When it comes to gamers, there is a specific list of things you don’t want to be accused of being. In the olden days, it was the word ‘noob’ but the one that has been making the rounds in the past few years is the term ‘casual’. Made famous by memes around the Dark Souls series, being called a ‘casual’ implied you were a casual player only playing casual games and weren’t ‘serious’ enough to take on tough titles.

Putting aside how much this accusation is true or not, the question remains as to where the line that marks a game as casual is. What are the key features?

Guides

It’s a fact that the more hardcore a game is seen to be, the more guides there will be available for it. They’re a way for players to get the most out of their entertainment, and this isn’t limited to video gaming either, with TV series, books, and casino games also having extensive guides behind them.

To take some examples from the last case, you can find guides available across the board, from slot game guides and poker strategy guides to Mega Ball guides, for those playing the bingo and lottery combo game. In all the cases above, it’s always the more invested people using them to get the maximum value from their time.

In contrast, if there is a game with only a handful of guides available online, that game may be considered casual as the likely reason would be that there isn’t enough depth to it. There may be other reasons such as a basic lack of awareness of the game, but these days any notable game you can name would be expected to have something.

Skill

The reason that casual games more commonly come from the world of mobile games is because, other than a few exceptions, apps don’t have the same depth of controls and so don’t require the same skill level. The majority of the games simply involve tapping basic buttons on the screen repeatedly, and this lack of manual skill is what lands them in the casual category.

This type of casual game may also have things such as unlimited lives or chances, or an inability to lose the game at all, the latter being common with ‘idle’ games. ‘Idle’ games are those where the player typically does about 30 minutes of play at a time, often basic tapping tasks, and then the game will generate resources and experience while the app is off. By nature, there is virtually no loss condition to it, and many commentators consider these to be the most casual games of all.

Time

All of the above eventually falls under the banner of the biggest factor: time. The use of guides and building of skills all come back to the amount of time put into a game. For a casual game, the amount of time put into it could be a handful of hours in a month, but it’s entirely common for dedicated hardcore players to sink hundreds of hours into a title. If you then look into the world of esports and professional gamers, anything less than several thousand total hours would be considered a major issue, and 10,000 total hours would be considered uncommon.

So, in short, if the game is seen to be low-skill, low-hours, and doesn’t have the depth worthy of lots of guides, you can probably safely file it as casual. Of course, individual players may have wildly different opinions on where the bar is for all of those factors, but at least it’s a good starting point!