A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players

by Jesper Juul

We used to think that video games were mostly for young men, but with the success ofthe Nintendo Wii, and the proliferation of games in browsers, cell phone games, and social gamesvideo games changed changed fundamentally in the years from 2000 to 2010. These new casual games arenow played by men and women, young and old. Players need not possess an intimate knowledge of videogame history or devote weeks or months to play. At the same time, many players of casual games showa dedication and skill that is anything but casual. In A Casual Revolution ,Jesper Juul describes this as a reinvention of video games, and of our image of video game players,and explores what this tells us about the players, the games, and their interaction. With thisreinvention of video games, the game industry reconnects with a general audience. Many of today'scasual game players once enjoyed Pac-Man, Tetris , and other early games, only todrop out when video games became more time-consuming and complex. Juul shows that it is only byunderstanding what a game requires of players, what players bring to a game, how the game industryworks, and how video games have developed historically that we can understand what makes video gamesfun and why we choose to play (or not to play) them.

Genres: Games, Video Games, Nonfiction, Gaming, Game Design, Ebooks, Research

252 pages, Hardcover

First published October 9, 2009

About the author

Jesper Juul is video game theorist and Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Academy. He has taught at MIT, New York University, and ITU Copenhagen. An occasional game developer and organizer of the first Nordic Game Jam, he is the author of five books about the meaning, joy, and pain of video games.

Reviews

[Chris Aylott · Rating 3 out of 5]

How quickly the game world is changing! This is a 2010 book, finished sometime in 2009, and it almost completely misses the revolution in social gaming. The focus here is on casual web games, Guitar Hero, and the Wii, the burning hot parts of the game business in 2008.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Juul's study of how game audiences and game or controller designs interact is thoughtful and just as applicable to social gaming as it is to casual and mimetic gaming. I've picked up some useful tips in here, and I'm looking forward to putting them to work. It's just kind of funny to think that you can take all these ideas, soak them in social gaming gasoline and light them on fire.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how clearly Juul defined his ideas and backed them up with historical and research evidence. I read this last year but put off reviewing it since I wanted to finish reading the appendix, but I guess that's not happening.

Some quotes that encapsulate Juul's theses:

"Where a casual game is flexible toward different types of players and uses, a hardcore games makes inflexible and unconditional demands on the skill and commitment of a player." (10)

"The casual revolution is that moment we realize that the primary barrier to playing video games was not technology but design[...]" (146).

[Tiffany Taylor Attaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good observations and critique of the difference between casual and hard core games.

[Alberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro intetesante sobre diseño de videojuegos y el cambio de paradigma hacia un juego más "casual", en el que se castique menos al jugador, se pueda jugar en ratitos cortos, etc. Lo más interesante para mí han sido las entrevistas con los desarrolladores, por lo demás las ideas que maneja no son muchas y a ratos se hace repetitivo.

[Lobna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book insightful but a bit repetitive

[Taswa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A intersting book With lots of good Points and really good to know information for everyone interested in video games. When we are talking about videogames, if you have a passion for them this book may not help you understand it, but it sure can get you on the way. That is if you can get past the boredom of Reading it, which by the way is the books only drawback.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wake up and smell the Farmville.

Video games are thankfully growing out of their exclusivity to Gamers. As more and more people play games, more and more designers need to get serious about what makes a game fun for all kinds of people and not just people who are hardcore gamers.

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, basic book that gives a nice sense of where the game industry is heading.

Not great, but not bad either.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This scratches the surface of casual gaming, but is schizophrenic: some history, a lot of pictures, some interviews and half a book of appendices. Just a weird organization/ package.

[morbidflight · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I'll be citing this book a lot. It's also quite relevant right now with the bs in game culture against diversity of play.

[André Bernhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite superficial in my opinion. Published a bit to late (or early) as it missed the social games revolution!

[Molly Shrago · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt like the book was more about the word "casual" in relation to games than anything else. It wasn't quite what I thought it would be about.

[Hank · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. There wasn't any major insight