The Switch 2 compilation explodes the possibilities of casual gaming as if it was nothing

Casual gaming is a term that most of us who are passionate about the video game medium are conditioned to hear as a pejorative. Casual games are superficial, we think reflexively. In trying to please everyone, they're designed for the lowest common denominator. They're shiny and bland, lacking grit and friction.

Casual gaming can encompass real beauty, though. It can include PopCap's blissful dopamine machines like Bejeweled, or Regency Solitaire’s delightfully frivolous mashup of solitaire and Jane Austen. It can also come in the form of 2006's Wii Sports, the fourth-best-selling game of all time, the game that sold 100 million consoles, the game that changed the gaming landscape. Until it didn't.

Nintendo's casual gaming era during the Wii and DS days seems like a blip now. Boxed out of its birthright by PlayStation and Xbox and a hardware arms race it didn't believe in, Nintendo, through a mix of desperation and inspiration, found undiscovered country: new players, new ways to interact with games, and a new aesthetic of calm minimalism and self-improvement. But those new players proved tough to cultivate in the long term, and when Switch hit big, Nintendo eagerly ran home to the fans.

People were left behind. People like my in-laws, who like video games, who are always game for a bout of Tekken with their grandkids, who play Royal Match on their phones, and whose Wii is still under the TV but hasn't been turned on in years.

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