It's not 100% casual but it's probably higher than 95% casual. Finding a non-casual game isn't easy. Finding a game that doesn't ask for more money after 30 minutes of playing is even harder. I remember when people first started complaining about how micro transactions would ruin the gaming industry. Fortunately it never spread past the mobile market. I think it's that payment model that will prevent the mobile platform from ever becoming a real "hardcore" gaming platform. Sure Fallout 4 might run on an iPad someday but I'm not going to spend real world money every time I need ammo or want a new rug for my shack. Unfortunately the mobile gamer market has accepted that as normal and it's to too profitable to ever go away now.
I think that people are defining "casual gamer" incorrectly. I always thought that a casual gamer is someone who only dedicates about a few hours a week to gaming. A hardcore gamer is someone who lives and breathes it. Such as my Dad. I bought him an iMac and I installed a few old school games and some pop-cap games. He loves pong. Most people would call that a casual game and therefore, he's a casual gamer. But that's wrong. He's out to conquer that bitch and he's on his third version. I had no idea that they made so many pong clones. When he wants a quick fix during a halftime show, he'll boot up Bejeweled. That's a casual game to him. He can take it or leave it. The other pop-cap stuff? He won't touch them cause they suck. But pong? His dinner will go cold if he's playing that. He's a hardcore gamer that just wants the classics.
I don't even think that's it either. It's the term gamer in general now. Generally. people who game on PC and/or consoles are very different than the people who play facebook/flash/mobile games. I'd go as far as to say many of them wouldn't even touch them with a ten foot pole. So people in the console/PC gaming category would never categorize themselves with the same terminology. The market hit a huge split so you're gonna get a lot of this type of confusion which comes down to semantics in the end.
You also have ridiculous feminists like Anita Sarkeesian trying to argue that the hardcore PC/console gaming scene is horribly sexist and doesn't represent women. Well no shit it doesn't represent women. In reality there's pretty much no market for hardcore games when it comes to women and girls. The majority have zero interest, so of course they aren't represented. And most women and girls who play casual games like Candy Crush or Farmville would not consider themselves "gamers" and would not touch a gaming PC or a console with a ten foot pole. It's like getting upset that stores like Sephora that sell makeup don't cater to men, when in reality the market of men who wear makeup is probably a fraction of a percent of all makeup sold.
You need to invest substantial time and money to be considered an enthusiast for anything. Should also apply to gaming. I'm a pretty casual gamer now. No consoles and play PC games with built in Intel graphics. Only a few hours a month at that. Mobile market is strictly casual, IMO. @cmdrmonkey
Because gamers are evil rapists who "level up" by raping women. Makes perfect sense. I always knew PVC was actually a rape club in disguise. Also everything about ICE T was lol-worthy in that episode.
My own definition of a "casual game" is more narrow. It needs to be something that would appeal to almost anyone, not just people who have familiarity with video games. For example, I think games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush qualify as casual, but not tower defense or RPG strategy...and there is a metric sh*t ton of those types of games on mobile. There are also games like pinball (which I play quite a bit), that are essentially hybrids of casual/hardcore at the same time. Any random person could aimlessly flip the ball around and have some fun that way, but understanding the rules and successfully completing the modes requires more than a casual interest or skill level. I consider most of the classic arcade games to be that type of hybrid.
Founder of Epic Games says youngsters aren't into consoles anymore and are moving to PC gaming. http://wccftech.com/sweeney-console-market-downturn/
Sounds more like what he's really saying is that mobile gaming is very popular, laptops are a part of that, and most development companies can't really afford to produce long-form AAA games anymore because the price never increases but development costs do.
Yeah and I kind of agree with him. The younger crowd seems to be moving to mobile casual games. The older hardcore crowd now have real jobs and a lot of disposable income, and are playing more and more on high-end gaming PCs. Consoles are fine when you're poor, but big money ballers with movie star money like Terry Crews are going to go for the high-end PC with superior graphics and hardware. And I'll just leave this right here. Steam set another record for its userbase: http://kotaku.com/steam-reaches-14-million-concurrent-users-for-first-tim-1790933274 14 million people all playing online multiplayer games at the same time (and this is just for concurrent online multiplayer users, the total userbase for Steam is like 100M+). Do that many people even own a Wii U? And that's like 2/3's as many people as even own an Xbox One. And I'm trying to find the other article I just read about how nVidia hit a new record for Geforce GTX sales. I would believe this too. When the GTX 1070 and 1080 came out over the summer, they were sold out everywhere, and there was massive price gouging where the cards were selling for twice their MSRP when they would come in stock. This was the kind of thing you would see 10 or 15 years ago with console launches. But PC gaming is dying according to the console fanbois.
Oh and an anecdote: Microsoft just opened one of their full stores in the Boca Raton mall. You would think they would be showing off mostly Surface and Xbox One stuff. That stuff was there, in the corner, but about 80% of the products on display were high-end gaming PCs, especially gaming laptops. When I walked in, the first thing the girl working there asked me was if I wanted to try one of the new gaming laptops, and she said they had the Razer Blade in stock. I had never seen the Razer Blade before. It was pretty cool. Amazing that they could pack a GTX 1060 in something so compact. They had ASUS ROG and Gigabyte gaming laptops on display as well. They had a section for gaming desktops too, and they were selling GTX 1070s and 1080s (the overpriced Founder's Edition cards though) which were prominently displayed. They had the Acer Predator ultrawide G-Sync monitor hooked up to one of the desktops. I had never seen one in person before. Also, surprisingly the place was packed. Lots of people were there playing around with the gaming PCs and the new Surface desktop. A big group of people was gathered around the gaming desktops playing Rocket League. I walked away thinking wow the Xbox must be doing pretty badly. That place was like all PC gaming. I would definitely go back. Seemed like a great place to go try things out before buying on Newegg or Amazon. I didn't get the impression MS even cares if you buy stuff there, they just want you buying PCs. I think it worked too because I bought a GTX 1070 and new monitor a few days after visiting the store. It also confirmed what I've always suspected: PC gaming is actually extremely popular but brick and mortar stores usually treat PC gaming like a red headed step child. They push it to the back corner and don't show the high-end products people want to see.
