Tom Higgins from unit3d.com wrote this great article “Casual Games as a Business”.
Casual Games as a Business
Casual games are a rapidly growing segment of the overall games industry, and it’s a segment in which a small team of developers can be competitive and successful. There are a number of publishing and distribution options available that will allow developers to quickly introduce their games to a large and waiting audience of customers. In working with those publishers and portals, you as the developer share in the revenue generated by your game. With Unity, a career as a casual game developer is within reach, it’s up to you to go get it!
1. What are “Casual Games”?
The term “casual games” means different things to different people as the term is still only loosely defined at best. Despite that, the term “casual games” can still be used to describe a rather large and rapidly growing segment of the game industry. Casual games tend to be those that have simpler game play and engaging game design, they also tend to offer users the ability to step in and play a game within minutes without requiring any long-term skills development or game commitment. The goal with casual games is to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, including those that have normally fallen outside the traditional “gamer” profile (anyone outside the teen to twenties male demographic). As with any definition there are grey areas where certain games blur the lines between casual and serious, but hopefully the basic gist of the definition comes across: small, fun and easy to play seem to be three commonalities worth remembering.
2. Why You Should Make Casual Games
Casual games are an expanding segment of the games industry that offer the individual Unity developer, or small development team using Unity, a very competitive opportunity for success. The increased chances for success are based on a number of factors, but here are a few of the more notable reasons.
Competitive Opportunity Casual games tend to be smaller in scope and more limited in terms of game play compared to console or AAA desktop titles, and with that comes lower end-user expectations about the casual game experience. Those facts lead to much lower time and resource requirements in order to develop a top-tier casual game title, putting them within reach of dedicated individuals or small development teams. Available Distribution Channels There are a variety of publishers and online game portal websites that you can use to publish your casual game title. The truth is that most individuals or small development teams don’t have the manpower and experience to effectively market and promote their game, nor do they have a large existing user communities at the ready, the available publishers and game portals do. Revenue Potential The casual segment of the game industry is experiencing rapid growth, it’s gone from a side-show for the larger console market to a multi-billion dollar a year industry on its own. That growth has resulted in a casual games market that allows small teams of developers (1-3 developers) to develop a top-tier casual game in a few months (3-9 months), and a premiere casual game can earn $100,000 USD or more.
So as you can see, the casual games market offers smaller development teams a great chance to be competitive and profitable. Below you will find some tips that will help developers realize their own success in the casual games industry.
3. Tips for Creating Successful Casual Games
There are entire courses and even university degree programs that cover the topic of game design and what elements help make for a “good game”. This brief article won’t attempt to cover such a broad topic as a whole, rather it will share a few general guidelines that have been gleaned from first-hand experiences of developers, publishers and game portal websites.
Think About Your Target Audience
Think about your game and its intended audience when choosing a distribution path. Free browser-based web games appeal to males in their teens and twenties who tend to prefer action, adventure or driving style games whereas downloaded executables appeal to an older and increasingly female audience that tends to prefer story-based or puzzle type games.
Keep it Simple
Make sure the game is relatively easy to learn and understand, yet still challenging to master overall. Instructions should be almost ignorable and kept to a minimum, a few sentences at most.
Make it Familiar
The user interface and controls should be as standard as possible. Don’t impose a learning curve on those wanting to play your game as that reduces the chances of them enjoying the experience.
Reward Your Player
Keep players interested and engaged with the game experience. For example, in an action game you might offer a new weapon, power-up or enemy every 30 seconds or so for the first few minutes, then every few minutes for the next five to ten minutes, and so on. Or in a story-based game offer new items or character modifications on similar time scales to keep the player invested in the story and the game.
Consider Replayability
Design your game so that it is fun to play repeatedly, try to keep users coming back for more. You can do this by offering alternate game play paths, different weapon/item selections for repeat players or even character dialog choices that result in unique game experiences each time through.
Reach For a Wide Audience
Design for as wide of an audience as possible as it increases the number of potential players. This can be done in many ways, but you can definitely avoid reducing your audience size and increase portal/publisher appeal by avoiding the use of blood and gore, human-on-human violence and profanity.
Focus Your Efforts
Maximize your work effort and avoid spending too much time and resources on things the user will likely skip the second time through. For example, don’t spend excessive time on a comic book opening or a cut scene, instead focus on the core game play itself. Similarly, avoid spending too much time on art production value, that time may be better spent focused on developing unique and interesting game play.
Test Early and Often
Have your game tested by strangers that fall into your target user base, and have that done at various intervals during the development process. You should have them test your game on all platforms and target configurations (operating systems, browsers and/or publish formats for example). It is critical to get outsiders to test the game, unprompted and without instructions, while you watch over the shoulders to see what they enjoy and what they don’t, only talk with them after the game play testing is complete.
Please note that the above are certainly not strict rules that you must adhere to, rather they are general guidelines that can be used to help steer your own effort. Learn from the prior efforts of others and use that information as you carve out your own path as a casual game developer.
