The next hot genre for 2008

[SteveZ]

Every year there seems to be a dominant genre in the casual space carved by an exceptional title that started it all many months before. In 2005 there was Ball Poppers (Zuma), 2006 Click Time Management (Diner Dash), 2007 Hidden Objects (MCF: Huntsville).

What do you think the next hot genre (and created by what title) will be for the year 2008?

-Steve Z.

[Bmc]

I'll call them "Adventure" games for lack of a better genre name ...

games comprised of a variety of different mini-games that you need to complete to push the main narrative forward.

Azada and Escape from Paradise would definitely be 2 games that are jump starting this trend.


I also think we'll see a lot of free flash type games "casualized". I do know that one company is already working on a casual Tower Defense game. We can also probably expect more room escape games, and someone might event try to turn the Grow concept into a casual title.

[Maupin]

I'm pretty sure "escape the room" games like Azada and Dream Chronicles are going to be the next big thing. In fact I'm sure the clones are already on their way...

I also expect social simulation games to be somewhere on the horizon, and for any game that overtly caters to girls and homemaking to do well.

Do you have any idea how eagerly awaited the game Babysitting Mania is? It's insane.

[stanchat]

I think the Nintendo DS/WII style Brain Academy games will make a impact in the casual game arena. Real Arcade already has one Mind Medley (http://www.realarcade.com/game?gameid=mindmedley&src=ggpg&tps=ambient_) that is doing pretty well on their site. I actually like these style of games because of their short defined goals/tasks to complete.

[Bmc]

I think the Nintendo DS/WII style Brain Academy games will make a impact in the casual game arena. Real Arcade already has one Mind Medley (http://www.realarcade.com/game?gameid=mindmedley&src=ggpg&tps=ambient_) that is doing pretty well on their site. I actually like these style of games because of their short defined goals/tasks to complete.



I dunno, Mind Midley isn't lighting any fires, and there have already been a few others before that didn't shake things up.

[barrygamer]

I'd have to agree, there will be more Azada-style click-adventures over the coming months. Maybe more will use licensed material for their setting+story (books, well-known characters?). I'm not saying I want it, just predict it. The bigger companies have the cash to do it.

And, click-management games must go somewhere new, right? Or just more of the same? :confused:

[Pallav Nawani]

Also, simplified resource management games like choclateer & Build a lot show that at least some part of the audience are ready for sim like games

[zoombapup]

I've got a design for a new take on click-time-management games, but right now I've just not got the hours in the day to create it.

I think if you break down a lot of these games, there are clearly new designs available based on the abstractions being peiced together and the themes used in them.

I suspect what we will see is a new single genre coming up, but lots of thematic variance on what is already there.

I'm happy with the variance idea, although I do worry that the portals are starting to really funnel thier audience too much.

[Adrian Cummings]

Personally I'm now working on a new casual mouse driven PC Time Management + Hidden Object + Arcade style game all rolled into one and based on cooking - I make it up as I go along, as with all my own I.P. games really (and my cooking heh!) :)

[barrygamer]

Personally I'm now working on a new casual mouse driven PC Time Management + Hidden Object + Arcade style game

aha, sounds like a good development of ideas. the intro screen looks v nice. BTW, any possible name issues with the old 'Cookie' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_(game)) game? I remember playing that one back in the day.

[Adrian Cummings]

Thanks - well I guess it's called 'Cookies Krazy Kitchen' so although there is a reference perhaps there, it's a totally different name and game in practice.

I don't imagine a problem in reality - but that's why I air names and concepts early :)

I don't even want to start the whole Dweebs vs Dweep thing again either! :P

[mooktown]

I'm just relieved you didn't spell cookies with a k. :eek:

[Adrian Cummings]

I almost did but in shortform 'KKK' is not so good is it :/

[SteveZ]

Also, simplified resource management games like choclateer & Build a lot show that at least some part of the audience are ready for sim like games

I agree these type of games have potential as well, IMHO they may just be hitting a small dent in the casual space. A analogy I can think of is Chuzzle, where two other significant titles that followed were Fairies and Gem Shop - there doesn't seem much after that.

-Steve Z.

[Greg Squire]

If I was a betting man, I'd have to say that "quazi-Adventure" games (or "Escape the Room" games, as Maupin put it) like 'Azada' and 'Dream Chronicles' are going to be the next big thing. It's an extension of the "hidden object" genre, so it seem like a natural evolution. It's essentially a "find the objects to solve the puzzle, and then progress to the next room/level" type of game.

They aren't "adventure" games in the traditional sense, but they have a lot of those elements to it. I'm guessing that this will help revive the more traditional "adventure" genre as well. That genre seem to be making more of a come back within the past few years. (Largely thanks to Tell Tale Games and their Sam & Max series, I think).

