Social Gaming, not the Wii, Should Hook Casual Gamers

Though I would hardly call it a vice nowadays, gaming is very much an active hobby of mine. For some time, the golden tubes that carry our internet have been clogged with nothing but praises for Nintendo's dream console, the game machine that is helping all demographics realize their inner "casual" gamers. Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but I'm failing to realize how that little angular piece of whiteness that is selling for outrageous prices both on eBay and in stores is the quintessence of casual gaming.

What is casual gaming? It is entertainment that is interactive, simple, and can be enjoyed by yourself or with friends, right? To me, casual gaming also is inexpensive, available to a large group of people, and plain old addictive. Nintendo's Wii might not be that expensive (retailing for $249, if you can find one), and it certainly has a lot of pick-up-and-play value to a wide audience, but if that's casual gaming at it's best, a lot of out-of-touch critics need to give social gaming a try.

Social games are free and available on the most popular and accessible social platforms. If you can access the internet, you can play social games. That's a far site more accessible than a game console that has been out of stock in retail locations for nearly two years now, and when you can touch one, costs more than $300 with games and accessories.

Social games, by their very nature, are meant to be time-wasters — to be picked up at a moment's notice and not put down without significant effort. You don't have to be sitting at home in front of your television to play social games. You can play social games with your friends at any given time from different locations, and they only need a computer, just like you.

What might blow the minds of every type of gamer, including those who praise the Wii, is that social games are just as pointless and addictive as anything Nintendo could give you. The of the top five most addictive and used applications on Facebook, four are games. Those games are Bowling Buddies, Bubble Town (a puzzle game), Mob Wars and Word Challenge, according to July statistics from the Alley Insider. They don't involve flashy graphics, deep story lines, or waving around a piece of plastic, but nail casual gaming. Anyone with an aptitude for wordplay will no doubt waste countless hours on the ever-popular Scrabulous.

Media has always been able to spin positive impressions of lackluster products or destroy the images of perfectly innovative technology. I really hope the media can stop rubbing Nintendo's ego and start polishing the image of social gaming. But then, social gaming won't pay the bills. You might just have to find out for yourself.