Session Information
| Title | The Meaning of Casual: Serious Dialogues about Casual Games |
| Presenter(s) | Shira Chess, Adrienne Shaw, Lauren Cruikshank, Aubrey Anable and Maria Cipollone |
| Time | Thursday, October 16, 11:00a-12:00p |
| Location | Lake Superior |
| Format | Panel |
| Description | With the rising interest in game studies over the past two decades, the evolving field continues to negotiate game and player types. Casual and social games in particular have experienced peaks and valleys in popularity and market importance in recent years, shaped in no small part by their connection and integration with evolving social media networks and new mobile platforms. However, in spite of this shifting ground, game studies scholarship appears to be experiencing a significant lag in turning serious attention to casual and social games. Aside from a few interesting exceptions, these types of games, gamers, and gaming practices are not often given serious consideration. It has thus been noted by scholars that the video game industry often creates a false dichotomy between "hardcore" and "casual" gaming styles (Consalvo 2009; Juul 2010). These gaming styles are often conflated with types of games played. Hardcore gaming generally implies console or computer games that are first person shooters, role-playing games, multiplayer online games, and sports games. Casual games generally imply simpler mechanics, and are played on mobile devices or are smaller PC downloads. The relative complexity and simplicity of design leads to assumptions about how these games are played, how much money or time players spend on them, and the cultural importance of these texts. Casual gaming tends to be cheaper to make, leaving out many complexities inherent in the legacy of console gaming. The simplicity of casual games such as Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Farmville, or Diner Dash makes them easy to be dismissive of. The relative smallness of the games often means that they are overlooked and treated as though they have little or no meaning. Our panel argues that casual games are meaningful and important. We can learn as much about cultural norms, the politics of representation, and hegemony from "small" games as we can epically expansive ones. Similarly, we argue that play styles and game types need to be separated analytically. Casual games are not always played in a manner that we would call casual. Hardcore games do not inherently require that they are played in what might be called a hardcore manner. Papers on this panel focus on why casual games and casual play matter, both in contrast to hardcore gaming and also in their own right. Presentations include: "The Politics of Casual: Situating Casual Play in a Hardcore Industry" Shira Chess, Assistant Professor of Mass Media Arts, The University of Georgia "The False Dichotomy: Talking to hardcore players about casual games" Maria Cipollone, User Experience Researcher, Zynga, and Doctoral Candidate, Temple University "Taking Casual Seriously: Game Studies and Nurturing/Neglecting Games" Lauren Cruikshank, Assistant Professor, Media Arts & Cultures, University of New Brunswick "From 'snacks' to 'binges': Player accounts of casual play" Adrienne Shaw, Assistant Professor, Media Studies and Production, Temple University "Casual Games are Ordinary, or What if Raymond Williams Had Played Candy Crush Saga?" Aubrey Anable, Assistant Professor, Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto |