Wii Sports, the ultimate casual game?

BY: BRIAN ROBBINS  |  Casual Games, Game Industry, General Rambling

This past holiday break has me thinking a lot about what makes a great casual game. While there is no strict definition most people generally agree that casual games need to be easily accessible, and accommodate very short play sessions. The key thing here is that the game needs to be playable by people that wouldn’t consider themselves gamers.

What got me thinking about this was my family’s experience with Wii Sports. At one point we had 3 generations of my wife’s family playing in the same game, everyone from Great-Grandma with Arthritis to my wife (unfortunately our 6 month old daughter was just a little too young to play!). I generally get people to try out games when they visit, but what made this year different is that they were having a great time, and really couldn’t wait to get back to playing.

Being in the game industry I am very aware of the “Wii hype” around the new controller, but other than my mother in-law nobody else playing had even heard of the Wii. Yet the simplicity of controls throughout, and in particular in bowling, made this a game that they could instantly get, and pulled themselves into the game, rather than fighting with how to play. By far the most impressive part was when Great-Grandma was playing. Even with arthritis she was able to manipulate the wiimote with enough skill to bowl nearly 100 points on her first game.

How does this translate back to advergames? I’m not really sure. I’d love to take advantage of the ease of controls possible with the wiimote, but I’m not sure when we’ll get the chance, or if Nintendo will allow branded content onto their platform. What it does show is that the interface into a game make a huge difference especially when looking to reach out to non-gamers as our titles generally do.