Every industry goes through the initial growth phase where products that started off as being more simplistic in nature get increasingly sophisticated and complex. This has been the natural progression of almost every industry and that’s how the casual games industry is widely expected to grow.
The general thinking is that popular casual games like Angry Birds (Rovio), Dolphin Play (W3i) and Stupid Zombies (Game Resort) which are easier to play and less complex in nature will sooner or later be replaced by much more graphically and technically powerful versions of themselves. And this is because super-popular hardcore games like the Call of Duty series, FIFA, Gran Turismo are all entering the mobile space in a big way. Of course, these games are backed by huge investments, excellent graphics and gameplay, humongous marketing budgets and gameplay times that take weeks/months to complete. Our poor ol’casual games are no match for them.
Gameloft has been at the forefront of this and is working hard on ‘copying’ every popular hardcore game on the planet for mobile devices. It has games that are basically clones of Call of Duty, FIFA, Need for Speed and other high profile games and I have to admit, Gameloft makes some pretty darn good mobile versions of these games.
But there are also companies like W3i who have placed their bets on casual games and have had huge success in this space. W3i has been profitable for many years now and its game studio has developed a solid business model around funding and developing promising casual games.
In my opinion, the most popular games on mobile devices will always be the less complex, more traditional type of casual games. Here are 9 reasons why:
1) Demographic: The main demographic that plays games on mobile devices is skewed towards older women and teenage girls. Compare this to the hardcore gamer demographic which trends towards males between the ages of 11 to 35. So at this point, it still makes sense to cater to the female demographic which is a 100% inclined towards casual games.
2) Barriers to entry: You don’t need a large budget to build a casual game. There are thousands of best-selling games that were built by garage developers. W3i has actually built a games fund worth millions of dollars and they have successfully invested in many top selling games like Daybreak heroes, My Pet Zombie and Dolphin play. So finding an investor for a casual game idea is much easier than for a hardcore game idea.
3) Higher focus/interaction: Hardcore games demand a much higher level of focus and interaction. It usually takes a dedicated effort to complete such games and the duration of game play can be anywhere between an hour to a few hours each day. Mobile games, on the other hand don’t take more than a few minutes to complete a level. It’s this instant gratification that makes many mobile games a big success.
4) Pricing models: Hardcore games are exorbitantly expensive to build and market. The development costs often runs into tens of millions of dollars and there is just no way the creators can recoup their costs by selling such games for the same price as simple casual games or by simply relying on in-game advertising/in-app purchases. A good game DVD generally costs about $50 - $60 and almost all casual games are priced at 99 cents. And I doubt anyone will want to pay more than $10-$20 for the mobile version of a hardcore game. And it would be a tiny demographic.
5) Hardware specs: Smartphones come in a variety of different hardware specs and hardcore games can never be optimized to work perfectly on every device. Compare this to casual games that can run on 99% of smartphones without any performance issues.
6) Network infrastructure: Most hardcore games take up a lot of hard drive space on a smartphone. It’s widely expected that such games will eventually run from the cloud. This would mean huge investments in content delivery networks (CDN’s) and general network infrastructure. Especially for MMO games.
A full fledged casual game can easily reside on a smartphone and can use the available 3G/4G network to operate very efficiently. It just does not require that level of investment in infrastructure/resources. And all multiplayer capabilities can be handled using third party servers like Amazon’s cloud service. At this point, there are no reliable mobile cloud computing platforms that can provide such an infrastructure for hardcore games.
7) Creativity: Hardcore games have reached saturation in terms of the types of games being built. Almost every game you come across is either a racing game, a first person shooter, or a sports game. Every once in a while, a game like Portal comes across and changes the landscape a little bit. But other than that, the industry has already reached maturity.
Casual games, for that matter, are a whole different beast. There are millions of games right now that are actually based on very innovative ideas. I mean, there are games based on popping pimples that have become bestsellers! This industry is abundant with ideas that the hardcore games industry just cannot keep up with. Because of this, the casual games industry will continue to thrive as long as people have ideas.
I don’t even need to say this, but do you think you can build a hardcore game like Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament in your garage?
8) Screen size: Come on, let’s be honest here, how much fun is it to play a game like Need For Speed on a smartphone? The gameplay really sucks. I still haven’t come across a decent racing or shooter game that actually is fun to play on a smartphone. One of the biggest reasons is the screen size itself. Hardcore games are built to a cinematic quality and are best enjoyed on a big screen. Casual games are perfectly suited for the smaller screen because of the simplicity of gameplay and quick load times.
9) Controllers: This can be a real pain in the behind for gamers when they play hardcore games on mobile devices. Most hardcore games require the use of a controller and mobile devices predominantly rely on the touch screen to simulate a controller. A touchscreen Is no match for an actual controller so games have to be reconfigured to work with touchscreens. These buttons take up unnecessary space on the screen and detract from the actual experience itself. And moving the device from side to side to simulate car directions is ANNOYING!
In the end, I really don’t see how casual games will ever fade away. Mobile games are really about instant gratification, smaller levels, quick load times and easier playability. Hardcore games are just not built like that.
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