Indie Game Developers See Big Opportunity

An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek Online is running a story on the new opportunities indie game developers are finding in the casual games space. They also have a Q&A with one of Microsoft's gaming gurus." From the article: "Until recently, the market for electronic games was mainly young, male, and diehard. These days, a bigger, more age-diverse group that increasingly includes and women is joining in the fun, spending anywhere from a few minutes a day to long stretches on online poker or games such as Bejewelled, Tetris, and The Sims. As more people sign up for high-speed Internet access (almost 60% of the U.S. population now has access to broadband), the gaming experience -- both for games playable online, such as Bejewelled, and CD- or DVD-ROM titles with an online component, like The Sims -- has become more appealing. Casual gamers now make up about 1% of the $20.5 billion game-software market."

Comments

Of course

[Red Flayer]

Take any retail industry. Make distribution costs sufficiently close to zero. Make unit cost close to zero.

Independent producers will grow like weeds. Add in the fact that the casual gamer market was underutilized... Profit!

So nothing's changed then?

[Buddy_DoQ]

What they're trying to say is, that nothing has changed since the days of Tertris.

Boys are still the big buyers and mom sometimes likes Tertis-like games. Making more Tertis-like games may bring in more money, but I don't think it'll be as big as they think. (But I've been wrong before, and as an indie type my self, I'd love to be!)

Only 1%....

[wpiman]

that seems low to me.

I would probably catorgorize myself as a casual gamer- I play once a week- often not at all- but I'd say I buy 5-6 games a year. I'd like to play more- but don't have time. Is this just me or are others in this same category?

This is great!

[Yhippa]

I've been waiting for things like this to really pick up. Most of the games I've played on the consoles or PC are incremental improvements over a previous version. I like the fact that the barrier for entry is lower so that people with different ideas get a shot at making some cool games.

I think a lot of us remember the days of the Atari 2600 where there were few sequels and mostly different (and sometimes weird) ideas. I felt that way about games until they started to become really commercialized in the late 90's and all we get now are rehashes because the big businesses are not willing to take risks and want steady incomes. Maybe we'll see some new games now.

Re:This is great!

[Magnusite]

Bingo! You hit the nail on the head!

The very reason that people did not create wave after wave of FPS games is that they were not technically possible on the Commodore 64, Apple II, or Atari 800. Sure, there were some wireframe simulations of FPS exploration like Cholo, The Colony and others, but they did not move fast enough to give the visceral feelings modern hardware can (Run! Shoot! Flee!), so they just did not appeal to the mass populace.

Modern hardware now allows full First Person immersion, so why make anything else? Just as modern CG effects allow us to make grand space operas without plot, dialogue or interesting characters.

Hopefully, we'll see the return of creativity that allowed games like M.U.L.E., Boulder Dash, and The Bilestoad to be produced. You build it, they'll help you market it. Like EA in the early days.

Gotta go now, and get started on my overhead scrolling adventure...

The headline.. like a tragedy

[jkind]

I had hope until the last line of the headline.. 1% ???? How does a indie company / startup go into their local innovation funding office and pitch their great quirky game idea when they can only say "Games like this will be 3% maybe of the game market this year!"? btw when is it indie, and when do you use indy.. ??

Yawn

[beakerMeep]

These articles are like "is apple dying?" articles. Need to run one of them every few months as per the publishers guidebook for easy stories. Not that this story is wrong but talking about games like Bejewelled-like as some sort of new market is silly.

From the article, "Until recently, the market for electronic games was mainly young, male, and diehard."

Not at all.

Girls have outnumbered guys playing games for years and it's all games like this with companies capitalizing all along.

For once i would like to see information on how this effects more traditionally "guy" games. For instance i bet the are significantly more girls playing WoW than ever played Ultima Online despite it still being vastly a male audience. Also would like to see how girls have influced the creation of more advanced games that cater to their gender more so than their male counterparts -- such as Black and White or The Sims.

I'm not holding my breath though ;)

Several factors ....

[AlltheCoolNamesGone]

as to why there seems to be more "casual" gamers.

1. More homes have PCs now. Do you really think that people are not going to take advantage of all the features of a PC?

2. There is little to no social stigma left to playing PC games.

3. Lack of time in our daily lives. (When you grow up and have a family you cant spend 8 hours a day 7 days a week playing your favorite games)

This shouldn't be surpriseing if anything the casual gamer market should continue growing.