I think a big problem with the console market is that development time is too long and there is extended periods of nothingness. Meanwhile, PC is reaping the benefits. Most games are "Coming to Xbox and PC" or "Coming to PS4 and PC" which makes PC the platform with steady content. I'm anecdotal evidence. PC hardware was getting to be too much for my wallet so I went console and bought a PS3. But now I've been on my PC again because the current consoles are too slow to offer anything new and they just can't compete with Steam prices. My PS4 is now primarily a Netflix/DVD player for my son. I really haven't touched it since I gave up on the No Man's Sky snoozefest. But I gourged on the Steam winter sale because there was a back catalog of games I had missed. I'm already allocating some of my tax return for PC parts after not adding any new hardware since 2009-2010ish.
You really don't need bleeding edge halo product type $650+ video cards to have a good experience on PC. That is one of the big misconceptions many console gamers seem to have about PC gaming. In fact those cards are usually a very poor value from a price/performance standpoint. You are paying a huge premium for marginally more performance than more mainstream options. Currently, an RX480 or GTX 1060 will give you a good experience at 1080p for $180 to $250. And a GTX 1070 will give you a good experience at 1440p (or even 4K in some games) for $400. If you already own a desktop, you can spend about what you would spend on a console for a video card, and the graphics will be far better than on a console. Even if you upgrade frequently it does not have to be expensive. I upgrade my video card every 2-3 years, but I pay for a large part of the new video card by selling my old one. RX480 is basically the PC alternative to an XB1 S or PS4 Slim (but far better) and the GTX 1070 is basically the alternative to a PS4 Pro (but far better). Pricing is very similar to what you would be paying for those consoles. PC games tend to be cheaper than console games, you don't have to pay a yearly fee to play online like you do for consoles, and there are cheap but decent options for the hardware. There's no reason PC gaming can't be the same price as console gaming, or even cheaper overall.
I think the AMD RX 480 was a game changer for the PC. AMD took $500s worth of performance and turned it into a $200 card. I got one for my nephew at $165 and he can now play any PC game there is on his 1080p monitor on ultra settings. Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD
True. We went through a period for a few years there where nVidia was dominating, there was little competition, and prices were getting insane. But that is all changing. AMD is coming back in a big way. You can get a lot of performance for your money at the moment. At around $200, RX480 is offering GTX 970 or 980 level performance (depending on the game) that used to cost $330 to $550. And it seems like nVidia was forced to make the 1060 and 1070 cards better than they probably would have wanted. RX 480 is a no brainer for people on a tight budget. And 1070 is a no brainer for people with a bit more money. I don't think the GTX 1080 currently makes much sense from a price/performance standpoint.
Back when I was giving up on trying to keep up, you did need the $600 card to keep up. The software requirements were advancing a lot faster back then and the budget segment was extremely competitive and updating very frequently. If I remember correctly, my card began to struggle when DX11 games started rolling out and the cards were not priced as competitively as they were when I bought my HD 4850 for less than $150. Sub-$200 cards could handle games mostly maxed out when they were released. My saving grace was the few developers whom kept pushing DX9.0c, but eventually I thought that I couldn't afford $200-300 every 2-3 years. I had a PS3 and that console generation was getting extended life because of the recession. I had a choice between knowing I'd get a decent frame rate on most games on my PS3 with no added investment, or struggling to find the right settings to play the same games on PC without them looking like bad with low settings. At the time, developers were still advancing the graphics on the PS3's difficult architecture, but on PC, my experience was getting worse trying to play the same games. It was also a nice change of pace to sit on my couch lazily with a gamepad. However, it seems the pricing is getting back where I need it to be on PC and the console environment is stale. The consoles are literally old PC parts now, there is no advancements in graphics this deep into the life cycles, and those advancements have already been widespread on PC. PC is king again and I want back in.
Are you sure about your experience back then? I don't think any of us pc gamers can agree with that. I currently have a geforce 1080 and it's basically the first card I got above $600 (ignoring the fact I bought a 980ti 3 months before it launched). And I only got it because I play above the resolution average (3440x1440) and have a gsync monitor now. All of my past video cards were $250-$300. Paying for a $600 video card back then is the equivalent of getting a Titan now.
My video card buying experience last gen (looked at my purchase history in Newegg just to be sure): 640mb MSI Geforce 8800 GTS - purchased January 2007 for $379.99 with a $50 mail in rebate = $329.99 total 1GB 256-bit Gigabyte GTX 460 - purchased July 2010 for $234.99 Total spent on GPUs for 360/PS3/Wii Gen = $564.98. That's less than the cost of a PS3 at launch to achieve high settings at 1680x1050 from Q1 2007 to Q4 2013. No idea what Hawk is talking about. Maybe he needs to do more research on the cards he buys? I'm in a weird but good situation this gen because my Dad bought me a GTX 780 Ti as a Birthday gift back in 2013. That card was so expensive, I've been able to sell and side-grade to other high-end cards spending almost nothing out of pocket. 780 Ti to 980 to 1070. My brother who did not get a 780 Ti from our dad bought a GTX 970 a couple of years ago. He games less than I do but has been very happy with that ~$300 card. If not for getting the 780 Ti, I probably would have also bought a 970. Seems like lots of people have bought either a 970 or RX 480 this gen and been very happy, and neither one of those cards is expensive.