fizzy.com

Surely not another casual games website!

We think it’s different enough to be worth a mention. I’ll talk more over the next few days about how Fizzy is different, but right now I’d like to thank the team at 3RD sense for all the effort they have put into building the site and its hugely engaging content.

I guess the big difference about us as a business is that we are Casual Game Developer and Casual Game web site Publisher in one. Most of the other bigger players in the industry tend to do one or the other.

Anyway, have a play and why not buy some games….

Visit www.fizzy.com

ANDLet us know what you think

To Free or not to Free

There seems to be an unending amount of comment about casual and online games and whether they should be free to play. On one side the users or the casual game player, who would like all of the games produced to be free and available for all and on the other, the businesses who try to make enough money so that they can flourish and develop more and more games.

So who is right? Well in my opinion everyone and no-one. I think for the industry to really grow there has to be a sensible mix of the free and pay-to-use casual game.

Casual games sites can not grow by surviving on advertising revenue alone. But these games sites need to offer content that is free to play. Even the biggest casual games portals offer free trials of their games for sale. After all it is sound business practise to encourage users to play the game before they part with their hard earned cash.

For new and innovative games to be created the developers need to know that there is the ability for them to earn a living from doing what they love.

We have experienced the backlash from users in the free vs pay debate. Our sequel to Swords and Sandals was offered free as a demo, but the full game was only available to paid subscribers or as a download. Yet we offer over 180 free games on our website of which about 50 of them we developed and built in-house. To call a business greedy and selfish for trying to earn a living is short sighted and ill-educated.

With the revenue generated from games sales companies are able to develop bigger and better games, employ more games developers and generally help the industry grow.

In my opinion, free content is great and it should be encouraged but to disparage those who are looking to provide more is just wrong.

Casual games = Increased productivity

It’s always a good thing when surveys are conducted about the casual games industry, especially when they highlight the positives of fun and games.

Casual game company Worldwinner recently conducted a survey amongst 500 of its customers specifically asking about perceived benefits of playing casual games. What they found was that around 76 percent said that it improved productivity while 72 percent revealed that they rely on game breaks to lessen job-related stress.

The most prevalent games to play seem to be puzzle and card games and these have long been the most popular of all casual game categories. It seems amazing that as casual games become more sophisticated, games like solitaire, three in a row puzzlers, spelling games and bubble shooters remain at the top of most popular games lists. Even larger games companies are recognising the benefit of games that stimulate the mind. Two of Nintendo’s biggest games for its DS system are Brain Age, and Big Brain Academy.

The majority of respondents (66%) in the survey said they played casual games for around 30 minutes during the working day. The survey shows that more and more people are seeking out casual games for more than just entertainment.

I still think it is amusing large companies are quite happy to lose productivity by allowing employees to go for a smoke or a coffee, yet frown upon the use of a computer to play a game and take a quick time out. The US recently calculated it loses 92 billion dollars worth of productivity every year from smoking.

I don’t expect this survey will change the preconceptions large employers have about computer games, but at least a few of them will take notice, and that’s a good thing.