Anything But Business As Casual
[Disclosure: A slightly modified version of this article appeared in the April edition of DFC Dossier.]
What in the early Internet days started as an afterthought today has grown into a market of its own. In 2008 the total revenue for casual PC gaming totaled a respectable $1.58 billion* in Western Europe, North America and most of Asia. DFC expects this number to increase to $1.69 billion in 2009.
Life’s been pretty good thus far: an average annual growth rate more than 60% has allowed everyone to do well. As more competitors entered the party, casual gaming also underwent a lot of consolidation as big-ticket publishers aggregated eyeballs for advertising’s sake. RealNetworks spent a lot of money to capture an audience large enough to sustain its ambitions for world domination. And as the current biggest casual company with 11.7% of total market share (based on revenue), it’s fair to say this strategy has paid off. The company is currently working to spin off its games division, RealArcade, as a separate entity. — read on
Maximum Hulkness
The cure for the common GTA clone. Heck, the Hulk puts GTA to shame.
One enjoys roaming one's habitat and stir some excitement. But it's difficult to outrun those pesky Liberty City law enforcers. And in all the Spiderman games, the city is really boring. But not no more.
Risk
Maybe it's because I just woke up in the middle of the day and watched this while the fog was still clearing up. Or maybe this 13-minute clip has some worthwhile thoughts regarding risk. — read on
NYU Summer Course on Video Games
Looking to do something this summer? Then sign up for the class I'll be teaching. It runs from June 30th to August 6th and covers video games from both an academic and industry perspective. For an abbreviated draft version of the syllabus, go here.
For questions, contact me at jv2108 [at] columbia [dot] edu — read on
Trading Card Freebie
After spending a lot of time on free-to-play, I'm shifting to a game industry that is getting no love. Together with the wizkids over at To Be Continued, LLC I'm been working on a white paper that we plan to launch into the world in a few weeks.
Trading Card Games (TCG), roughly the same size as casual gaming, are a natural extension of currently emerging free MMOs. For one, trading card games attract the same demographic. The immensely popular Yu-Gi-Oh!, which dominates with about 50% of the entire market, is hot sh*t with 12 year olds. — read on
FlightControl by Firemint
Not entirely unrelated to my previous post, I DL-ed an $0.99 game for my iPhone which may well be one of the first ones to earn the label of worthwhile. While I maintain the theory that iPhone games suck (which they do), i'm observing contrary data points. FlightControl gets an honorable mention because it is clever and sans BS. — read on
Flying
Today I flew again for the first time in a year. It's not a cheap hobby but it puts even the snazziest flight sim to shame. We performed four landings and I held my own despite gusty winds. I'd go again tomorrow if I could.
Here are some pictures. First thing on my to-do list is to get a pair of those ridiculous glasses. — read on
Stizzate of Plizzay 6
After nearly two hundred days of radio silence, I return to jot down a few words. Last week Dan Hunter asked me to run a grad student workshop at State of Play 6, which will be held this June at the New York Law School. A lot of familiar faces will no doubt make an acte de presence, not in the least the members of the meme that is Terra Nova. — read on
Casual Hamburger
Last month I visited the 2009 edition of Casual Connect in Hamburg, Germany. With our casual games report almost finished, I flew to Hamburg to meet the movers and shakers in Europe. The industry’s state of affairs amidst an economic downturn persuaded a wide selection of companies to make an act-de-presence and network with existing and new clients. So here's what's up.
Half of the work in getting a Ph.D is purely logistical. You are looking at my attempt to create a degree of coherence in the bitstorm that finds its way onto my screen every day.
Article Categories
Gaming
- Insert coin. Press start.Licenses
- Who's buying what IP license in game land?Events
- Where to go and enjoy games beyond playReading
- Go. Read.Academic
- Unproblematizing the frivolity of playJibberjabber
- Off-topic banter and delectable observationsGame industry
- For & about the people in it for the $$.
Game Theory Resources
Command & Conquer Mod Resource List
- As part of a project I'm doing with Nielsen Online (previously Nielsen BuzzMetrics), I've created a collection of online chatter surrounding Command & Conquer. I haven't signed the NDA yet, but what follows is publicly available anyway.Open Source Gaming
- I'm not sure exactly where this part goes: it's really part mod, part community gaming (if you allow 'collaborative construction of technological space' as a sec reading of say Big Games and Urban Terror 4.0). Nonetheless, forwards I gather the linkies.Big Games
- This section summarizes some of the online sites and information I collected whilst working on my paper 'City, Games & Media' in May, 2007. In no particular order:
Game Event Information
Game-related CFPs (updated 05/28)
- What follows is a listing of the calls-for-papers (CFPs) and other requests for publication and paper presentation that have some focus on video games.Big Ol’ List of 2008 Virtual World Conferences
- What follows is a list of 2008 conferences that have something to do with virtual worlds. Think of all the frequent flyer miles…Event dates
- In an attempt to organize the logistics of commercial and academic networking, this page will list events. Categorized by an overarching theme, I will update these as I go along. They are primarily based on the endless mailing lists that find their way into my inbox every day.