What the market wants

[Phil Steinmeyer]

One of the things I'm really struggling with is understanding what the 'market' thinks is good versus what I personally think is good and fun.

When I made more 'hardcore' games, I was pretty much right in the middle of the target demographic I was shooting at - i.e. if I thought it was fun, chances were, my customers did too.

That's not as much the case anymore in casual games. (And no, I don't want to start a side conversation about how I should only make games I like - I do want to make games that succeed in the marketplace).

Many of the top hits on Real I find rather unappealing, and many games I love don't make a big dent on Real.

There's no real professional review community for our market, and no equivalent of GameRankings either.

Probably the best thing I've found is to read user comments on Real - they're often abbreviated and sometimes crude, but at least they're something.

I'd love to see someone, with the time, go through all the games that have been on the Real top 10 list in the last 6-12 months, and compute the mean of their review scores on Real.

Bueller, Bueller?

[soniCron]

My wife...er, ex, brought home one of her girlfriends last night. She encouraged me to show her the game. So I did. Now, I'm pretty sure this girl is the audience that the casual developers are targetting. As soon as she sat down, her response was, "Oh, like that jewel game on the Internet?!" (Only in looks and basic function, mind you, but her first response was exactly what I wanted it to be.)

"Yes."

So she starts playing. "Oh, I love this! I've got to show my mom this! She'd love this! She plays games like this all the time! This is so addicting!"

Needless to say, an hour later, she was still playing, and only got off because her ride was about to leave.

Now, this is an important revelation for me, because I'd never actually met one of these "casual gamers," that I've been targetting for months now. I always figured, "Sure, my wife, my mom, they're casual gamers. Right?"

Wrong.

Unless they spend an hour a day playing casual games, they're not a casual gamer. This girl was a casual gamer. And she was someone who I'd never consider hanging out with. You know what I mean, completely different interests and personalities. And, man, am I glad I met her. Because she provided me with a lot of insight as to who exactly we're shooting at.

First, she and her mom like popular stuff. Cell phones, the Internet, chain-mail forwards, the works. Socializing is priority number one. Eats fast food regularly. Drinks lots of soda. Smoker. Watches lowest-common-denomenator movies and shows. Talks about who's dating who. Hates those evil (sic) terrorists and doesn't know what an exit strategy is. You know the type. And from what I could tell, her and her mother are one in the same.

This is my experience with a hardcore casual gamer. (And highly speculative, formed mostly by opinion, and in under an hour.) So, when you think "casual gamer," I want you to think, "Exactly who the fast food, music, cellphone, cellphone ringtone, junk food, popular TV, and music industries are trying to target." Because that's who you're going to hit.

[papillon]

Okay, so which of you is going to attempt to build a game around an unlicensed version of the Crazy Frog?

(To anyone who didn't get that reference - count yourself lucky!)

Although I think that craze seems to have finally shut up and gone away. It was really painful for a while there. Three ads per ad break...

[soniCron]

I've got some bad news, darlin'. (http://www.crazyfroggame.com/)

[Stu]

There's no real professional review community for our market, and no equivalent of GameRankings either.

I'm generally a big fan of "we the people" rankings of games and films and not so much a fan of critical reviews by professional reviewers. Professional reviews are somewhat available in the casual games market. Game tunnel comes to mind. Rankings of casual games by "we the people" seem to be all but nonexistant.

I have to wonder if players would care about a site that ranks a product that you can try before you buy. Why read rankings if you can take the demo for a spin? Of course developers want the rankings but the players are the ones who have to support it. Would they?

[Phil Steinmeyer]

No, I don't necessarily think there's much business rationale for a major review site/magazine in an industry where everything is try-before-you-buy. But as a dev, I'd sure like to see it :)

And GameTunnel is pretty much exclusively focused on the 'indie' side as opposed to casual. They sorta scorn casual, by and large.

