Digital games have become a remarkable cultural phenomenon in the last ten years. The casual games sector especially has been growing rapidly in the last few years. However, there is no clear view on what is "casual" in games cultures and the area has not previously been rigorously studied. In the discussions on casual games, "casual" is often taken to refer to the player, the game or the playing style, but other factors such as business models and accessibility are also considered as characteristic of "casual" in games. Views on casual vary and confusion over different meanings can lead to paradoxical readings, which is especially the case when "casual gamer" is taken to mean both "someone who plays casual games" and someone who "plays casually". In this article we will analyse the ongoing discussion by providing clarification of the different meanings of casual and a framework for an overall understanding of casual in the level of expanded game experience.

This paper introduces brainstorming games developed for the use of game designers. Three games designed especially for generating new game ideas were developed in the GameSpace project, which studies methods for design and evaluation of casual mobile multiplayer games. GameSpace idea generation games have been developed through an iterative process in collaboration with the end users: game industry professionals. According to our workshop experiences and tentative results from a pilot study, idea generation games can be successful devices for the creative work of game designers. Gamebased idea generation techniques provide an easily facilitated, focused yet playful setting for coming up with new ideas. However, our experiences indicate that idea generation games feature special challenges that must be taken into consideration when designing such games.