Games * Design * Art * Culture

Friday, February 15, 2008

Sean Ryan on Why Casual Game Development Isn't a Landrush Any More

Sean Ryan, a Bay-area VC, back from Casual Connect in Amsterdam, has two posts anyone interested in the casual game space should read: part one and part two.

His take is "natural maturation of the industry"; my take is "live by the Yahoo, die by the Yahoo." That is, the casual game market was built on piggy-backing onto preexisting audiences at major portals -- developers and publishers did no real marketing, because they didn't need to, and simply attached themselves to a firehose of traffic. But the firehoses have woken up to the fact that they're the chokepoint in the chain, and are using that to claw back an increasing amount of the consumer dollar. And meanwhile conversion suffers, because there are so many me-too clones that at the end of a one hour trial, consumers go and find another identical game with a one hour trial instead of purchasing. Which shows both the inanity of the "one size fits all" model in casual gaming (all games are 60 minute trials, all games cost $20, and all games ~~rip off~~ imitate in the essentials successful product from others instead of spending a little time, effort, and talent thinking about actual design).

Of course, what the portals are doing in terms of grabbing an increasing share of the consumer dollar is extraordinarily short-sighted; for casual gaming to be a large and growing market, they need to provide incentives for innovation and creativity, and there needs to be a functional ecosystem in which developers can profit--something the conventional industry has utterly lost sight of.

Oh, well, as usual, my opinion is that things are going to hell, but then you knew that, right?

posted by Greg at 5:20 PM 6 comments

6 Comments:

whether its live by Yahoo, die by Yahoo, or it's a natural industry maturation, my point was more that developers need to start exploring additional distribution opportunities rather than just whining about the portals squeezing them.

Sean Ryan
sean@corp.meez.com

By Sean, at 9:51 PM

If the market is getting harder for casual game developers in this way---a way nicely reminiscent of the trouble big-title game developers faced in years past and still face today---is the solution really as simple as getting themselves on Flash and making their own site? It seems like casual games are an entirely different beast, and we're now seeing the critical mass point of the traditional "portal-based" model. If simple innovation and developer-side talent isn't enough, what then? Will casual games crash like Atari did in '83?

Incidentally, what is your opinion of alternative game venues like Raph Koster's Metaplace?

By David McDonough, at 11:39 AM

those are good questions. The first answer is that the big web game craze may crash, but in general, what we're finding is that if you create good web content, the new distribution options create better access to your content, unlike the old retail days. In other words, if your content is good, life is good in the new world, but if it's bad, then yes , you're screwed. In the Atari world, there was a required cartridge purchase before you knew almost anything about the game - we've come a long way in the meantime.

On the Raph front, I was at dinner with him last night, and he's very impressive, but I'm still not sure how many small devlopers can create amazing MMO play experiences - that having been said, he delivers a set of tools which make it much easier, just like what I love about flash games.

By Sean, at 1:33 AM

lotro gold
lord of the rings gold
lord of the rings online gold
lotro gold
lord of the rings gold
lord of the rings online gold
Warhammer gold
Warhammer money
War gold
War money
Tabula Rasa Credit
lotro gold
lord of the rings gold
lord of the rings online gold
lord of the rings online gold
lord of the rings gold
Tabula Rasa Credit
World of Warcraft gold
PotBS Doubloon
Pirates of the Burning Sea Doubloon

By lotro gold, at 1:49 PM

greg, what is your opinion towards the iPhone/iTouch being a casual game platform?

Of course there will be lots of "me-too" clones, but the 30% is even less than what Manifesto Games asks for.

Even though iPhone isn't a platform just yet but Apple's gesture towards individual developers is at least a wake-up call for Nintendo and Sony.

By Paul L, at 5:22 PM

wow gold cheap wow gold buy wow gold world of warcraft gold wow world of warcraft wow gold WoW Warrior WoW Hunter WoW Rogue WoW Paladin WoW Shaman WoW Priest WoW Mage WoW Druid WoW Warlock power leveling powerleveling wow power leveling wow powerleveling wow guides wow tips google?? google???? google???? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? LED? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? powerlin518 logo design website design web design ????

By runescapemoney, at 10:07 AM