[Nikster]

I think the Nintendo DS/WII style Brain Academy games will make a impact in the casual game arena. Real Arcade already has one Mind Medley (http://www.realarcade.com/game?gameid=mindmedley&src=ggpg&tps=ambient_) that is doing pretty well on their site. I actually like these style of games because of their short defined goals/tasks to complete.

The things that worry me about clones of the brain academy series is in research over getting a title out quickly, so instead of brain training it becomes more brain draining :)

[Nikos Beck]

Casual games have a long tail in sales. "Cake Mania" is still doing well. There's a sequel coming out isn't there? Probably. I'm sure that there is still a market for match-three games. There better be, or I'll be extremely disappointed with my next release.

AAA genres tend to narrow down to one or two IPs. "Need for Speed" is, and correct me if I'm a little out of date, the de facto racing game in the market. There /are/ smaller players like "Gran Turismo". Casual games have big IPs like "Cake Mania" and "Diner Dash" but I don't know if clones are as marginalized as in the AAA market.

[Amirai]

Actually, Gran Turismo is a bigger franchise than NFS, if yahoo's list of successful franchises is to be believed.

[Spore Man]

Casual games have a long tail in sales. "Cake Mania" is still doing well. There's a sequel coming out isn't there? Probably. I'm sure that there is still a market for match-three games. There better be, or I'll be extremely disappointed with my next release.

AAA genres tend to narrow down to one or two IPs. "Need for Speed" is, and correct me if I'm a little out of date, the de facto racing game in the market. There /are/ smaller players like "Gran Turismo". Casual games have big IPs like "Cake Mania" and "Diner Dash" but I don't know if clones are as marginalized as in the AAA market.

Marginalized? Isn't Halo a clone of Doom? ... ;)

[moose6912]

Marginalized? Isn't Halo a clone of Doom? ... ;)

Isn't Half Life a clone of Doom with the difference being better story telling and a spectacled hero? :)

[Adrian Cummings]

Casual games have a long tail in sales. "Cake Mania" is still doing well. There's a sequel coming out isn't there? Probably. I'm sure that there is still a market for match-three games. There better be, or I'll be extremely disappointed with my next release.

Hehe I like to think I wrote one of the first batch of so called PC 'casual' games that also helped defined the genre in some small way... the original '98 puzzler Dweebs! and it still sells 8-9 years on (quite amazing really!) therefore although sales are not what they were by a long shot, what I'm saying is, many of these type of casual games have no shelf life as such to the developer at least i.e. you can keep selling them, for years later - I have :)

[jcottier]

Casual games have a long tail in sales. "Cake Mania" is still doing well.

True, but CakeMania might be a bad example because it is probably one of the top selling games.

JC

[Nikos Beck]

Doom sales are probably zero at this point. And yes, Halo and Half Life are a couple of the few big FPSes out there. Unreal is still played quite a bit. My point is that, in it's hey-day there were dozens of FPSes on the market, all doing fairly well. Now, there are only a few. Bond for N64 was a popular game in that genre but it's since died out. The popular licenses will vary but the longer a genre lives, the fewer licenses there'll be. Or, I'm completely wrong.

[Qitsune]

FPS's are very technology dependent and therefore date easily, it's not how old a genre is, it's how old the last episode in the franchise is and how dated it looks. Doom is dead because id hasn't published one in years, if they were to publish a new Doom tomorow, it would have success again.
Casual games don't usually push the user's machines to their limits, they have pretty but basic graphics and their age doesn't show as readily, especially to a casual audience who doesn't read gaming magazines and doesn't pay attention to release dates.

[moose6912]

FPS's are very technology dependent and therefore date easily, it's not how old a genre is, it's how old the last episode in the franchise is and how dated it looks. Doom is dead because id hasn't published one in years, if they were to publish a new Doom tomorow, it would have success again.


Didn't they release Doom 3 in 2004?

[Twitchfactor]

So, I've played this Azada thing and it's interesting, but what separates it from a "seek and find"? I mean, I know it's got different puzzle minigames, but shouldn't it just be classified as a "seek and find"?

I'm genuinely curious, because it's under "Adventure" in a lot of Portals, like Reflexive's portal. That type of classification, separating it from "seek and finds" would lead me to believe that people looking for more seek and finds wouldn't find it, since they're not looking for "adventures". If that's the case, wouldn't sales be low? And if sales are low, how is this the "next big genre"?

Thoughts?

