Casual online games are about as fickle and non-committal as you get. From the casual standard, solitaire, to the 1000’s of flash games featuring fuzzy little critters on sites like Neopets, what makes these type of games so alluring is their stupid simplicity and the advance assurance that there is no way you’lll ever fall hard for the game. Commitment-free.
Kind of like a casual mate.
So with all the recent talk of casual worlds like Gaia Online it shouldn’t be a surprise that these casual worlds are being placed on the polar end of “harder” more immersive worlds like Second Life and There.com.
The user interaction in the “casual” sphere is far simpler. No clients to download and install. That means an immediate play experience.
As of this post, Gaia Online owns no real trade marketplaces. Users aren’t able to trade in their virtual currency for real dollars. That may be a stupid business decision. But it definitely lessens the complication.
Entering Gaia’s site and designing my own avatar reminded me of my Happy Meal experiences when I was younger. Everything is so piecemeal on the site. There are hundreds of different “experience channels” to sift thru, marketplaces and forums. In fact according to Wagner James Au over at Gigaom only 10% of user activity takes place in world. Apparently, young users are too busy talking up their avatars on their forum boards to actually play with them.
I never kept my Happy Meal toys beyond the day I got them. Inside Gaia and other casual worlds the avatar customization is so seamless however, the moment you tire of one avatar look you can just change to another.
Worlds like Second Life just can’t package the Happy Meal experience like casual worlds can.
On the other hand, the danger with stupid simple, casual worlds is apparent.
Casual relationships usually lead to casual dumping.
Easy uptake also means easy churn and throw away. With little investment on behalf of the user into aspects like avatar customization, today’s most populous casual world can be tomorrow’s virtual ghost town.
Ask me to dump my generic template of a fuzzy little creature-something at Gaia, or my chubby penguin at Club Penguin I’ll offer little resistance.
Ask me to give away my self-modeled There.com avatar, or better yet my specially designed Jabba the Hut Second Life avatar and you’ll be reckoning with the force.
My opinion is that this website is one of those, created for people with a low intellect level, with a stupidest points of view ever. Seems like only retards gathered together here, to discuss their retarded thoughts. Just read there comments! Man! It’s hilarious. They all act like kids in kindergarten, but kids are even smarter!
Adrienne
April 11th, 2008