“The split between âcasualâ and âhardcoreâ gaming leaves a huge gulf in between: people like me. Okay, maybe not huge compared to the market for casual games, but Iâm part of a grossly underserved market at least as large as the hardcore PC gaming crowd. When I play casual games, I find myself wanting more substance, meatier gameplay, but when I play a PC game, I, typically donât end up playing it for long because itâs simply too complex, too stressful or too hard.”
Amen.
I find myself playing a lot of ‘pick-up’ games, more so on portables (DS and Gameboy Micro mainly, as there are no good PSP games for playing on the move – having said that – the notable exception is ‘Everybody’s Golf’ which I’m playing to death) – and games that seem to be made or marketed for younger players: Katamari, Zelda the WindWaker, Alien Homonid.
They seem to have more novelty (often especially with reference to the semantics and mechanics of the game), their are easier to get into, while often becoming engrossing, and you can dip in and out of them easily.
More please.
Petafloptimism 
Hello again, and yes! I’ve been meaning to write for years about how portable gaming is in so many ways the perfect gaming delivery system for people with lives in a modern world.
agreed. I have a few games that I have literally become afraid of and I find that I don’t even want to pick up the gameboy because I’ve got memories of long periods of play that somewhere along the line have become bad memories. Wario ware is the one exception for me. From what I hear, this game and the follow-up have both been quite well received so hopefully there’ll be more inventive ‘pick-up’ games like these to come.
Hear hear! Occasionally, when I am bored (read: in the privy) I find myself playing Snake at my Nokia 6230… We need games for the loo.
An important factor is also the general decrease in size, weight and price of gaming technology that is currently pushing the console [and pc?] market go mobile with full bells and whistles â though really just building on models from âstationaryâ gaming. I agree that as weâre now living on-the-go-lifestyles, weâre really only looking to satisfy a quick-fix gaming need, and not hours and hours of engagement required by the current £35 a title gaming market⦠so perhaps what is really needed is games that are simple to pick up on – but just as easy to forget about again. (like the London tube paper Metro) Guess this would require new distribution models though – such as a âPay & Playâ model or the likes?
I’ve basically moved to exclusively playing games with a quick “pick-up” factor. I generally look for ones with some complexity that can also be played in a nice quick ten or fifteen minute session. Look for Advance Wars for the GB Micro or try out Diner Dash for the PC; both offer some degree of complexity with only small time investments required for play.