You must be THIS hardcore to read this column

You know who I'm talking about: your grandparents, your girlfriend, the family pet. You're worried because you like to revel in spending hours blasting your friends online, or going through an epic adventure. They, on the other hand, would be perfectly happy putting together some colourful cube-like puzzle or pretend they're bowling for about half an hour at most per day, before they put the controllers away to go do something else with their life.

A lot of gaming media has dubbed the phenomenon the "burst of the casual gamer," creating some kind of strange dichotomy between "hardcore" players, the aforementioned bunch who plug away at their consoles until the cows come home, and the newer crowd.

I believe this is too narrow-minded a view, however. Firstly, there's not even a real definition of what a "casual" game is. We have a slight idea. These games tend to generally be shorter, are of a more repetitive nature, present challenges that are simpler, often have little to no depiction of violence, are not too impressive on the production values front, and offer no true narrative.

What sounds funny to me is that, about two decades and a half ago, the formula I just listed could have described almost all the biggest video game hits. Think about it. Pac-Man, the original Super Mario Bros., Space Invaders, Donkey Kong…all of these more or less fit with the description. You were not "hardcore" or "casual" based on what you played, because, in many ways, "casual" games were all that was available.

My point is, if we as industry enthusiasts are not so horribly closed up and protective about our hobby and let these current "casual" gamers slowly but surely into the fold, there is quite a strong chance they might drop the more light-hearted stuff and move toward the meatier games.

Besides, don't we all exhibit symptoms of "casual" gaming from time to time? I know that as the years go by, I certainly have less patience for ultra-long games that take above 40 hours to complete. For that kind of investment, the game better be nothing short of spectacular. Furthermore, I'm a lot less patient when it comes to losing. As a boy, I could restart from the beginning of a particularly difficult challenge again and again, until I got it right. Now? If that pesky boss character keeps killing me in a duel, or I just can't seem to jump across a bottomless pit, my patience wears out extremely quickly, and my finger hovers toward the power button rather than the reset one.

Another way of looking at this division is to simply consider these categories as different genres of a same form (I won't say "art form" as that's a discussion for a whole other column). Do you not watch light, summer action flicks or comedies once in a while? Do you only view a steady stream of Oscar-competing tearjerker wartime dramas? Didn't think so. Then why have that attitude about the proliferation of "casual" games?

I think, again, it sort of shows how reactive we are as an audience. We get upset when the environmentalists criticize our hardware, when the media point their fingers at violent games (sometimes justifiably so), and we get upset when the waves of casualness wash over us. But I think, if we just learned to control our tempers and not go stampeding off on our blogs to complain, we would realize we're not about to suffer a mass casualty.