Joystiq:
EA2D is Electronic Arts's small-team, small-game studio, which just launched Dragon Age Legends on Facebook and has Fancy Pants Adventures for PSN and XBLA in the wings.
We spoke to Mark Spenner, VP and GM of the studio, about these two very different projects.
How, we wondered, do these two wildly different things, a console game based on a Flash game, and a Facebook spinoff of a giant RPG, both fall under the same EA2D banner?
I’ve spent a rather alarming amount of time lately with a couple games that scratch the same itch for me. I’ve talked briefly about Recettear, the RPG where you run an item store. I ended up taking the smart phone plunge a couple weeks ago (much to my chagrin) and wasted no time buying Game Dev Story, a type of sim/RPG where you run a development studio. I’ve had a ton of fun with these games, and that’s been surprising to me. But first, a little backstory.
I was eating peanuts, saw Reccetear Listed as casual, now im cleaning peanuts off my keyboard. Reccetear is the most hardcore game you can find these days, mark my words.
We really need to stop with this whole hardcore vs. Casual thing, its getting old.
If your a gamer your a gamer. I don't care if you play temple run,halo, angry birds, Tetris, gears of war, mario, wiifit, killzone or farmville your a gamer.
We need to accept EVERYONE into gaming so we can expand as medium. I don't think we need "labels" anymore if your gonna have a "label" it should be that your a gamer and that's it.
How silly is it that a nerdy Guy is shunning others for playing a "casual game"? You think that 'casual gamer' is gonna care? They'll probably laugh at you. Just because they don't play as many videogames as you, or the same kinds, or take it as serious as you do, doesn't mean they are any less worthy of playing a game of their choosing.
So in closing I just wanted to get that off my chest. We should unite rather than divide "casual vs hardcore" its just silly. And before you dislike, just try to read this with an open mind.
Just my 2 cents.
A lot of "hardcore " gamers play some of the worst most generic ugly games ever.
Saying you are "hardcore" is like giving yourself a nickname.
It's just douche.
Their are Gamers & people who don't play games.
The funny thing is if it wasn't for the "casual" crowd the industry wouldn't have been able to get back on its feet after the crash. Besides they often account for the (vast) majority of any company's total console sales which disproves the notion that gaming is (or once was) a niche industry.
Joseph of GAMElitist.com - "So often core gamers are seen as those gamers really into the so-called “hardcore” games, you know, the ones rated M (or 18 in the UK) which involve as much gore, violence and profanity as possible."
I think you'll find this article interesting:
http://n4g.com/news/861423/...
Quite frankly, I don't like to label things- games included. I don't care if a game's made to be simple and inviting or complex and challenging, what's important to me is whether or not it's engaging. It's the reason I enjoy Angry Birds and Halo: Reach. They're both engaging, even though they're so wildly different.
I think that the "casual" and "hardcore" terms are quickly losing meaning, because I agree that when millions of gamers are playing Call of Duty or Skyrim, it sort of loses some of that "hardcore" luster, and when a different group of millions pours hundreds of hours into Facebook games, then that isn't really casual, anymore. But the meanings aren't supposed to be literal; we've come to classify the games in our lives more for the purpose of understanding where they lie in relation to similar things. For instance, Halo is too complex for my mom, so I'll call that "hardcore." Scrabble is a game that my mom can play on her phone, so l'll call that "casual..."
In regards to meta/self-referential/nostalgi c games, which is what the article is actually about, I don't think they're going anywhere. If anything, the opposite is true, as with more and more gaming history to draw on, those types of games should actually become increasingly more common. We finally have a history to look back on, so any game with pixel art or that sidescrolls is a throwback. We're in a great age for those types of moments, because kids who grew up on NES and later are developing games, now, and that history is important to them. Even if the blockbuster titles are mostly missing it, you can look to a sea of indie downloadable and/or PC games where that sense of history and the inherent humor surrounding it has never been more alive.
An article on the panel discussion at GDC, "Designing for Free: How Free-to-Play Games Blur the Line Between Design and Business". Though discussion might be a misnomer, since the panel quickly evolved into a heated debate about the merits of the format.
Wow, excellent write-up. Thought this panel would be boring, but it was much better apparently.