[Fabio]

First, she and her mom like popular stuff. Cell phones, the Internet, chain-mail forwards, the works. Socializing is priority number one. Eats fast food regularly. Drinks lots of soda. Smoker. Watches lowest-common-denomenator movies and shows. Talks about who's dating who. Hates those evil (sic) terrorists and doesn't know what an exit strategy is. You know the type. And from what I could tell, her and her mother are one in the same.I just hope you also develop for someone more intelligent, otherwise yours will be only a job, in the worst meaning, and sooner or later this may make you tired. ;)
I know I was 3 words after the begin of your description of her.

[soniCron]

Try-before-you-buy is a fantastic model that doesn't require prior exploration in order to make an informed decision. However, there are still costs involved -- for the player -- that make try-before-you-buy a perceptually "risky" venture. Viruses, spyware, time to install, time to learn -- these are all "costs" to the player who values their time. (Incidentally, this is why web games are so important, and will only continue to become more and more important in the future.) As long as these costs exist, there will always be a place for a service that makes available faster assimilation of entertainment. Be it a review, a customer blurb, or a screenshot, whatever is easiest will be of utmost importance to the visitor before they "spend" their time in the download/install/learning process of the try-before-you-buy model.

Frankly, I think all of the major portals fail absolutely miserably in this regard. (Even browsing games is a chore with most of them.) It is important that developers selling from their site make it a priority to pick up this slack, because it's one of the few advantages we have right now. We have the luxury to actually "sell" the games on our site, not just provide a short list of the top sellers and new arrivals. Frankly, most of you aren't providing value to your customers. Shame on you!

So, don't just point the visitor to the download link, sell them on the game! Get them excited to play it! And give them a reason to come back! Link to reviews of your game. Show them hand-picked player commentary. Make it a personal experience for the visitor, don't just shove a list of screenshots and a couple download links at them! And give them a reason to come back! Host fan-art. (Get your kid sister to get the ball rolling!) Have contests. Have a chatroom "get together." Anything to differentiate yourself from the massive entities that dominate this market.

Provide value.

This effect is two-fold. First, you'll be providing additional value to the visitor that is immediately interested in your games. Second, you'll encourage others who only have a passing interest in your game to become excited by your offerings. Not only will they see that you're offering games that are free to try, but you'll also feed them something that is sorely lacking on the Internet: Originality. You'll be giving them the personal experience that they're missing from the big guys.

What's the difference between RealArcade and Download.com? RealArcade has a list of their visitors' emails and takes 70% of your money.

[soniCron]

I just hope you also develop for someone more intelligent, otherwise yours will be only a job, in the worst meaning, and sooner or later this may make you tired. ;) You're absolutely not wrong. This has been a draining experience for me. I have the capacity for much greater, but I know my time will be most rewarded in this sector, right now. However, I am only doing this as a means to an end, and as such, will be moving on eventually.

[Fabio]

You're absolutely not wrong. This has been a draining experience for me. I have the capacity for much greater, but I know my time will be most rewarded in this sector, right now. However, I am only doing this as a means to an end, and as such, will be moving on eventually.I think yours is a wise attitude.. comprimizes cost, but only grown up, wise people know their real value. They give you the fuel to later escape gravity. ;) I'm currently collecting fuel too.. and in this view it's an acceptable thing (more so because the fuel is needed also by my wife and daughter, to make a living out of it). But I can't wait to make some kind of game I really enjoy, later, someday. This thought is my only comburent, so to speak.
In the while, even if I'm currently working on a kind of game I don't really like, most of the modules I'm writing (GUI code, menu code, etc..) will be reusable later.. so in the end I enjoy what I'm currently doing too, because I feel it as necessary not only economically/strategically company-wise, but I feel it a necessary step also code-wise.

[Chris Evans]

So, don't just point the visitor to the download link, sell them on the game! Get them excited to play it! And give them a reason to come back! Link to reviews of your game. Show them hand-picked player commentary. Make it a personal experience for the visitor, don't just shove a list of screenshots and a couple download links at them! And give them a reason to come back! Host fan-art. (Get your kid sister to get the ball rolling!) Have contests. Have a chatroom "get together." Anything to differentiate yourself from the massive entities that dominate this market.



