More thoughts from GCA 2009
Published Friday 18 Sep 2009 3:14am |
13
Tags: GCA, Matchmove Games
It has been a bit of a weird day here at GCA. Today the main exhibition was closed to the public, but surely tomorrow things will get even weirder.
So I was walking through one of the many halls that connect conference rooms and I got stopped by a chap called Carlos from Matchmove Games. He asked if I wanted to come see a press conference and announcement from the company's head - Shailesh Naik. He explained the company developed and commissioned the development of games for casual gamers.
Before I walked in there I sort of knew whatever was said was going to have little or no significance to our NZ readers, but I felt kind of sorry for Carlos. He was sweating buckets, his job quite clearly to drum up support for the press conference, and he wasn't doing that well. When Mr. Naik got up to make the major announcement - a new partnership with Yahoo!Asia (world leaders in casual games) all I could think about was how passionate this guy was about a market I hadn't ever really heard much about.
Casual gamers: do you know any? Are you one? Have any of you done the homework on this? I would be keen to hear from any of our readers who know anything about this (purported to be a) massive phenomenon. I mean, of course I always knew about casual gaming... but here I was at a press conference about it.
To break down what was about a fifteen minute explanation of the term, casual gamers are: people who don't play games all the time but do sometimes kind of when they're bored maybe or at work perhaps sort of.
Naik was spitting some big numbers: 200 million casual gamers in Asia alone. Developer PopCap have sold 25 million copies of Bejeweled. Two years ago, a quarter of the population of online population was playing casual games.
Hey... all I'm saying, is that it took me by surprise.
Also big today were press releases. The rule was, if you took two or more steps in a fixed direction, you must be a member of the press (because you had somewhere to be) and thusly you needed the latest press release. I am up to my knees in press releases. By tomorrow evening, we'll get to the armpits.
Lots of the news (such as the Matchmove/Yahoo!) deal is very specific to this part of the world, but if something juicy does develop, you can guarantee I will have a press release about it well before it goes stale.
More delights tomorrow, and plenty more gaming to be had.
COMMENTS (13)
Sounds cool man. And I kinda feel sorry for Carlos too now. I guess it is probably hard to get any support for that kind of thing at a conference where it's likely 99% were there for the big PC and console releases. It's a core gamer show and they're looking for casuals.
It's interesting actually - it's maybe a 50/50 split here between the console gamers and those who play exclusively in the online space. Quite a contingent of the online gamers are casual gamers. Quite a different environment to NZ, which is why we're here.
its a difficult classification lol
So if i play on a console im not a casual gamer? im i hardcore? or somewhere in between?
its a difficult classification lol
Gamer #2 plays EVE Online 2 hours per week
Who is more hardcore? lol
I agree it can be a difficult classification but I think casual gamers = small amount of time playing easy "pick up and play" games.
So if i play on a console im not a casual gamer? im i hardcore? or somewhere in between?
its a difficult classification lol
Casual gamers usually don't throw down several hundred dollars on a machine specifically for playing games on :-) Nintendo's genius (if we want to call it that) was that they managed to get casual gamers to spend $499 on a console that is purely a game console ie doesn't play DVD, CD or Blu-ray, $109 on another wii-mote with wii-play packed in, $49 on another nun-chuck to go with that second wii-mote, $199 on wii-fit & balance board and $109 on wii-motion plus with wii-sports resort?! That's $965 all up and that's no mean feat! lol But really, most casual gamers play games on their phones, iPods or in Web Browsers (flash, facebook etc). Whatever devices they have at hand, where the games are cheap or often free.
Hardcore gamers buy a Wii for their kids and family and make it a fun excuse to game lol
Or kids whine enough till their parents buy them one... then parents become gamers :)
I dont think 'casual' gamers are the market buyer of the Wii at all...
Hardcore gamers buy a Wii for their kids and family and make it a fun excuse to game lol
Or kids whine enough till their parents buy them one... then parents become gamers :)
I'm just talking about the 20,000,000 (roughly) that bought a Wii and Wii fit and who might play a bit of Wii sports but not much else. I think this accounts for just under half the total Wii sales so far. The rest may or may not have bought their Wii for Zelda, Mario, Metroid and other more core games, I know I did, just saying.
I might have to borrow my sister's Wii, and give Zelda a whirl. Zelda is always a winner.
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