Monday, August 04, 2008
Casual Game Boom Now Over?
Maybe my powers of prediction aren't quite so off as I thought.
Last September, I talked about a potential "bust" in the casual games market. It was met with a storm of controversy. Well, okay, not really. I think it was met with a collective "Like, Duh, what rock have you been living under?" The next thing you know, I'll be predicting that Microsoft is going to be releasing a successor to the XBox 360 sometime in the next few years.
But last Friday, Forbes released an article called, "Casual Gold Bust," where it reports that the market for casual games is becoming glutted and that the "gold rush" is over. This is probably not news to anybody within the industry, but I guess it is now becoming common knowledge. In particular, they talk about Peggle - which yielded poor earnings until a very expensive marketing blitz by Popcap turned it into a hit.
"Casual game developers are finding that you need money to make money. PopCap was lucky because it could throw significant marketing dollars at 'Peggle,' but smaller developers don't have the budget to promote their games. As a result, large gaming companies like Electronic Arts can move more aggressively into the space. "Okay - while I agree with the sentiment - this always happens when a market matures. But seriously, guys... EA?
Labels: Biz, casual games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:11 AM (Permalink)
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Saw this coming in 2004-2005, when I briefly considering going "all in" for casual / Xbox Live Arcade, and opted out.
What did it for me was listening to everyone going around talking about how they are going to make a killing in the causal space and how much safer and easier it was than trying to venture into the next-gen space. You could hear the stampede coming a mile away.
A big problem with casual games isn't scoring your first success (back then). It's all the successes you need to follow up with to stay viable for the longer term.
The exodus of players will be fun to watch as they all regroup to pursue micro-transactions (more likely IMHO) or in-game ads (less likely) to find the business model that scores the the almost-mythical huge-profits vs investment win.
Casual games won't be a ghost town though - it still represents a good entry point for people trying to break into games.
Indie games, as opposed to casual, may benefit by this next round changes. Less clutter out there may mean an easier time getting 'unique' and 'nitch' titles noticed.
P.S. Did you see that Eschalon: Book 1 got a mention in the related slideshow: In Pictures: 10 Overlooked Casual Games? Actually I don't consider all of those they listed as "Casual" (they're confused with Indie)
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What did it for me was listening to everyone going around talking about how they are going to make a killing in the causal space and how much safer and easier it was than trying to venture into the next-gen space. You could hear the stampede coming a mile away.
A big problem with casual games isn't scoring your first success (back then). It's all the successes you need to follow up with to stay viable for the longer term.
The exodus of players will be fun to watch as they all regroup to pursue micro-transactions (more likely IMHO) or in-game ads (less likely) to find the business model that scores the the almost-mythical huge-profits vs investment win.
Casual games won't be a ghost town though - it still represents a good entry point for people trying to break into games.
Indie games, as opposed to casual, may benefit by this next round changes. Less clutter out there may mean an easier time getting 'unique' and 'nitch' titles noticed.
P.S. Did you see that Eschalon: Book 1 got a mention in the related slideshow: In Pictures: 10 Overlooked Casual Games? Actually I don't consider all of those they listed as "Casual" (they're confused with Indie)
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: August 04, 2008 2:00 PM
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