Nowadays, developers and publishers make the most money with games that are tailored to the broad market and are therefore as “casual” as possible. Does this mean that gaming culture is going down the drain?
Battleborn is by no means a game for casual players and in my last column about Gearbox’s hero shooter, the question arose whether a casual game is inherently something bad. And since this topic actually deserves its own article, we simply made it the topic of “Mein-MMO asks” this week. Thanks again to the reader Void for the suggestion.
Was everything better in the past?
But back to the topic. In the past, games were usually more complex and harder to master. Often not all aspects of the gameplay mechanics were explained, and you spent hours and days figuring out all the functions of a game. I remember that in the first Wing Commander, I only found out after weeks that you could jump to the target area immediately via autopilot; I had been stumbling there manually until then…
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Today, such mistakes are practically impossible because detailed tutorials explain even to the biggest simpleton how to play the game, and even a toddler can tackle current titles at the lowest difficulty level.
Simple = undemanding?
For single-player games, such simplifications are a clear annoyance for many core gamers, which is why the negative reviews of the latest Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed are often hard to miss. But what about multiplayer games? Is Heroes of the Storm worse than League of Legends because Blizzard’s MOBA is less complex? And does Battleborn belong in the rubbish bin because Gearbox’s hero shooter has much more complex gameplay?
Here, the question is less easy to answer, as Heroes of the Storm allows people who have previously been put off by the complex gameplay to venture into the MOBA genre due to its simplicity, and fear making a fool of themselves in the notorious community of LoL.
And HotS isn’t actually that undemanding at all, as the different maps and many talent builds make the game more complex than it seems at first glance. Only the entry and learning curve with new heroes are considerably smoother. So is it really bad that you can quickly play a few short rounds in Heroes of the Storm after work without having to struggle to get into the game?
Demographic Change
Moreover, many players from the early days have now reached middle age, often with demanding jobs, spouses, and families. Many lack the time to deal with theory crafting for the optimal damage output of the chaos witch Orendi from Battleborn in addition to working overtime and raising children.
Better to play a round with Tracer in Overwatch, where you only have to keep an eye on three simple skills without any additional effects, and you have no worries about equipment or the optimal talent selection. And we should never forget that many games labeled as “casual” are often easy to learn but devilishly hard to master. World of Tanks is a good example: Anyone who has seen Russian pro teams at the Grand Finals in Warsaw and compares them with the cute tank fun at the lower tiers knows what I mean.
But enough about the casual controversy, I want to hear your opinion on the topic. Are all casual games a plague, a necessary evil dictated by the times, or actually a great thing? Write it in the comments! I look forward to a lively discussion!
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