The rise of the casual gamer

I’ve always been intrigued with video games, but was never very good at them. I had a PlayStation that I bought at a clearance sale, then bought a refurbished PlayStation 2, and now have a Wii that a client bought for me. Video games hold my attention for a little bit, but I grow tired of them quickly, probably because I have to turn on the TV and go into another room to play. I believe (as do some tech experts) that console gaming is going to be relegated to the hard core gamer and that smartphones and tablets will be more than sufficient for the casual gamer.

In fact, I think that smartphones and tablets (e.g. iPad) is making people that really aren’t gamers into people that are playing more and more games. If you look at the types of games available for iPhone and iPad, there is a huge range with some of the more addictive ones such as Angry Birds requiring very little skill to play. I think that one of the problems with game consoles is that some games require far too much time to master and have too many controls (look at the number of buttons on a PlayStation controller).

I have a bunch of games on my iPad and really enjoy playing them; I think that Angry Birds informed me that I had already passed 5 hours of playing! Ouch, that’s a lot of wasted time! My manager told me that she has probably passed 80 hours playing it on airplanes (that seems a bit much to me, but what do I know). In addition to the simplicity of the games (in terms of mastering), the very low cost makes it a no brainer for people to pick up the games.

Is it bad for more people to play games on these devices? If it helps pass the time and relaxes people, I don’t think it can hurt. If it becomes so addictive that they play them while walking across a street then, yes, there is a problem.