What is Casual Game

This article provides a critical overview of mobile gaming, from discrete offline casual games to location-based, mixed reality, cross-platform, and urban games and, more recently, the array of downloadable playful and social applications for the touchscreen smartphone and handheld tablet or iPad. The discussion begins by casting mobile games as one of the most significant trajectories of an emerging app-based media ecology. The authors consider the way mobile gaming and play have become intrinsic to our everyday practices and challenge the distinction that is often made between casual and hardcore (or ‘real') gamers. The article then explores how location-based mobile games generate hybrid experiences of place and presence, requiring the player to integrate their own situated and embodied perception of the world with dynamic GPS-enabled information. Finally, the overview turns to the relation between mobile media and social media games—which include those mobile games and apps that embed social networking and sharing features into the game or games accessed and played through social networking services via a mobile device. On a broader scale—in terms of the impact of mobile games on our daily lives—the proliferation of mobile interfaces, games, and playful apps is playing a key role in what is termed the ‘lusory' or playful turn in culture.