Distribution client?

[No Such Agency]

"almost 60% of the U.S. population now has access to broadband"

Does this mean that 60% of the population HAS broadband access in their homes? Or that they could have it installed if they want? I assume that it means the former, since almost everyone has cable TV by now and therefore likely access to cable internet.

I wonder what the possibilities would be for starting a Steam-like service, but instead of peddling one's own games, instead distributing inexpensive indie games in exchange for a percentage? Would many casual gamers install a client like that?

Re:Profits tend to zero

[Red Flayer]

"Characterized by a free flow of information, no barriers to entry, and a large number of buyers and sellers."

Except that there are barriers to entry (development costs -- like hiring a good designer & good developer). Still, much smaller barriers than in many other industries.

Also, a perfectly competitive market assumes that all products are equivalent, which is not the case here. So, some developers will realize a hefty profit (due to a better product) and some will realize losses. In the long run, extrapolated across all competitors, you are correct... but there is still a huge capacity for profit due to differences in the product.

Problem with indi games dev

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked on 4 mods now, 2 halflife, 2 Unreal I can tell you why independent games development is not going to get any easier in the next few years. For starters costs, in sheer man hours work is vast, translate that into salaries and I will take a stab at saying games devs outspend filmakers. Unstable market and too much nanny legislation is going to scare most indis away from taking the risks. Making games is a very risky business, the best stuff is only made for people who do it for the love of it imho. The model is very much like the misic biz right now, a few lucky titles rake in all the profit after spending a fortune on hype and marketing while most of the real innovation out there gets swept aside because it is either too avant gard or trying to emulate the pedestrian success of whats already out there. Sure there is a huge _POTENTIAL_ market out there for us, but its not a market we have access to as small startup development teams. Also a fundamental technical/legal mistake is that games are like software was in the 60s. before anybody discovered standards and reuse. Every game reinvents the same basic objects, models, meshes and textures and few of these find their way into a public domain base of resources, thus every game is a dupe of 80% of the same work as the next game.

Casual gaming is a crowded market

[Junks Jerzey]

Five years ago, this was big news. Very few companies were looking to the Solitaire / Minesweeper market. Some were, yes, and some of these were doing extremely well. Since then there has been a proliferation of casual game companies to the point where it's a difficult market to break into. A big reason for this is that the barriers for entry are low: games that involve fairly simple programming, aren't content heavy, aren't 3D, etc. You can toss together a Bewjeweled-like game in a week, plus spend another few weeks polishing it up. What's worse is that there's very little innovation of any kind. Everyone is cloning the same handful of games, usually bubble-popping games (like Bejeweled). And it's unclear that the casual market has any interest in innovation anyway. People want a mindless game like Solitaire or Bejeweled and that's that. They don't want an endless stream of games.

60% of Americans...

[mpapet]

almost 60% of the U.S. population now has access to broadband

Just because they have access doesn't mean they HAVE broadband, much less a computer. Please note a significant portion of American homes still do not have PC's. It really bugs me when stats are used in this way.

At this point, it's kind of like the phone I'd guess in that its only a matter of time (non-computer users dying) before it gets much closer to the entire population.

Re:Negative Effects?

[confusednoise]

Wrong wrong wrong. If it becomes easier/lower cost to create and distribute games, variety will increase are more niche markets are able to be filled. Game makers no longer have to bet on the biggest market out there - indie makers can find a small audience for their game and make enough to get by. All this means *more* different kinds of games, not less.

Now: s/games/[books|music|any content you want]/ and think over the benefits of indie producers again.

Re:Negative Effects?

[freeweed]

I'm pretty sure games like Halo are a direct result of games going mainstream already.

Lamer.

[dermusikman]

Until recently, the market for electronic games was mainly young, male, and diehard.

i call B.S. young, male, and diehard is where the big name publishers have been getting most of their profits, and therefore have been afraid to vary from the formula for so long. but i recall a WEALTH of great, accessible games to people of all ages and genders back in the 386 days and shortly thereafter.
remember Myst? that game you never played because it didn't have action? the one that made more money and garnered more positive attention to the PC game market than anything else? everyone played it. throw in D, King's Quest, Sim City, really ANY sim or adventure title!
and the big names raking in the big money these days, like the Sims, are those games that appeal to EVERYONE.

this "new revolution" in games marketable to just about anyone is that universal market big publishers THREW ONTO THE CURB a few years back.