[casual_games] Happy New Year

[George Donovan]

I wanted to wish everyone in the Casual games industry a very happy New year
and hope that everyone gets experience that elusive "hit" that we see only a
select few achieve.
 
My New years hope is that we all can stop debating over what "Casual" means
and enjoy this new found sectors success and growth and hope it continues.
 
All the Best in the New Year,

George Donovan
President
 <http://www.Gameagents.com> www.Gameagents.com  <http://www.GogiiGames.com>
www.GogiiGames.com
tel: 506.872.4585

 

 

  _____  

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of James Gwertzman
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 5:43 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] If Vista is going to be such a problem...



No, I think I got it. I'm not trying to say that Vista and/or the Game
Explorer are perfect, and starting 9 months ago when we first got a preview
of the new Game Explorer from Microsoft we certainly made sure they heard
our feedback loud and clear. But nor are they the unmitigated disaster that
some of the threads in this exchange seem to be implying they are. And you
may have missed my point - I agree that because you do have your own client,
the problems in Vista and the Game Explorer may help your business somewhat
compared to folks dependent entirely on website downloads and random
"Program Files" directory installations. A cynic might say you have some
advantage in flogging Game Explorer, though I do give you more credit than
that. I know you are genuinely trying to help the community by raising
issues now, but you'd also be the first to admit you've certainly never
shied away from helping Microsoft see the error of its ways when it slips
up.

 

(full disclosure: Alex & I go way back - 12 years now is it? - and my start
in the casual game industry was building a set of casual games under
contract for WildTangent)

 

GameExplorer was clearly designed for retail games, and that's its biggest
weakness. The team that created it simply wasn't thinking about download
content or else it would have been designed very differently. As more and
more companies move to digital distribution, the pressure to fix those
issues will increase. Whether those issues get fixed in a version 2.0
remains to be seen.

 

As for the graphs below - I might quibble with Alexa's data but I absolutely
agree that Microsoft does have the power to make arbitrary decisions with
real economic consequences. Witness the tens of thousands of dollars we are
having to spend right now on moving our ActiveX or Java based games over to
Flash because of the increasingly unacceptable end-user experience
associated with those technologies, all in the name of increased security.
I'm certainly not giving them a free pass as you well know from our previous
discussions on this topic.

 

---------------------------

James Gwertzman

Director of Business Development

PopCap Games, Inc.

+1-206-256-4210

 

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