I see you've been looking at my site! ;) :D

But yeah I agree with this 100%. It's why I transformed my site and made it more personal. Sure it may not be as "professional" looking as some other sites, but for people who enjoy my games I really want them to latch on to what I'm doing. I've already gotten quite a few good comments about my mailbag section and I'm receiving more mail for it everyday. If I can keep updating it throughout the year, I really think it can become a very valuable component of my site and business.

A lot of people here have developer blogs, which is good but it's not something that's really going to attract players and fans of your games. It's going to mostly attract other developers. So I definitely recommend coming up with some content that's of interest to your players.

One of the things I'm really struggling with is understanding what the 'market' thinks is good versus what I personally think is good and fun.

This is why I'm not going to target the casual gamespace for awhile. I just don't have the eye or the feel for what exactly appeals to casual gamers. Nor do I know any casual gamers nearby who purchase downloadables for which I could pick their brain. My wife has very hardcore tastes when it comes to puzzle games and she never really buys anything online. So she's not an accurate gage.

So for me it's more risky to make a casual game because I don't know what makes a match-3 game fun enough to be worthy of purchase. I could throw many of the common ingredients (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=5831) into the pot, but I still wouldn't have a clear understanding. So I'm better off just making games I know I enjoy and all the components that make them fun. Plus, since I have a clear understanding, I know what new and unique features would really make the game interesting and standout.

I think that's part of the reason why there's so many direct-clones, instead of derivatives. Many developers don't have a clear understanding for what makes casual games fun, so they just follow verbatim for what's in the top ten on the portals. I think part of the reason BKR was so successful is because James really liked Jewel Quest. I've talked to James and he's also mentioned it a lot here about how he really enjoyed Jewel Quest and spent many hours playing it just for enjoyment (not research). He was a true fan of the game. He really knew what made Jewel Quest enjoyable and therefore he also knew what cool new features to add to make the concept even better. I think a lot of people don't realize this.

Conversely, maybe this is why BKW didn't do as well (don't hate me James!). As we know James never had much of an affinity for word games... :D by not having the same connection with word games as he did with Jewel Quest might be why BKW didn't connect optimally with other word gamers (There's probably some other factors too like Real releasing 3 word games right next to each other).

But anyway, I just don't think that can be overlooked. It's important know first-hand why your game is fun for your audience. If not first-hand, then at least a spouse, family member, or neighbor. Someone you can pick apart in person. Otherwise you're kind of flying blind.

[Savant]

You're absolutely not wrong. This has been a draining experience for me. I have the capacity for much greater, but I know my time will be most rewarded in this sector, right now. However, I am only doing this as a means to an end, and as such, will be moving on eventually.
I hope you're right. I've heard this speech time and time again but once you're in the clone/portal spiral it's very difficult to pull out. A lot of developers don't.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Well, I have some problems with the characterization of our customer base as basically stupid, and in turn, that we are somehow lowering ourselves to develop for them.

I'm sure there are many types of people who play casual games. Some of them may indeed be people who are quite unlike yourself. Certainly, on the whole the demographic is different from the developer demographic (which is probably, geeky 25-40 year old college-educated male). That's why I said I was struggling to get a grip on what this market likes and wants - it's more different from my personal tastes than I'm used to.

But I certainly wouldn't agree with the characterization of all our customers as (paraphrasing and exaggerating a bit here) fat lazy stupid women who sit on the couch and watch Oprah when they're not idly gossiping with their peers. Any more than I'd want them to characterize us as nerdy asocial computer geeks who can quote chapter and verse of star trek but have never talked to a real girl before.

I'm sure there are examples of both types in our respective communities, but don't assume the worst of all your customers.

Finally, I would say that it's likely that most game developers have somewhat elevated IQs - let's say 110-130+. Higher than the average. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with developing games for targeting the center of the bell curve. For that matter, if I knew of a way to target just mentally retarded individuals and make games that delighted them and brought them joy, I'd be more than happy to make those games, and could find great professional and personal satisfaction in doing so.

Don't be so concerned with impressing your peers - remember that you are making people happy. Even if those people don't look, think or act exactly like you, it is a good thing to make something that delights them.

