NYT on the Rise of Casual Games

securitas writes "The New York Times' Michel Marriott reports on the rise and growing importance of casual games to the video game industry. Casual games are sold exclusively over the Internet, are downloaded to PCs from sites like Yahoo Games, Real Arcade and Shockwave.com, and are 'generally simple-to-play, short-duration games that are graphically unsophisticated'. Casual games will represent $250 million of the $8.4 billion in 2005 domestic United States sales according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The article cites Diner Dash, which publisher PlayFirst says has 'sold more than 50,000 copies and continued to sell about 1,000 a day' at $20 per game. The article says that this type of game '... is not found on the shelves of video game or consumer electronic stores. Nor is it sold on the DVD's that deliver interactive 3-D fantasies to millions of PlayStation 2 and Xbox game consoles...'"

Comments

Bad term

[Pluvius]

The article says that this type of game '... is not found on the shelves of video game or consumer electronic stores. Nor is it sold on the DVD's that deliver interactive 3-D fantasies to millions of PlayStation 2 and Xbox game consoles...'

In that case, they probably shouldn't use the term "casual games" to describe them. Casual games (which are, you know, games that tend to be played casually) include sports games and The Sims, which are certainly sold in stores and on DVDs.

Rob

Female Crowd

[Shadow Wrought]

Of the people I know who get into this simple easily played and dowloaded games, all of them are female. Now granted my universe is small compared to, say, the US as a whole; but I do wonder if the reason the game companies can't seem to court female followers is because they already have the games they are looking for.

Re:Microsoft has finally figured this out

[soniCron88]

Microsoft already has Xbox Live! Arcade, which allows you to download and purchase a lot of these games right on your Xbox. The Xbox 360 will additionally have Arcade built in. As far as them having the advantage over other consoles, I disagree. The Nintendo Revolution's main selling point is the downloading of additional games and content. In addition to this, there have been numerous talks from Nintendo to several independent developers about creating content more focused on gameplay than technology. And at the price point that I think we all know Nintendo's aiming for, the Revolution will be a much more viable solution for such "casual" gamers.

Re:Microsoft has finally figured this out/ Context

[securitas]

For some reason the last part of the post was removed, which is important for context since it contradicts the article and shows that Microsoft is ahead of the curve on this vs. its competitors. The last part originally read:

... The article says that this type of game '... is not found on the shelves of video game or consumer electronic stores. Nor is it sold on the DVD's that deliver interactive 3-D fantasies to millions of PlayStation 2 and Xbox game consoles,' but Microsoft already has its Xbox Live Arcade.

Yes, Xbox 360 will include a casual games component, no doubt because of research Microsoft obtained from the Arcade product.