Forbes on Casual Games: Gold Rush Over

by on 13 August, 2008 - 12:38

Interesting article on casual games at Forbes.com. In a nutshell, their angle is: casual games - not as profitable as you might think.

The article includes quotes from industry players and a pretty well put together explanation of why casual games aren't hot anymore. For one, it turns out that games portals aren't really all that interested in giving developers space to shine but simply in going with the same 2-3 tried and proven models.

"There's no way to make money in this space" anymore, says Gamelab co-founder Eric Zimmerman. "There was this promise that we could do small-scale games and we could try new forms of game play, but the portals want very cutesy, water-downed content."

Now, I'll be the first to say that sounds a bit too much like whinning but, looking around, the man does have a point. Besides, portals are so 2004, right?

On the other hand, the beauty of the internet is that you can always pick a different path for yourself and your product.

"Developers are turning to advertising, hoping that either embedded ads or ads surrounding Flash games will become a viable revenue stream. Others are turning to micro-transactions -- pay a small fee to unlock new game features -- and some are selling game-related items. Or they're chasing after new distribution channels."

One other issue the article describes is that you actually still need to spend money in order to make money. In other words, the dream of Joe Everyone spending a few nights coding in a garage and then hitting gold is pretty much over.

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 (nasdaq: ERTS - news - people ) can move more aggressively into the space.

Good article all in all and quite relevant, if you're interested in the evolution of the casual games market. However, there is one other thing to keep in mind, something that Forbes doesn't quite go into. Leaving aside developers complaining and newer business models being still unproven and tricky, there's also the issue of quality to keep in mind.

Yes, we have billions of casual games coming out each year. Of course not all of them are going to bring cash. Chances are, most of them will be awful. However, when's the last time you've seen a great casual game simply getting burried? And by great I mean the innovative, first of its kind, smashing game that everyone then rushes to copy. You know, the kind that becomes a 'tried and true' model.

Because, sure, it may be within anybody's power to make casual games with a budget amounting to 2 peanut bags. But no one guarantees you any profit. So before you blame the market or the game portals or anyone else, look at your game first. And ask yourself  - is this game good enough to pick up speed on itself?