[svero]

Well, I have some problems with the characterization of our customer base as basically stupid, and in turn, that we are somehow lowering ourselves to develop for them.


As do I. I think if that's your attitude about casual games and the customers purchasing them then you shouldn't be in the market.

[Vorax]

I agree with Phil about to much generalizing of casual games players. Infact, I often wonder how accurate the entire assesment of the target market really is, for various reasons.

The fact that this market is based largely on credit card purchases, could be really messing with statistics in a big way and I never see anything saying how that fact is accounted for in the marketing research.

As an example, you read that 65+% of the target market is women ages 30-50. However, if you read the customer comments on games, many say things like - "I think my kids will love this" or "My grandchildren really enjoyed this game". It's Jane Doe on the credit card, but the product may actually be for their children or grandchildren. Of course, they may play the games as well, but why are they actully buying them?

I buy video games and toys for my kids as well, ones I will never play, including casual games. Yet on some statitical sheet I am classified as a male over the age of 18 that purchases casual games. I even got mailed the Big Fish catalogue at xmas, yet I have never purchased for myself, only for my kids.

Kids don't have credit cards, yet kids are huge video game players. Could it be that the online distribution model of pay by credit card is actually distorting the marketing numbers? Maybe it's not as many soccer moms playing these games as it seems, but possibly their kids who need mom to punch in her credit card.

How are these statistics gathered? Emails to customers? Surveys? If I don't buy for me, I am not going to give my email if it can be avoided, and if it can't, I am going to ignore emails from the company as well as just 1 of 50 other spam I get.

Just something to think about.

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

As do I. I think if that's your attitude about casual games and the customers purchasing them then you shouldn't be in the market.

I'm trying to get in the market, but I'm witnessing something quite interesting. As I have said many times, my wife is an addict of casual games, especially puzzles and most of them match-3 types.

While I'm developing my own match-3 I've been hearing her thoughts and have implemented a lot of stuff based on what she's saying about it. I do not want a world-path on my game. I want a slight and cute storyline.

When I told her that, her pearl of wisdom was: "No cute path?! What then? How do I know what I'm doing and where I'm going?" I'm going to show her instead of explaining and wait for her reaction to it.

My wife is not stupid, quite the opposite, she's a brilliant woman and I never thought that something has a world map could be so important to a casual player because I always considered it dumb as hell.

Even if I'm doing a match-3 I want to push it further to a more fullfiling and enjoyable game and as innovative as possible, but many things were considered "not cute" by my wife and my gut feeling tells me I should listen to her. All the new games on Real Arcade that she played for more than one hour got to Top-10.

So our barrier is not to consider our prospect customers dumb or stupid but to understand that they want simple, cool and relaxing gameplay. It's our job to push it a little bit further everytime and make something new everytime. I don't mind considering match-3 a genre per se if our approach to it is somewhat innovative, or at least we are convinced it is and proud of our work.

[soniCron]

I'm not sure how this got so out of hand, but nobody said anyone was stupid, nor did anyone say they were lowering themselves to develop these games.

I draw parallels between the casual gaming market and the mass market, and you get "stupid"?

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

Sorry, I followed a line of thought in a thread here and maybe it's a poor choice of words of mine that made you answer, but I was not trying to draw an offensive line at all.

This is certainly a misunderstanding not anything going out of hand I think.

Again, if I wrote something offensive, was not my intention and I'm sorry for it.

[soniCron]

No. Not you. It's the whole line from Phil's post down getting upset about something that was never said! ;)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Well, I was reacting to your post that contained this line (among others)

>>
So, when you think "casual gamer," I want you to think, "Exactly who the fast food, music, cellphone, cellphone ringtone, junk food, popular TV, and music industries are trying to target."
<<

(Implication, at least to me, was sort of fat, lazy and stupid - perhaps I read too much into it).

Echoed a couple responses later by Fabio

>>
I just hope you also develop for someone more intelligent...
<<

(Implication, to me, is that the writer was saying the typical casual gamer is not intelligent)

And beyond those two posts, I detect a strong undercurrent of resentment that runs throughout these forums against the 'casual gamer audience' as being less worthy than the hard-core gamer audience.

