at 14 you are now 20 and either in college or working a job to pay the bills. That's some major life changing. So if every casual that you seem to hate went away then WoW might just go along with it and then where will you be Mr. Hardcore? No where because you just convinced every casual to leave and therefore WoW stopped being a cash crop and Blizz moved on. Congrats you just ruined the game you were so "hardcore" about.
bui Jul 30th 2010 10:21AM
And I in my infinite wisdom clicked the wrong reply, LOL way to go me.
Gukojon Jul 30th 2010 3:17PM
I was about to say there... that was a pretty harsh reaction. >.
corason Jul 30th 2010 8:09AM
I would be very happy if all the casuals would have gone to games liek Farmville where they belong.
MrJackSauce Jul 30th 2010 8:57AM
I would like this attitude to just go.
V Magius Jul 30th 2010 9:17AM
Should all the PvP players go to the FPS games? Equal footing. Fast paced games. With the right team and knowledge of terrain, you can dominate.
Maybe all the Hardcore players can move to Final Fantasy. What was it? 16 hours to fight one boss? They had to swap out characters mid battle to keep going. Now, that is hardcore dedication.
WoW is a rather middle ground game. Not too hardcore or casual, but you can go to some extremes. It's part of what makes the games so popular.
Rubitard Jul 30th 2010 9:39AM
Right now, there's a 15 year old screaming, "Boom! Headshot!" into his mic playing some FPS who will tell you he's more hardcore than any top guild in WoW. Why? Because he's not playing an MMORPG w/ elves in it. Those who claim to be hardcore, and who wish the "casuals" would leave WoW in their brutal mitts, tend to forget that quite a few "real" gamers pretty much think WoW is a joke. That argument's not a road anyone should take.
anthony.sammartino Jul 30th 2010 10:01AM
If they left, so would the game too, considering that casuals make up a vast majority of the player base.
tamingoftheshrew Jul 30th 2010 10:17AM
I can't really sum up an intelligent response to your comment without calling you something rude and derogatory. So I'll go ahead and impart a small nugget of wisdom upon your evidently narrow mind.
Think before you comment.
Oni Stardust Jul 30th 2010 12:30PM
I would be very happy if all the "hard cores" would realize how stupid it is to have an ego over a video game.
Also, I'm just gonna leave this here.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys
Grakaron Jul 30th 2010 12:55PM
While I have to admit I sort of have this kind of attitude as well, I have it in a different way, the casualfication is actually damaging the game, not cause it allows casuals to play, but because its making the game too easy. Most of my hard core raiding friends have left cause theres no challenge, nothing to grit their teeth on. You might say oh well let them leave game is better without them, but all my casual friends have also left the game, including myself in the last 3 months. Its not wow burnout or expansion burnout. They just have been trying to deny something that is finally thrusted to the fore front. All of wrath has been too easy, and people dont like games that hand them everything on a platter. You can file this in elitest attitude if you like, but if both hardcore and casual find your game boring and too easy, guess what, no ones playing. And when no ones playing, you dont have a game. Friends have even stopped playing the beta for it being too easy, which has made me question weither anyone I know will be getting cataclysm
Enor Jul 30th 2010 1:33PM
@Grakaron
If Blizz loses 10 players by attracting 11 other players, they'll do it. That's what they're doing right now. Instead of making the "reward" of questing and raiding be gears and such, they're making it the story, the feeling of accomplishing something and all that. That's what people want nowadays (or the majority at least) and that will end up replacing Vanilla elitists with a new generation of people. Well, not me, because even if I was around since vanilla, I don't like it compared to BC and Wrath. Why? Questing was disgustingly illogical, some classes were inherently under the par (paladins and druids, to name them) and raiding was just too damn much. 40 people? I have troubles getting just 25 for a raid! So, yeah, good riddance with it.
s.scott.staten Jul 30th 2010 2:02PM
But then who would you have to look down on. It'd be a crushing blow to the ego for you if all the "Casuals" you so detest left.