[papillon]

.... except that you know that Azada *was* a top seller. And if you look under 'Puzzle' in Big Fish Games, you'll see several other games that sold well that actually are traditional adventure games. BFG doesn't classify them as 'adventure' because their 'adventure' category is under Arcade/Action (and contains all the RPGs!) ... portal genre categories don't always make sense. :)

[Maupin]

So, I've played this Azada thing and it's interesting, but what separates it from a "seek and find"? I mean, I know it's got different puzzle minigames, but shouldn't it just be classified as a "seek and find"?

It's been a while since I played it but I don't remember any hidden object sequences (i.e. where you look for a grocery list of items in a cluttered room). The game is primarily a collection of puzzle and "escape the room" minigames. Kudos to Big Fish Games. I think they saw the popularity of small, Flash-based "escape the room" games online and realized there was a market for these types of games in casual gameplayers.

And as Papillon says, Azada sold like gangbusters. So did Dream Chronicles.

And so we'll see more games like them.

[papillon]

Speaking of things there's a desire for, while browsing yahoo answers the other day I found requests from multiple different people looking for cooking games.. "Not like Diner Dash, actual cooking!" So, how long til someone shows up with a Cooking Mama clone? :)

[Bmc]

Speaking of things there's a desire for, while browsing yahoo answers the other day I found requests from multiple different people looking for cooking games.. "Not like Diner Dash, actual cooking!" So, how long til someone shows up with a Cooking Mama clone? :)

I didn't find Cooking Mama was executed that well (at least on the Wii) so there is definitely room for improvement there if any one does.

[Adrian Cummings]

Speaking of things there's a desire for, while browsing yahoo answers the other day I found requests from multiple different people looking for cooking games.. "Not like Diner Dash, actual cooking!" So, how long til someone shows up with a Cooking Mama clone? :)

I'm working on one now, but although you do cook it's not Cooking Mama. It's a time management + bit of hidden object + arcade game all in one with a 'hint' of cooking mama to boot... 'Cookies Krazy Kitchen' for Q1 2008.

I await the forthcoming cooking game clone wars :)

[Nikster]

I'm working on one now, but although you do cook it's not Cooking Mama. It's a time management + bit of hidden object + arcade game all in one with a 'hint' of cooking mama to boot... 'Cookies Krazy Kitchen' for Q1 2008.

I await the forthcoming cooking game clone wars :)

Cooking : In the bush

;)

It could be a game and edutainment, you're in the bush and you have to cook using stuff around you without poisoning yourself ;)

[Adrian Cummings]

Deleted - sorry I went way off topic.

[SteveZ]

Getting back on topic..


Speaking of things there's a desire for, while browsing yahoo answers the other day I found requests from multiple different people looking for cooking games.. "Not like Diner Dash, actual cooking!" So, how long til someone shows up with a Cooking Mama clone? :)

You bring an interesting point - taking a concept that (potentially) sells well on other platform and bringing it to the casual downloadable space.

A concept with potential is Tower Defense - made in 2D, find a suitable theme, structure the game level base rather than an endless stream of waves and more.

What other concept/genre could also work?

-Steve Z.

[Bmc]

Getting back on topic..



You bring an interesting point - taking a concept that (potentially) sells well on other platform and bringing it to the casual downloadable space.

A concept with potential is Tower Defense - made in 2D, find a suitable theme, structure the game level base rather than an endless stream of waves and more.

What other concept/genre could also work?

-Steve Z.

Grow type games, although I think the genre would need to be tweaked.

[rioka]

Grow type games, although I think the genre would need to be tweaked.
Agreed. For example, I'd like the sequences you've tried to be listed. After playing for awhile and randomly clicking - I forgot what I've clicked and in what order. <_<; (And writing things down is a hassle, imo)

[Escapee]

I'd place my bet on casual sim game, also my bet on whoever (Hanakogames ?) comes up with a much better casual version of princess maker type of game would be crying( too happy ) all the way to the bank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Maker

[rioka]

That's funny. I thought Cute Knight was already more casual compared to Princess Maker... :|

[papillon]

There's still plenty of different ways the Princess Maker idea can be taken (and I know at least one or two others are working on it. Go go princess! :) )

[rioka]

(and I know at least one or two others are working on it. Go go princess! :) )That's good to hear! At this rate, a raiser sim genre will emerge and I'm all for that! :)

Btw, who's working on them?

[arcadetown]

A concept with potential is Tower Defense - made in 2D, find a suitable theme, structure the game level base rather than an endless stream of waves and more.
Garden Defense (http://www.arcadetown.com/gardendefense/game.asp) is a new good example. Gamesalescharts shows it hit a couple top 10s and will probably also do here. Very nice casual feel.

Wonder if this genre will finally start to find a casual niche? Master of Defense was great title but probably too hard core (male theme, complex controls, etc).