I just wanted to plant a banner in the ground and say, although I'm not necessarily a demographic match for this audience (nor are most of us, which makes the audience a bit hard to figure out), that I have absolutely nothing against the audience itself, and consider it just as worthwhile to develop games for 30-50 year old females (and others) that fit into all of our culture's demographic nooks and crannies, as I did when I was developing games for the more hardcore 21-35 year old male crowd.

If I've misunderstood your comments or the general tone/attitude of these forums, I apologize.

[soniCron]

Then I must appologize for coming across as a biggoted ass, because I'm certainly not, and that was most certainly not my intent. I was simply trying to find something tangible -- beyond an age/sex demographic -- to aim for. After all, what does "middle aged woman" mean, anyway?

As far as target preference is concerned, I'd only rather develop contemplative puzzle games simply because those are the games that I enjoy. While I'd obviously feel more "at home" with that audience, I definitely don't have anything against the casual audience, and I'm very greatful that I'll have the opportunity to touch someone -- anyone's -- life.

EDIT: I just read my post right after Fabio's, and I did sound like I was "better" than the casual demographic, and I appologize. What I meant by, "I have the capacity for much greater," was that I know I have a passion for another facet of this industry that will really bring out the best in me, and the casual gamespace just isn't that facet.

[Bmc]

While sonicron may not find that casual users = dumb, too many people who visit the Indiegamer forums do.

on a side note....

Phil, I'm just curious... have you ever giving any thought to making more simplified (much more simplified) versions of the types of games you made at poptop?

You made tycoon type of games correct? There's not too many of them in the casual space and quite a few of the ones that do exist have done well... Lemonade Tycoon, for instance.

PS- just bringing this up cause i was reading your blog entry about trouble finding game mechanics.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

While sonicron may not find that casual users = dumb, too many people who visit the Indiegamer forums do.

on a side note....

Phil, I'm just curious... have you ever giving any thought to making more simplified (much more simplified) versions of the types of games you made at poptop?

You made tycoon type of games correct? There's not too many of them in the casual space and quite a few of the ones that do exist have done well... Lemonade Tycoon, for instance.

PS- just bringing this up cause i was reading your blog entry about trouble finding game mechanics.


Did Lemonade Tycoon really do that well (genuine question - I hadn't really been paying attention).

When Oasis sorta tanked, it gave me the impression that this market doesn't care much for that kind of strategy game.

I enjoyed making the tycoon games at PopTop, but puzzles are fun too. I don't really have a strong preference for tycoon games, nor do I feel that making puzzle games is 'slumming' or anything like that.

Frankly, I'm kinda burned out on tycoon games, and other than a brief stab at SimCity 4, I haven't played any tycoon games or world-builders since I left PopTop a bit over a year ago. I have, on the other hand, played and enjoyed a lot of the casual puzzle games that this sub-industry produces.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Expanding a bit on a previously mentioned issue...

I have been playing and enjoying casual games, including word games, for over a year now. I really enjoyed downloadable Scrabble, and sort of enjoyed Bookworm, though I bored quickly with the latter due to it being too easy in general with no sense of progression or level variation. Bonnie's Bookstore was taking a genre I liked a lot, and a specific implementation that was fun, if too limited for me, and improving it with new ideas (some of which came from other games like Jewel Quest).

I enjoyed making Bonnie and enjoyed playing it. I got my wife started on it at about the beta stage, and though she hadn't really played any computer games in 10 years (since Tetris), and hadn't played any of my previous 'hard-core' games, she got hooked on Bonnie's and playe it all the way through on each of the 3 difficulty levels (I think she stalled near the end on Genius).

So I liked it, my wife liked it, the PopCap guys liked it, and all the other industry people I showed it to before and after I signed with PopCap liked it.

And yet it hasn't resonated with the target market as much as I though it would. And I don't even know precisely what factors to attribute that to (i.e. the 2 competitors, the genre, the art style, the theme, the complexity, something else?) There's not a lot of good, detailed feedback that you can turn to to figure these things out.

