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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."
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!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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!)
-Buddy of DoQ
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?
I am not convinced that games going mainstream is necessarily a good thing! As more and more average Americans start playing video games in their spare time, the lucrative market video game creators will target will also change. Pretty soon games like Halo will be on the back burner to "every day games" free of killing and other evils. Could this mean a world full of The Sims knockoffs?
LINUX ONLINE POKER: Linux Poker
Here we go, I can see it now. Soon enough I'll have to wade through a sea of EMO kids trying to get my copy of HL3 or Doom 18, having my tastes in game critiqued and told how I should really be playing "Indie Games" because thats where the "real talent" is.
Fractured Element
They didn't mention Manifesto Games, the new startup established by Greg Costikyan, author of the Scratchware Manifesto
Technoli
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.
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.. ??
~jennifer.k~
Just think of the minutes burned as the "caller" explores some world/dungeon for hours.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Perfect competition: Characterized by a free flow of information, no barriers to entry, and a large number of buyers and sellers.
Each seller supplies and each buyer purchases only a small fraction of the total supply of the commodity. As a result, no single seller or buyer can influence the market price. The sellers earn only normal profits (the minimum profit necessary to keep them in business). If sellers earn excess profits, other sellers will enter the market, boosting the supply and thus driving down the price of the commodity, until only normal profits are possible.
Sounds like a real goldmine!
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 ;)
meep
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.
M$ it's whats for diner!!!!!
"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?
Freedom: "I won't!"
You can share your homes/neighborhoods and any objects you might create.
;)
That's what I hear, anyway - it's not like I ever played the sims or anything
Give a man a beer and he wastes an hour. Teach a man to brew and he wastes a lifetime.
It's not that The Sims has online play, it's that it has an online component: a huge amount of downloadable content.
----- Oooh, Shiny!
Casual downloadable games are a great market indeed. My latest title, Atlantis, is #1 in sales on big portals right now (Real Arcade and BigFish Games at the moment), and direct sales, in number of units, are way into the 4-digits range after three months out. We get to make the games we like and have direct contact with customers to help them out and gather suggestions, which is fantastic.
Best regards,
Emmanuel
--
Smash hit ball matching game for PC and Mac:
http://www.funpause.com/atlantis/
Currently #1 on RealArcade and BigFish !
We need to audition for the definitive "You may be eaten by a Grue" voice.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I love GTA, etc, but I have a place in my heart for puzzle games. Gotta love 'em
1. Low system requirements. You can port it to a freakin' Atari 2600 depending on the game, or a cell phone.
2. Takes almost no time to learn.
3. Often many puzzle games have open-ended design to expand gameplay without making hit hideously complicated.
Every time I see one of those media players with a d-pad, I always wonder if it would be possible to port Tetris, Bejweled, etc on them. oh what fun it would be to port Bejeweled to as many portable systems as possible(cell phone(done), PSP, GBA, wonderswan, GP32, Tapwave Zodiac, Ipod(wow does it need more games), GP32X, digital cameras(mame was done) and anything else I haven't mentioned).
Bejeweled for everyone!
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.
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.
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.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I've recently entered into the casual games industry myself. There is definitely a market out there and I love working for myself and creating whatever I feel like creating. I have also found that the developer community is very helpful and willing to share their knowledge. If anyone wants to know more about just ask I'd love to share what i've learned.
My first casual game Funky Farm has been doing better than I could ever have imagined, and I'm close to finishing my 2nd casual game. If you want to check out my site.... www.sortasoft.com
Zounds! Is it time for the "Niche Industry X is resurgent!" filler story again? No real news going on, I take it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
Hi guys, this is Andy Schatz, the guy in the first sentence of the article. Just wanted to post here in the off chance that someone would be interested in my work or my perspective on indie games... The risk averse publishers in the big console-driven world are leaving many niches open for us indie types. Look at Wildlife Tycoon (www.wildlifetycoon.com). It's been a long time since someone came out with a compelling Tycoon game (unless you count Outpost Kaloki, which was great). I was able to design, engineer, and do the business for a game that will compete in a large market niche for minimal cost. The game was developed in 10 months (with 4 contract artists, 1 contract sound designer, and 1 contract writer, all part time) for 6000 dollars. This is partly because large corporations haven't upped the ante in this niche by innovating because they are scared to be spending big money on studios when they don't know the designs are going to be good. The DOWNLOADABLE tycoon market is almost entirely devoid of competition. My research has showed that the market buying retail Tycoon games is a very similar market to those buying casual downloadable games, but this area of the market hasn't been tapped yet. Oh, and the game is FREAKING COOL. Josiah Pisciotta, creater of Gish, has been hooked on it for the past 3 days, not getting his work done. That's my strategy, of course, to make games cool enough to make my competition stop working. Hey, it worked for World of Warcraft...