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

Re:So nothing's changed then?

[Xarius]

How can someone spell Tetris wrong three times in a row?!

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.

Voice-recognition RPG

[G4from128k]

Some cellphone service provider is going to make a killing on a voice-activated old-school RPG. The player speaks their commands ("move forward" "pick up crystal") and a pleasant synth or sampled voice tells the player what they see ("You are in a dark forest and the sun is setting. In front of you lies a shining sword and a bulging bag. A trail leads forward toward a crumbling castle").

Just think of the minutes burned as the "caller" explores some world/dungeon for hours.

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.