Getting serious about casual games

Casual games. I've been researching casual games a lot because of my upcoming interview with Playfirst. I want to understand why people play, how big is the market and what are the unique design and production challenges. The market currently is about 70 - 100 million casual gamers world wide. Currently more than half of these gamers are women( 65%). The core age is 25-54 (71%). And according to Jupiter females play 2.5 times longer than males.

Why so many women?
These games attract women because they can be consumed in short spurts allowing them to maximize their limited leisure time. And many of these gamers are new to gaming so the simplicities is attractive. And then finally I think design of these interfaces and characters appeal to women because they are brighter, friendly and focus less on death and mayhem. In fact many of themes of the games call you to adjust to your environment and not destroy it. It's a more creative way of thinking that I would suggest attracts the female mind.


How are casual games different?
From a GDC 2003 presentation I gleaned the following design points:

• favors accessibility over depth


• provides a sense of a fairly complete experience in a relatively short time span


• exploits some familiar mechanics or interface to create an unique experience


• has more of a focus on offering immediate rewards than core games


• focuses more on limiting player frustration than core games

How does Playfirst look?
Playfirst's top selling game has been downloaded over 100 million times. That's amazing when you consider that 90% of an average causal gaming companies revenue comes from their top 10 games. If just a fraction of those purchase, at $20 per purchase they are doing pretty well.

Unique Challenges
What are the threats to this kind of market would be competition. The big players are PopCap, Microsoft, Real Arcade, Shockwave, etc. Casual designers have to differentiate and create a community around their games. Another threat might be becoming platform dependent. During this transition year, many have switched to PC gaming, but casual designers should consider that XBOX live may be their future source of customers once those platforms pick up.

My Vision
I believe the casual games market is truly poised to revitalize the gaming industry. It offers ways to attract new players and has the smaller budgets, shorter development cycles and tighter core designs to allow it to truly innovate. It's up to publishers and developers to allow themselves the freedom to go beyond puzzle-popping to create some new forms of play. I'm excited.

More links:
Casual Games Association
Casuality Europe