We have come to an interesting time in the gaming history - a giant chasm is appearing in the gaming market, one separating the casual and hardcore gaming audiences. While the hardcore gaming market has existed for quite some time now, only recently has the casual gaming market really come into existence - the question being ‘Is there a middle ground?’; is it possible to create a game with a low enough barrier to entry that it can attract the casual gamer, yet keep a hardcore gaming fan interested for hours on end?

For some time the hardcore gamer has existed, spending large amounts of money on gaming consoles, high end gaming PC’s, one time purchases for the actual games, and of course in recent times reoccurring monthly charges for online MMORPG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). These die-hard fans will spend countless thousands of dollars (not to mention in some cases a large percentage of their disposable income) on tweaking their gaming rigs to get those extra few frames per second. These same gamers will spend countless thousands of hours honing their gaming skills at FPS games, building high-level warriors in online role playing games, and conquering the leaderboards in other types of games.

At the other end of the spectrum we are faced with a burgeoning market of casual gamers. These casual gamers are on usually in the age range of 25 to 45 and spend $500 million per year playing casual games. Casual games as provided by Real Networks, MSN Gaming, and smaller companies such as Wild Tangent offer a low barrier to entry, quick play times, and easy to learn games. These games are usually do not have the system requirements of modern 3D games, and can be played within a browser on most internet terminals.

Sadly there are very few gamers that fall between these two categories. Innovative convergence products such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360’s downloadable arcade games are making an attempt to bridge the gap between the lengthy games that attract a hardcore gamer, and the quick fun gaming sessions favored by the casual gamer.

As much as devices like the Xbox 360 can bridge the gap and appeal to multiple gamer categories we have sadly yet to see a specific gaming title that can do the same thing. Hopefully a game production company will see this ripe middle-ground market for what it is soon, and attempt to create a new category of game - the all audiences game.

Such a middle-ground game would have to have both the depth that a typical hardcore gamer is looking for, as well as the low barriers to entry that most casual games offer. A variant on current MMORPG’s that would eliminate level grinding (the practice of gaining levels through repetitive actions) and make the game as fun to play for 15 minutes a month or 40 hours a week would achieve this. Such a game would more likely fall into the MMOG category and lose many of the current earmarks of role playing games.

Games such as Second Life are attempting to appeal to the wider audience with wide availability of content creation tools for users, but still have a relatively high barrier to entry for beginning users. User interface design technologies will need to evolve significantly before allowing a user to both “jump in” to a game, as well as have a very granular level of control over their gaming experience and the game environment at large.

With next generation consoles bringing more and more power to the fingertips of gaming developers hopefully the industries focus will leave ever more realistic graphics and start to instead focusing on making games more accessible to users. This can also lead to a focus on gameplay (as historical games ranging from Pac-Man to Katamari Damacy have) and making the gaming experience as fun as it is immersive.