Pass the Cereal – In Defense of Casual Games

Here is my confession for the day. I play Farmville on my phone…and I like it.

It’s an all too familiar trope, by now. Core gamers play “real” games like Halo, Warcraft, Dark Souls, or League of Legends. Girl “gamers” play Candy Crush.

I’ve written before about gaming identity and who gets to decide what it is (hint: Geek cred and gamer cards are not officially accepted forms of expertise), but even before my gamer-hackles raise and I get ready to defend my identity as a “true” gamer I always wonder…
What exactly is so wrong with Candy Crush?

First off, the idea of “mommy-gamers” (both condescending and a weird way to try and insult someone. I would LOVE if my mom was a gamer), isn’t even an (entirely) accurate one. It’s true that the majority of Candy Crush players are women, but the margins aren’t so cut and dry. NewZoo’s game market research report gives a fantastically detailed layout of the game’s demographics. Among some other interesting highlights is the fact that 60% of Candy Crushers are female. I’m sorry…but when I think of decisive splits, a 60/40 vote isn’t even close. That’s very nearly a consensus. So where, exactly, is this stigma coming from?

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I’ve been a gamer my whole life. It’s true that many of the people who sparked my love of games were the wonderful men in my life. The first sentence I learned to read was “Thank you, Mario! But our princess is in another castle!” from watching my dad play Super Mario. My big brother got me hooked on Final Fantasy (thank you, Ed), and Magic. My little brother can show me up in cosplay any day and the two of them together are the only reason I own an XBone. And yes…an ex got me hooked on Candy Crush.

But the key behind all of these is not the male-ness of the players…it’s the emotional connection. I play games for two reasons—I love stories, and I love sharing experiences with awesome people. Games (video, board, and role play) allow me to enjoy both at once. In defiance of teenage-girl tropes, I hated talking on the phone…until my best friend introduced me to the idea of role play games where we could “write” stories together. Suddenly, my mom couldn’t keep me OFF of the line (a problem in the ancient days of internet when a clogged phone meant the entire household was barred from calls AND computer use). She and I could (and did) spend hours creating worlds and characters and talking our way through their stories. More than a few times, I’d reluctantly give in and “go to bed” only to wait half an hour for my parents to fall asleep and then sneak down into the basement with the phone to pick up our game where we’d left off.

My introduction to Final Fantasy was no different. I’d always been in love with Nintendo games, but I’d never really been introduced to immersive RPGs…the kind that were intensely story-driven. Then my mom remarried and, for the first time, I had siblings…and they liked awesome things. FFVII was one of the first ways we got to know each other, cheering over Chocobo races and cursing the world when memory cards failed, deleting those precious hours of gameplay…which we always redid. Because we needed to.

Candy Crush, Farmville, and Angry Birds don’t have that same emotional appeal. They are designed (amazingly so) to be quick and addictive. I find I play Farmville with the same fevered mindlessness that I complete quests in WoW or Skyrim: there’s always one more that will only take 30 seconds…5 minutes…one more hour…until, suddenly, it’s night and I’m wondering where the hell my day went. I’m (admittedly) addicted, but casual games aren’t the reason I’m a gamer…they’re just a piece of the larger puzzle. I used to joke that I loved reading so much that I would read anything I could get my hands on, including the backs of cereal boxes. Casual games are my cereal boxes. Well designed, briefly fun, and a way to steal a few minutes (and then a few minutes more…and more…and–) of gaming when I don’t have time to settle in with my console or computer and really immerse myself in a world.

When it comes down to it, casual games aren’t “less than” other games. They serve a different purpose. In The Art of Failure by Jesper Juul, he talks about the function of games and how failure changes the way we play them. Well-designed games use a variety of mechanics, but they tend to base their success in one of three things: skill, chance, or time. The argument against most casual games is that they aren’t skill games. Those “core gamer” games tend to be ones that are known for their difficulty. Being good at them is a sign of proficiency…successes are rewarded with personal satisfaction for overcoming. But the “cost” of failure is higher, too. If you are “bad” at certain types of skills, it’s personal. You are the problem.

Chance games are safer. Games like Candy Crush allow you to take some pride in successes since some of the levels are very strategy-heavy, but there is enough random chance that failure can often be chalked up as bad luck. And games that require time commitments (such as Farmville or daily games like Animal Crossing) can only be “failed” if you stop playing. If you put in time, you are rewarded.

They are all satisfying in different ways. If you want to feel accomplished, skill games are your jam. If you want the emotional rush of winning without personal blame, go for games of chance (note…too much of a good thing is called a gambling addiction). And if you just want a gold star for showing up, time-commitment games are for you.

The myth of the “core” gamer is that you can only want one of those things. But people are complex, and gamers have to lead “real” lives, too. Tending to my “farm” for ten minutes between classes doesn’t invalidate my other gaming experiences. And Candy Crush has given my dad and me a game in common for the first time in years (he emailed me recently to celebrate getting three stars on level 182. I’m still not sure it’s possible). It’s a small piece of a larger puzzle.

I’m not ashamed of playing casual games. I don’t think anyone should be, any more than they should be ashamed of playing pick-up basketball, enjoying funny commercials, or reading the backs of cereal boxes. I define myself by many things, games being one of them…but I am not defined by the games I play.

That said…maybe I’m a little glad that Facebook doesn’t keep track of the hours I’ve played.