Valheru Jul 30th 2010 10:41PM
@Grakaron
Got a ballpark on the number of guilds or percent of playerbase who have killed LK in heroic mode? I honestly have no idea, but I would say less than 10% of the playerbase, and most likely even less than 5%. A regular LK kill, even with the 30% buff, I would wager less than 50% of level 80 characters have a LK kill at all. Yes, all made up numbers, and I would love to know if anyone has the real ones, but on my server, most of the top guilds are 11/12 heroic icc 25man. So unless are you from Paragon and have utterly destroyed all content that is available in the game, I'm willing to bet there are a)bosses you haven't killed, or b) some modes you haven't done, or c) gear you haven't received. (yes, I'm sure you a shadowmourne wielding full 277+ dk/paly/warrior) and... if wow is too easy, I'm sure you are a gladiator too? I love how people complain that a game is too easy... (and I don't know for sure about you,) but in general, they haven't even "beaten the game" (aka, the current content).
Oh yeah, you did full clear, 0 wipes ToGC before ICC game out too? Not trying to flame you, but the "wow is easy" is getting really really old.
Grakaron Jul 31st 2010 12:31AM
Actually check me up and you might be suprised at what I've done. But I really like how pretty much everything I said was turned into Elitest vs casual instead of actually reading what I was saying. They arnt getting 11 people and losing 10, I'm not saying all the casuals need to die and leave the game. I'm saying EVERYONE is leaving, everyone i know from casuals to hardcore to elitist pricks. They are bored, running the same instance that is a joke. And to the person that says "oh do you have every piece of gear and everything else" Sorry mate but you know beating a boss in an instance isnt cool the 12th time you do it, or the 15th time you do it when its on Hardcore, its the first time you finally get everything right and get it down. Thats something that has been missing from wrath that everyone I know misses. Steamrolling an instance on normal with 20% buff, then trying to go back and do it on hard mode is stupid. Most people dont care, even elitists dont care cause that satisfaction of getting the boss down is gone. It all then becomes about the gear. And sorry to dissapoint but really, most hardcore dont care about the gear, they care about it beign a challenge the first time, not month(s) down the road doing some hardmode. But flame away, truth will win out when Cataclysm sale numbers are released.
QQinsider Jul 31st 2010 11:33AM
I looked you up, assuming you're Grakaron of Black Dragonflight which was the only match I could find on the Armory, and guess what? You have no heroic ICC achievements at all. You haven't beaten LK in normal 25-man either.
Same old story. Whining about it being too easy but not actually doing the hard content.
Here's a clue. 10-man normal mode raids are SUPPOSED to be easy. They're for the normal players, not the elitists. If you don't want easy content then don't run them. But then you wouldn't have your Kingslayer title amirite?
As for your theory about why people are leaving, its bollocks. It happens every summer, and it happens at the end of an expansion, as it did in TBC. People take a break, go off to do other things. They'll be back in a few months when Cata is released.
Jamie Jul 30th 2010 8:07AM
I've been a Nintendo gamer for 20 years now, since my family bought me a Nintendo Entertainment System for my 5th birthday. Or should I say I *was* a Nintendo gamer, since the Wii I really feel that casual gaming has dogged the old guard of Nintendo gamers and while it's true we have games like Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, many of the game are quite lackluster - just look at most of the spin offs from the Legend of Zelda series - it feels like a sort of insult to my childhood or something that these once epic iconic figures are playing basketball or teaming up with a talking hat because Nintendo have sanctioned the use of Link in a bizarre Nintendo DS game.
End rant.
My problem isn't with casual players of casual games (after all I'm or have been a casual raider), but don't belittle the userbase with games which don't allow us to also feel and interact with the games we love to play.
Killik Jul 30th 2010 9:09AM
Damn casuals, ruining Nintendo Wii!
Athinah Jul 30th 2010 9:45AM
I don't think it's so much the causal gaming, as it is the gemicy thing. A lot of people are trying to be so skinny that they can snap them selves in half and with the wii fit and all that crap the wii is probably making a lot of money. A lot of my friends who wouldn't even know what Final Fantasy has a wii for various purposes. but they play it a lot so *shrug*