News
‘EA doesn’t scare us’, says casual site
Tim Ingham May 12 2008, 5:50pm
Comments (3)
Big Fish Games President welcomes established publishers to online gaming realm
The president of leading portal Big Fish Games Jeremy Lewis has told MCV sister site Casualgaming.biz that his firm isn’t worried by the likes of EA, Activision and Midway upping their game in the online casual market.
Speaking as part of a wider interview, Lewis said that investment from established boxed publishers in the sector can only help the size of the sector.
Last year, EA – which owns leading casual games firm Pogo – set up a dedicated casual games division.
“We’re not especially worried,” he commented.
“As the demographic widens, specialization is required and each of these companies, including Big Fish Games, has a distinct areas of focus.”
However, Lewis warned startup casual games portals and developers that they may find profit hard to come by in the sector.
“The traditional, or core, games business is plagued by multi-year, multi-million dollar development cycles, whilst casual games are relatively inexpensive and take a fraction of the time to produce,” he added.
“However, for portal start-ups it is quite the contrary. Barriers to entry are low, but barriers to scale, profitability and staying power are almost insurmountable at this point.”
Comments
“O RLY?”
Posted by: kPod - May 12, 6:57pm
All I have to say, is that casual gaming is not gaming. It's entertainment. Gaming is sitting down in front of a TV with a joypad/controller, and using buttons/lightguns to play the game. Casual Gaming is a quick buck, and a big **** for the gaming industry as a whole.
Not sure if many people care, but an example of this is Ritual Entertainment, the makers of sin, and the better received sin episodes. But there was only one, and there is doubt that episode 2 was even on the drawing board. Why? A casual gaming company bought them out, and now does a casual equivalent of Steam. A promising franchise, wiped out thanks to the craze that the Wii started.
“Re: O RLY?”
Posted by: JC - May 12, 8:24pm
O RLY,
You are a little hardcore gamer who feels sad because his girlfriends/mum/granny/uncle is also enjoying video games.
Because you are scare/piss, you enter denial saying that they are not real games/gamers.... That's really pathetic.
How on earth can it be bad for the game industry if more people are playing games? Is it bad for the game industry if it is becoming mainstream? You really need to explain this to me.
Anyway, you should not worry. The hardcore players will always exist and have some games to play. You are just thinking like a fascist thinking that other's type of games shouldn't exist because they don't appeal to you, or appeals to a community that wasn't part of the game community before.
Suck-it because it is not going to change quickly.
“Re: O RLY?”
Posted: May 13, 9:09am
What we should do is put these little Casual Gamers in special 'holiday' camps.
They're destroying the industry with their money, and support and popularity. How dare they!