So that has me questioning my instincts. Even though I play and like these games, my tastes apparently don't coincide with the broad market.

I generally don't like the simplest of the casual games - Bejewelled, Collapse, even Zuma was only so-so for me - a simple repeating mechanic with little variation or progression bores me quickly. I like more complex stuff like JewelQuest, BKR, Adventure Ball, etc.

But now I'm trying to design something a bit 'simpler'. Still appealing to me, but more basic in concept. And it's a bit of a struggle, compounded by the fact that when you're playing with prototypes that are nothing more than colored bricks being moved around, it all seems ugly and a bit boring. If Chuzzle or Bejewelled were prototyped with colored bricks and no sound or FX, I'm not sure if you could even recognize the cleverness of the game through the placeholder art. But I don't want to spend 3 weeks coding up a more polished prototype if the core idea is lame to begin with.

[/venting off]

[JPGinLA]

Phil,

There's never been a plainer example of why "portal" distribution is a much tougher route. Even with all the support and feedback you and the game received the game still hasn't "resonated" with the target market.

You're game is screaming for user feedback so you can do the things to it (through subsequent revision and release) to make it the great game it can be.

Imagine if all the people who have downloaded it could communicate with you (and you with them) to tell you why they don't want to register or why they did? Pretty quickly you'd know what tweeks to make and could re-release with a "pretty good" chance of resonation - double-entendre intended.

The big players and "portals" offer ease and big potential, but IMHO, a surer path to financial success, i.e., resonation with the target market, is the slower, do it yourself distribution, including do it yourself customer service. I think the customer service piece may the most important part. This method also is more likely to lead to the so-called Long-Tail instead of the weekend box-office hit.

Just my 2 cents.

-JPG

Just my 2 cents

[Chris Evans]

@Phil:
Well, don't take for granted that the Popcap guys liked it and that it DID get on Real Arcade. That's an accomplishment right there. Most people who've released word games around here haven't even got that far.

But with the game your prototyping it sounds a lot like what I'm saying. You're struggling because you're not in tune with what makes simple casual games very appealing. So you're doing a lot of guess work and trying to balance what you like and what you think your audience likes. If your tastes are somewhat close to your target audience, who knows maybe you won't have much of a problem. But the farther it is, the more problems you'll have IMO.

I'll take myself as an example. A year ago, I wanted to make a puzzle game, but I'm not big on simple match-3 games. So I tried adding more action elements to make the game more "fun" for me. I ended up liking the game, but I pushed it too far away from my target audience by adding too many game mechanics. My game basically ended up in no-man's land, too complex for most casual players and too simple for most "gamers".

I just think it's really hard to make an exceptional game if you're not really into the genre.

@JPG

Great points you raised. Portals do have beta testing periods where you can get player feedback, but it's obviously not the same as being able to quiz one of your own customers. Also once your game launches on the portals, it's really hard to get quality feedback once it's released. You also can't contact the people who've bought the game since you don't have access to their contact info.

I really think it's a good idea to launch the game on your own site first for a few weeks or even a month at least. Get some player feedback and make some improvements, then launch it on the portals.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Getting more feedback pre-launch is definitely a priority for my next game. I actually beta-ed Bonnie to about 25 volunteer beta testers (found through my blog), but I'm not sure how closely they resemble the target audience. There were some other possibilities to beta further through PopCap's programs, but we were aware that the competing word games would be launching soon and we wanted to beat them to market, so we skipped that. Under a more typical development schedule, that would have been useful.

[steve bisson]

http://www.realarcade.com/game?gameid=kingkongskullislandadventure&src=ggpg&tps=guide-eu_

Hooo god... how low is it going to go ?

[soniCron]

You must be out of the loop. Check Savant's blog (http://1goodgame.com/blog/2005/12/16/king-clone/) more often. ;)

[Fabio]

Well, I was reacting to your post that contained this line (among others)

>>
So, when you think "casual gamer," I want you to think, "Exactly who the fast food, music, cellphone, cellphone ringtone, junk food, popular TV, and music industries are trying to target."
<<

(Implication, at least to me, was sort of fat, lazy and stupid - perhaps I read too much into it).

