| [Industry insight from journalist Paul “The Game Master” Hyman. Reprinted with permission from “The Hollywood Reporter.”]
CASUAL GAMES: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?
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EA's "Boogie" for the Wii lets gamers pick an avatar (like this one) and then use a microphone to score points by showing off their karaoke and dancing skills.
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From a developer's point of view, casual games are the place to be. They're relatively quick and cheap to create, simple to distribute, and the easy-to-learn video games appeal to such a huge mass audience that the more that can be made, the merrier.
Not so, says one prominent industry analyst who warns that even though a large supply is needed to satisfy all the various platforms that offer casual games
-- from mobile devices and PC portals to video game consoles and even in-flight entertainment -- a glut may be on the horizon.
"Everyone is jumping onboard -- every media company, every small garage, even companies that you'd never suspect would be in gaming," says Ben Schachter of UBS. "That's because a small investment can get you into the business; there aren't a ton of barriers to entry."
For instance, says the analyst, "you ask why a company like Orbitz -- which sells travel products -- is in the casual games space with a popular site called OrbitzGames. Well, they're using games as a marketing tool. Everyone has their own reasons for being in casual games."
But an oversupply of casual games is likely to confuse people and lower the value of the best titles, notes Schachter. "No one will be able to keep track of what's available or what is the difference between one game and another," he says.
Indeed, some indie developers think there's already a glut on the market.
"The space is so crowded with developers," says Ben Lewis, head of marketing and sales at year-old Baton Rouge, LA-based Yatec Games. "There are thousands out there, with new and bigger players entering the market every day. We small developers need to make sure that we don't fall in between the cracks."
But Lewis is optimistic: "The growth spurt tends to legitimize the industry as a whole. Many people still view casual gaming as small potatoes, but we're really a huge industry with a much wider market than hardcore games. If people now come to realize that, so much the better."
Further evidence of casual games' skyrocketing popularity is the surprising success of ...
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