4. How to Make Money With Casual Games
There are a large number of ways in which developers can make money with their casual game titles, this discussion will focus on the easiest entry point for commercial games and that’s working with the existing publishers and game portal websites. The reason for this is because many individuals or small development teams lack the time, resources and experience to effectively market their own games to a large-scale audience and most lack a large existing customer base ready to try their latest game. Both publishers and game portal websites offer those critical elements, developers in turn bring their top-quality game to the table and together you can create and publish games that generate revenue for you the developer.
Browser-Based Web Games
Free browser-based web games generate revenue based on the advertising shown in conjunction with the game. As the content developer you receive a percentage the total advertising revenue generated by your game. Developers typically receive 20-40% of the advertising revenue, but the exact percentage shared with the developer will vary for a variety of reasons. The primary reasons the percentage will vary are the portal website chosen, the types of advertising shown and whether or not your game is exclusive to the portal website.
Downloadable Games
Downloadable executables typically offer free trial game play and then has to be purchased to unlock the full game. As the content developer you can receive a percentage of the advertising revenue and/or a percentage of the sales revenue generated by your game. Developers typically receive 20-40% of the advertising revenue and/or 15-30% of the sales revenue, but once more the exact percentages shared will vary. The primary reasons the percentages will vary are based on advertising versus sales revenue share and whether or not the game is exclusive to that portal website or publisher.
Premium Game Play
Additionally, both browser-based and downloadable games can earn additional revenue if they participate in any portal website premium feature offerings. Some websites unlock additional game play for paying website subscribers while others offer end-users various challenge and rating systems or other community building features. Participating in those sorts of programs quite often provides additional revenue share and/or increased game play numbers.
Fixed-Media Publishing
Games published as downloadable executables or on fixed-media (CD/DVD) through publishers may or may not offer free trial game play and they have to be purchased to unlock the full game. As the content developer you can earn revenue in a few ways, either via sales revenue sharing or from the publisher funding development. The revenue shared with the developer can vary here even more than in the above cases, it will be dependent on the revenue source (revenue share versus funding), your particular game and your experience with that publisher.
So as you can see, the casual games market offers smaller development teams a great chance to be competitive and profitable. Below you will find some tips that will help developers realize their own success in the casual games industry.
5. How Much Money Can You Make?
Here are two anonymous examples, both are casual games that were developed and released just over a year ago. In both cases the games were developed by small teams in a matter of months.
Example #1
A casual game offered as both a browser-based game and a downloadable game via multiple game portal websites, including shockwave.com and realarcade.com among others. The game achieved moderate success but it never quite made the top-10 lists. It was able to generate approximately $40,000 USD for the developers during the first year of its release.
Example #2
A casual game offered as a browser-based game via two game portal websites, shockwave.com and miniclip.com. The game was very successful and maintained consistent top-10 rankings during the first six months of its release and top-25 rankings through the end of its first year. It was able to generate slighty more than $100,000 USD for the developers in the first year of its release.
There are most certainly casual games that have made less than the cited values above just as there are some that have made quite a bit more. The point here isn’t to offer a fixed revenue expectation for all developers so much as it’s to provide a sense of scale for the revenue potential offered to those making casual games today.
6. More Information
It’s always important to stay informed and take part in the developer community around you. There are a number of publishers and game portal websites ready to work with Unity developers and/or accept Unity-authored submissions today. Here are some links that offer information on submitting games for a few of them in particular.
Addicting Games and Shockwave.com
http://www.addictinggames.com
http://www.shockwave.com http://www.atomentertainment.com/asw_working_devinfo_games.htm
Big Fish Games
http://www.bigfishgames.com/
http://www.bigfishgames.com/company/game-developer.html
Freeverse
http://www.freeverse.com/
http://www.freeverse.com/about/
Game House and Real Arcade
http://www.gamehouse.com
http://www.realarcade.com http://gamedevs.realarcade.com/GameSubmission/index.jsp
There are also many forums and websites where you can learn more about the games industry in general, or about casual games in specific.
Casual Games Association
http://www.casualgamesassociation.org
Gamasutra / CMP Game Group
http://www.gamasutra.com/
International Game Developer’s Association (IGDA)
http://www.igda.org
IGDA Casual Games Special Interest Group
http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Casual_Games_SIG
1. What are “Casual Games”?
The term “casual games” means different things to different people as the term is still only loosely defined at best. Despite that, the term “casual games” can still be used to describe a rather large and rapidly growing segment of the game industry. Casual games tend to be those that have simpler game play and engaging game design, they also tend to offer users the ability to step in and play a game within minutes without requiring any long-term skills development or game commitment. The goal with casual games is to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, including those that have normally fallen outside the traditional “gamer” profile (anyone outside the teen to twenties male demographic). As with any definition there are grey areas where certain games blur the lines between casual and serious, but hopefully the basic gist of the definition comes across: small, fun and easy to play seem to be three commonalities worth remembering. Read the rest of this entry »