Echoed a couple responses later by Fabio

>>
I just hope you also develop for someone more intelligent...
<<

(Implication, to me, is that the writer was saying the typical casual gamer is not intelligent)

And beyond those two posts, I detect a strong undercurrent of resentment that runs throughout these forums against the 'casual gamer audience' as being less worthy than the hard-core gamer audience.

I just wanted to plant a banner in the ground and say, although I'm not necessarily a demographic match for this audience (nor are most of us, which makes the audience a bit hard to figure out), that I have absolutely nothing against the audience itself, and consider it just as worthwhile to develop games for 30-50 year old females (and others) that fit into all of our culture's demographic nooks and crannies, as I did when I was developing games for the more hardcore 21-35 year old male crowd.

If I've misunderstood your comments or the general tone/attitude of these forums, I apologize.Phil, I certainly do not have anything against that demographics. Nor I think that the average woman 30-50 that plays casual games is any less intelligent than the average 20-30 man that plays Quake4 (I rather tend to think the opposite, but it doesn't really matter. FPS are the kind of games that I play most, BTW, but I don't think that this qualifies me as stupid. I have many other activities to express my intellect, and for me gaming means mostly action (preferably++ not splatter/killing BTW), fast action that I need to outlet some stress). My mother is a casual game player that I consider, and not because she's my mother, very intelligent. Same for my wife, who certainly doesn't play Quake (which I personally believe is an excellent game in all sense, by the way, and I also think that not *all* games must "make you think").
What I think soniCron depicted, and what I confirm I don't like, is the "whatever!", in other words "indifferentist", person. Now I don't know if that's the majority or if it's a minority but, not judging from game players but from the world I see around me every day, I don't see much "intelligence": we HAVE to carefully define this word, by the way.
I personally don't believe at all in the IQ test thing. Even more so since when I've read that both George W. Bush and Bill Gates have an excellent IQ (IIRC I've read something about 160). Now, I believe both are exceptionally ambituous people, very tenacious in reaching their goals, but that much "intelligent", I don't buy it, sorry. That's my personal view, so please bare with me.
So I resort to consider "intelligence" what it etymologically is: the ability (or will, I add) to see inside things.
Most people nowadays don't seem to want to see (regardless if they're neurologically capable of not) inside the real truth of things. They prefer to take other roads in their lifes, which are apparently easier to take. So it's a cultural/characterial limitation in my opinion, not a neurological one.
But *if* that kind of person is also the typical buyer of casual games, I'm quite "scared" of that. And since soniCron depicted that kind of person, and I am afraid that may represent (and even more in the future) the typical buyer of casual games, that made me "sad".
Which doesn't mean at all that I have anything against a certain age and gender type of game player. But the person soniCron depicted recalled me that stereotype a lot. And wheter it's a game player or my cousin, I don't really enjoy or particularly esteem that kind of people. I don't say "hate", at all. But it makes me a bit sad to know that this kind of people not only exist, but dominate someway the world.

[Ish]

But now I'm trying to design something a bit 'simpler'. Still appealing to me, but more basic in concept. And it's a bit of a struggle, compounded by the fact that when you're playing with prototypes that are nothing more than colored bricks being moved around, it all seems ugly and a bit boring. If Chuzzle or Bejewelled were prototyped with colored bricks and no sound or FX, I'm not sure if you could even recognize the cleverness of the game through the placeholder art. But I don't want to spend 3 weeks coding up a more polished prototype if the core idea is lame to begin with.
I think you've hit the nail on the head right there.

I bought an Xbox 360 and checked out most of the games on XBox Live Arcade. I found myself immersed in Zuma and after a while stopped to think about what I was doing and why I was enjoying myself - I don't usually like games of that style. I came to the conclusion that the game mechanic was nothing special. I was doing something fairly mechanical. What engaged me was the presentation. The game had a satisfying clunk when I removed a chain of blocks and there was cool feedback and reward in the place of new, attractive, levels and a cool sound "Zuma" sound effect. The whole thing had got me sucked into a rhythm.

