Disaggregating the Casual Games Industry

Paul Thelen, Founder, Chairman and CSO, Big Fish Games

Mr. Thelen gave the opening keynote speech to a packed house. Harold Zeitz, who introduced Paul Thelen, mentioned the conference attendance this year has doubled from the first Casual Connect in 2006. Paul Thelen has been involved with the casual games industry (CGI) for quite some time. Prior to founding Big Fish Games in 2003, he wrote the business plan for RealArcade, which was the CGI's first large scale Internet distribution service. Big Fish Games currently delivers more than one million downloads a day.

Big Fish Games in conjunction with the NPD Group presented the results of a new study of the casual games industry.

Mr. Thelen reminded us that traditionally, the games industry was geared towards retail sales in brick and mortar stores. As the games industry progressed, they mainly focused on the 18 to 34 male market, which alienated an entire market.

Enter the Internet. The Internet has created the world's largest and most complex market. It is constantly changing with new types of games every day and a new genre of game being introduced every month.

The study really looked at the psychographics of casual games. What makes someone play a game and make them want to come back. They had 2611 participants in the study and found that ninety percent of the respondents have played casual games and two-thirds of those people have played games in the previous three months.

The Big Fish Games study really separated out the study participants into fine detail with a total of fourteen different segments. Of the fourteen different segments, twelve of them have been identified as casual games.

The key finding of the study is the casual games market is diverging. It's basically lots of different business models now.

The study also discovered some contrarian findings .

1. Myth number one: Gamers stick with one type of genre. Not true. The study found that players will play all types of games.
2. Myth number two: Core gamers only play core games. The study found that 56 percent of heavy gamers have played casual games in the last three months.
3. Myth number three: The games marketing opportunity is only with core games. The study found that the sales in the casual games industry is quickly approaching sales in the core game industry.
4. Myth number four: Core gamers commit more time to game play. The study found that more people are spending more than 15 minutes a day playing games. Mr. Thelen then went into detail regarding the different customer segments the study identified.

• "Nancy Drew's" are essentially what the casual game industry identifies as their main customer - a middle aged woman who plays match 3 style casual games. The study, however, found that the Nancy Drews only comprise 63 percent female. They read books, visit eBay, and 41 percent play heavy action games. The Nancy Drew's are also a good market for Spongebob type games because the parents will play games with their kids.
• "Heavy Action" gamers play shooters, racing, and games such as World of Warcraft. They're 73 percent male, 45 percent are between the ages of 18 to 34. Surprisingly, 56 percent of the Heavy Gamer will dabble with Nancy Drew type games. This means that the casual games industry is not a "one size fits all" type of industry. The customers WILL move to different platforms.
• "Old School" is essentially a family man or an empty nester.
• "Spongebobs" are kids
• "Whimsical" are people who like to play social games like Wii Sports.
• "Frenetic's" are frat dude types who like to play running and jumping games.
• "Clickers" are similar to Frenetic's, but are mostly females who play time management games.
• "Tycoons" are people who like to spend time on games that allow them to create a world. These are teens/twenty-something's that play games like The Sims.
• "King of Kong's" are middle aged men who play classic arcade games

Essentially, the study identified 14 different customer segments, 10 different business models, with 17 possible platforms. This means that a casual game company really needs to focus and specialize.

Big Fish Games can help and will partner with your company. They focus in on transactional games that appeal to the Nancy Drew's, Old School, and Clicker types of customer segments.

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