Labelling players as "casual" is wrong - Slam Games

Labelling players as "casual" gamers isn't right, and that it's the style of the games they play that's important.

That's according to David Thompson, VP of Scottish developer Slam Games, who told GamesIndustry.biz: "I think it's kind of the difference between people that go and see movies, and people that go and see films - completely different audiences, don't get them mixed up."

"Saying somebody's a casual player is doing them a disservice, because there are people playing Bejewelled for twelve hours in a go - I wouldn't have ever played a game for more than a couple of hours in one go, so I think the terms are maybe mistaken somewhat.

"I think it's more the style of game - something you can sit down and play in chunks, rather than having to sit down for three hours to play the next chapter of the game, whatever that it."

And he added that it's important for developers to look at making new kinds of games for some of the different kinds of peripherals that exist in the market place now.

"There are all these games now - there was an article recently that there are three or four different types of guitar controller now - who has that kind of storage space?", he said. "I think people need to be a lot more aware, particularly on the download side of things for PSN or XBLA, of exactly what controllers are there.

"People have guitar controllers - what else can you do with that? A different style of guitar game? Or a banjo game? Banjo Hero maybe...

"But to be fair I think a lot of the platform holders are telling people to look at that - use the camera, use the peripherals, dance mats and so on. These things are out there in quite large numbers, but there're really only a couple of games that are actually taking advantage of them."

The full GamesIndustry.biz interview with David Thompson is available now.