Casually Speaking

I visualized the scene as room after room filled with computers and consoles, most of which would be populated by one or two gamers playing the newest blockbusters. In my head it looked a lot like QuakeCon, only the gamers would be listening to Jimmy Buffett in their La-Z-Boys, drinking mai thais, and making frequent use of the pause button. Last week’s first ever Casual Games Conference in Seattle, presented by The Game Initiative, was more of a gathering for the business leaders in this new industry and independent game developers to talk shop, which left my craving for fruity drinks sadly unfulfilled. So what are casual games and who are casual gamers? With no “Cheeseburger In Paradise” by which to pass the day, The Game Chair was on the scene to answer these questions.

To help us gain insight, we had at our disposal industry heavyweights that sell downloadable games like PopCap, makers of Bejeweled and Zuma, and PlayFirst, who have scored a big hit with Diner Dash. EA’s subscription-based Pogo was also in attendance, along with Microsoft Casual Games, RealArcade, mobile game developer GameHouse, as well as several other developers.

To get an understanding of what a casual game is, we talked to Kali Sakai at GameHouse. “Our games feature bright graphics, non-violent gameplay, and have a very broad appeal. It should be easy to learn how to play a casual game, ideally with just a few clicks,” said Sakai.

Mark Magdamit of RealArcade painted a picture of casual gamers. “Our customers tend to be 35-65 year olds, and just over 50% of them are women,” Mark said. “We find that, where our customers used to unwind from work by spending 25 minutes with their favorite TV show, now they spend about 20-30 minutes a night with their favorite game as a way to relax.”

At times it all felt new and fresh, as if there was this new market—a country of casual gamers—that had just been discovered and everybody was more than thrilled to be the explorers trying to figure out how to meet their needs. They have done just that. Susan Cho from NHK Korea reported that they have 200 million registered users on their site. Habbo Hotel did somewhere between $60-70 million last year, according to Pasi Ilola of Habbo’s developer Sulake Corporation.

A lot of this revenue has come from gamers paying not to play the game, but to accessorize their avatars. In fact, so much value is placed on these virtual assets paid for with real currency that some items have been reported stolen and the game operators have to remain cognizant of the opportunity for money laundering operations. In addition to money, gamers have invested a significant amount of time to play casual games. Daniel James, CEO of Three Rings said that Three Rings’ Puzzle Pirates, one of casual gaming’s biggest hits, had an average of three hours per day spent playing the game.

Maybe casual gaming isn’t so casual. Dylan, from BestGameEver.com says, ”I think ‘casual games’ is actually a misnomer. There’s nothing casual about the time or money spent on the game. What’s casual is how easy the games are to learn.” Dylan used to create a new game every week for his website, but is now working on a new game he hopes will appeal to casual gamers. He describes his current venture as “a music visualizer you can play.” The new game, which has yet to be named, is a racer that responds to the music you are playing on your computer: as the music increases in intensity, so does the speed of your car.

“Easy To Learn” was the most agreed upon feature of a casual game by conference attendees. Casual gamers are people who enjoy playing games, but are turned off by thick instruction manuals and seventeen-button controllers. They want to be entertained by something more robust than Minesweeper and Solitaire, but with an easier learning curve than, say, Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

As casual gaming grows, though, and the audience becomes drawn in and clamors for more challenges, what happens? Will casual games open the door to non-casual games? “I guess it could be ‘gateway gaming,’” Sakai said. Guy Whitmore, a freelance composer who has worked on several games, both casual and non-casual, believes that the worlds of casual and serious gaming will merge. “I think that we will see the lines of demarcation between casual, serious, and hardcore gaming will start to smear.”

For now, though, in this Big Bang moment for the industry, there seem to be some distinct lines of demarcation between casual games and their fans and the world of serious, or hard-core, gaming. Jay Moore of Garage Games sums up the breadth and diversity of this genre with his definition: “Casual gamers are basically people who don’t self-describe as gamers.” The Casual Games Conference showed us that, self-described or not, casual gamers are a growing market segment and they love their games.