The Wii has been praised for/accused of ushering in a trend known as "casual gaming", where people who don't normally play video games find themselves engrossed by simple, easy-to-learn games that can be replayed for hours, such as those found in Wii Sports, Wii Play, and any number of titles for the Wii, DS, and PC.
Anyone whose aunts, uncles, parents, or grandparents who considered video games a mindless pastime but were mesmerized by the Wii's intuitive controls and accessible gameplay can attest to this phenomenon. But according to Laurent Fischer, Nintendo Europe's senior marketing director, casual gamers are just like you and me, if you look under the surface:
"For me, you are a gamer or non-gamer... I think most of you know that you can spend ten or twenty hours on an internet flash game and have not realized. The guy who plays these games regularly -- he's a core gamer... Someone who is fifty-years old who only plays Brain Training, but plays it like a core gamer is a core gamer... I don't like this word casual so much. Because people consider that casual needs to be something easy. If you're good at any game you can play at a high difficulty level...
"Take Tetris. There is incredible gameplay, it's very simple, very easy to understand, but it's also very different. I think a game can be a light enough to enjoy and for all gamers to become a core gamer on it... There is no casual gaming. There is just a different way to play."
There's got to be a more recent example to use than Tetris. Have we gone nowhere in 20 years? Or is this man too proud to speak of late nights spent with Bejeweled and Peggle?
