[casual_games] Aztec

[Daniel James]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006, Juan Gril wrote:

> 'Casual Games players get put off by "cute" characters or visual 
> elements that make the sensation of watching a Saturday morning 
> cartoon.'

Neopets looks a lot like a Saturday morning cartoon to me (well, it's 
cuter and arguably slightly less polished), and is unquestionably one of 
the better examples of a casual game website. Indeed, as a site that's 
grown organically to ~20M uniques, I'd say it's a much better example 
than any of the offerings of most major portals that are fed by fairly 
consistent traffic pipes unrelated to the quality of their offerings. 

Likewise most of the Korean 'casual' games are super-cute, even though 
they appeal to very wide demographics. Of course cultural tastes vary, 
but...

That is to say, I agree that we're way too early in the game to know 
what works for casual games as a whole. Statements can be made about 
what works for a $20 downloadable game distributed via the major US/EU 
portals, but given ~2% (purchasers) of ~30% (downloads compared to play 
online) for hit game monetization rates, I don't think that that tells 
us all that much about what the other 99% of the (US/EU) audience might 
be willing to spend money on...

Another way of putting this is to say that it's a bad idea for the 
casual games 'industry' to categorise themselves as 'downloadlable games 
for the older, majority female demographic that predominantly buys 
downloadable games via the major portals'. If we do that then some of us 
will have to find another industry categorisation for that other 99%, 
along with associated additional conferences and so forth. Save us!

- Daniel