When Fall Guys initially released, it could not have asked or planned for a better time to drop a new game. Coming out right in the dead middle of the Covid 19 Pandemic Fall Guys was able to take advantage of an opportunity never seen by gaming companies. With billions of people forced inside and, on their screens, people were extremely bored looking for distractions and content to consume. It was in this perfect storm that Fall Guys released and immediately went viral and took over the internet. For a couple weeks after Fall Guys dropped everywhere on social media you would see memes, funny clips, and videos or livestreams of people playing. The game entirely took over twitch with all the top streamers jumping on the hype train millions of people had their eyes and attention entirely glued to Fall Guys. But how did such a simple, non-complex game take the world by storm. It was exactly this simplicity that made Fall Guys so successful and widely appealing.
Beauty in Simplicity
As far as I am aware, in the game of Fall Guys there is only four main controls in which you use to play the game. There’s the movement, foreword, back, ect and then the Jump, Grab, and finally dive. The entirety of each game is played essentially only using these four controls. This means that the game of Fall Guys is so simple that essential any age or generation could understand and play it. The very purpose of the game which is to complete an obstacle course or minigame and survive to the end is also very easy to explain. With such a simple goal and simple controls this means that Fall Guys really is a game that can appeal to every age range and demographic. An 8-year-old could squad up and drop in with a bunch of 70-year-olds and everyone would understand the basic goal and concept of the game. Fall Guys has been able to reach an audience that not only includes gamers, but everyone regardless of skill in all ages. Think about the amount of new people playing video games for the very first time during the pandemic. Lack of skill and understanding can be very discouraging and make non-gamers shy away from video games because they constantly lose and don’t understand why. Winning a game of Fall Guys is no easy task considering you are up against 59 other players but playing and having success is capable for anyone. The Casual gaming audience has quietly been on the rise for many years now. Gone are the days where video games are a “boy thing” for men who spent all their time grinding away and not having a social life. Video games are not only commonplace in society and culture but have become cool or at least completely normalized for anyone to play.
The Rise of Casual Gaming
Gaming in a traditional sense has not changed, the core principles of the gaming community centered around completive play still exists. E-Sport, completive match making, and pink slips still exist and are probably more prevalent now than ever. What has changed is the gaming industry. The developers that make that games have started to branch out and make games for all ages, desires, and have added accessibility options that bring in millions of new players. Gaming as whole has eve started to surpass even Hollywood and the music industry in terms of a entertainment industry. The gaming industry saw a boost of 23% growth in the pandemic, this is not entirely due to gaming but to the circumstances surrounding the pandemic. But as more and more differing types of people with different wants and backgrounds it makes sense that new gaming genres would also arise. The main genre on the rise currently is the casual gaming genre. To me the rise of this genre is centered around the shifting demographics of the gaming industry. It’s a cliché but women are playing video games now. Of course, many always had but it is not secret that video games used to be seen as a mostly male past time. The straight, cis white male gaming demographic is well known as a stereotype for gamers. However due to a rise in new genres like casual gaming, mixed with more accessibly options than ever before many new types of players are getting into gaming. Fall Guys perfectly personifies this as one of the simplest games to come out in recent memory. 6o beans are put into a lobby and presented with an obstacle course or mini game to complete. It really does not get more casual and simplistic than that you are presented with a basic task and must complete it as quickly as possible to beat the other player in the lobby. This along with games like the Sims, Stardew Valley, and Minecraft all show that players are not always looking for a competitively stimulating experience. There’s are large percentage of gamers whom simplicity wishes to sit back, put their feet up and, play a stress-free game with no stakes. This type of gaming does not only appeal to the rise in new types of people playing games. As more casual style games come out, more of the highly competitive gamers slowly and surely get brought over. Everyone loves buying and playing a new game, it’s a universally loved experience that all gamers know. But the price can often be a barrier to a large percentage of the population that keeps many gamers from experiencing a new game. This is also where the free-to-play with micro transaction revolution going on in gaming also comes in. Mainly popularized by Fortnite, Fall Guys has recently game down this route and gone completely free to play. This complexly revived the game and now the player base is active and thriving even though the game came out 2 years ago at this point in time.
