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Labels are funny things. By adding casual to the title does it make us sound less serious, less committed? Well the statistics being released of late seem to indicate the opposite.

Casual gamers are some of the most dedicated gamers out there. And unlike the young male dominated world of the ‘hard-core’ gamer, casual gamers are made up of all demographics and all ages. The dominant group of casual gamers are in fact women over the age of 30, a fact that comes as no surprise to those in the industry. However it’s not the demographic or age group that immediately jumps to mind of the general public when you talk about computer games.

The beauty of the casual game is its simplicity, and that’s why the worldwide audience of 100 million* continues to grow. Sometimes you just need a little diversion to get through the day.

We at 3RD sense are extremely proud of the games we create, and we thank the lord that people like them and keep coming back to visit. We don’t consider our games casual, and I bet to the majority of Playaholics gamers out there, casual is not even a term they use.

Of course casual games are as important as the more traditional hard-core games. If they were not, then people wouldn’t play them and our industry wouldn’t exist. I just wish we had a better name.

* source: Jupiter Media Metrix

]]> http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/10/31/who-are-you-calling-casual/feed/ http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/10/04/our-web-20-awakening/ http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/10/04/our-web-20-awakening/#comments Wed, 04 Oct 2006 07:03:28 +0000 the little gamer http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/10/04/our-web-20-awakening/ If you were talking to marketers and you wanted a sound bite, you’d probably say Web 2.0 was about unleashing the power of the community. This is a grand statement, but what does that mean? The best way we can explain it is by drawing on our own experience.

Some time ago, we decided that we wanted to create a directory of online casual games. There were two ways we could go about that, really. The first route would have been to try to build and create that directory ourselves. The second route — and the one we chose — was to build an environment that allowed the users to create their own directory.

We launched Millions Of Games (MOG) five or six months ago, using techniques that were pioneered by sites like Delicious and Flickr. MOG is still in beta. It’s not finished. We haven’t really launched it at all yet. But in that period, over 1400 people have created what is now the world’s biggest directory of online games — something that would have been impossible for us to achieve on our own.

So how does that work? When they come to MOG, players have the opportunity to sign-up for free and create a list of their favourite online games. We call this “mogging”. What makes MOG a Web 2.0 application is that this list is shared with other people. Very quickly you can see who else is playing the same games as you, and you can see what else they are playing.

Very quickly, users create a powerful array of data that would have been impossible to assemble in any other way. That’s an important part of Web 2.0.

“They still need what developing human beings have always needed, including real food (as opposed to processed “junk”), real play (as opposed to sedentary screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in and regular interaction with the real-life significant adults in their lives.”

But then follows a statement of regret that standards of kids’ tv will naturally fall as a result of any loss in ad revenue brought about by a ban on junk food advertising:

“For various reasons including the lack of advertising, our children are not going to get the very best television programmes any more,” said Wilson.

I dunno. There’s always the Beeb. Or maybe for the sake or decent drama on childrens’ commercial channels we should install Krispy Kreme vending machines in all primary school classrooms. These days you just can’t have you’re cake and eat it.

Not if you’re Milwaukee’s Best Light. Just create some simple, well produced, funny and original advergames that appeal to the average Joe. They left me grinning and more than a little thirsty. Can you get this stuff in London?

In-line advertising

First off, in-line advertising is a display ad that runs before the game. It has no greater connection to the game than the link between a banner ad and the text on a web page.

Basically, when you load a game the ad appears, it says “this is an ad”, and you can click it without disturbing the game, which in any event loads a short time later:

Ads like this can also appear within the game as another piece of inventory, but they’re not integrated into the game content in any way.

It’s a valid form of advertising. In fact, it’s something we’ll probably add to Playaholics. But it’s got no more connection to the word “game” than any other display ad that sits around a casual game that’s embedded in a web page. It’s just picking up these associations because it sits closer to the content than those other forms of advertising

In-game advertising

The likes of Massive (recently bought by Microsoft) and Double Fusion are the names behind in-game advertising.

Think about a game like Half-Life, which creates an entire virtual world for the player. There are huge opportunities for companies like Massive and Double Fusion to pitch real-life billboards and advertising into this game’s virtual world, just like the billboards and advertising you’d see in real life.

It’s sophisticated, but it’s not integrated into the gameplay. The ads just add to the game’s rich visual environment.

Advergaming

Here at theadvergamer.com, we live and breathe advergaming. An advergame is an ad created around a communication objective. The communication is part of the gameplay — for example, you might find yourself crushing cows in an advergame precisely because the game was designed for a milk drink called Crusha. The acid test is often - would the game exist without this brand’s involvement? If not, it’s a true advergame.

I often see confusion around these three terms. For example, any game that features any type of advertising is likely to be called an advergame, like this example for AT&T. But to my mind, advergaming is where the gameplay is wrapped around the brand, rather than simply stamping the brand on the play, and this example, for example, would not qualify.

http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=4310