I'm certain that one of those elements on its own (graphics, sound, or gamplay) wouldn't have engaged me at all. But they came together into a whole very well.

But how do you distill that into some kind of game making method? Well thats the six million dollar question. If I ever discover it myself I think I'll be rich.

[goodsol]

One of the things I'm really struggling with is understanding what the 'market' thinks is good versus what I personally think is good and fun.

You may not be asking the right question. It isn't "what the market wants" but "what do people want". The market is just a collection of individual people.

If you are not a part of your target market, or rather one of the people who likes your game, then that is obviously going to make it more difficult to figure out what the people who like your game want.

As JPGinLA said, the best way to know what people want is what they say when they contact you for help with the game. You find out a lot about what they like and dislike about the game that way. The problem with the portal model is that you don't get contacted by people who are playing your game and so you don't find these things out.

If you were being contacted by people who are playing Bonnie's Bookstore, you would probably be finding out what they like about the game and what they are having trouble with. You could then use this information to create a new version that would be more in tune with what people want.

Personally I liked Bonnie's Bookstore and I suspect my wife would like it, but I can't get her to stop playing Snood long enough to try it.

I've seen the problem of casual game developers looking down on their players for a long time. The problem of developers wanting to make games for teenage boys but believing that the market is middle age women is a big one.

At first, there was a lot of resistence among developers to target this demographic. Now, I think things may be swinging too far, that developers are so obsessed with trying to target their stereotype of the middle aged woman (whom they consider stupid) that they are not realizing that the casual game demographic is more complex than that.

The casual game demographic includes older women as well, and also middle aged and older men. There are a lot of people there who desire complex games, so the constant attempt to dumb down to the lowest portal denominator is missing a lot of the casual game market.

The portals are fixating on only a part of the market, the part that they happened to discover success with. Now everybody is going after exactly the same type of gamer, in exactly the same way that everybody used to be fixated on the teenage boy gamer.

When everybody is going after one segment of the market, you are more likely to find success by going after some other segment. There are segments that are clearly being underserved right now.

The best way to find out what people want is to ask them. The best way to find people to ask is to ask the people who contact you about your game.

[Uty]

You might be able to find a forum frequented by your target audience. Just read up a bit, perhaps interact.

[Savant]

Time and again, however, people prove that what they SAY they want isn't what they actually want. It would be more effective to watch sales trends and try to predict what will come next.

[Bmc]

here is a simple idea that would probably do alright, combine a match 3 type of game, with insaniquarium...

might think im kidding but no,

I think we are in for a wave of insani type games, Garden Dreams and Plantasia being the first 2 (recently releases anyways)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

The problem with 'make what you like', is that nearly 95%+ of game developer are 20-40 year old men who are into 'core' games, but the market (i.e. the universe of people who buy games) is much broader. Yes, you can have some success 'making what you like', but you're overlooking the ~60% of the audience that isn't a 20-40 year old male.

That said, I DO like word games, and I like BB. But I made certain thematic/art choices targeting a prototypical consumer a bit different than myself (closer to what I perceive as the 'center' of the target market). Discovering where that center is and what they like is difficult.

That said, in the time since my first post in this thread, the game has been on Real and a variety of other portals for a while, and there's a fair amount of user feedback there, in reviews and such. Unfortunately, many of the reviews are no more than "this is awful", or "this is the greatest thing evar", but I think I did pick up some useful bits.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of people perceived as a kid's game - even people who liked it. "This game is great for you kids and you may like it too" - that kind of thing. In retrospect, having the storybook setting and Bonnie as a children's author rather than, say writing mysteries was a mistake I think. I also picked up some other interesting bits.

[walkal]

One thing I noticed is that a lot of people perceived as a kid's game

Many of the casual games given prominence on the portals look like kids' games to me, even though they're not meant to be. When Chuzzle first came out I walked in on a female friend in her 50s playing it, and she looked a little sheepish and said, "I'm just playing this kids' game." She was astonished when I told her it was aimed at women aged 35+ and that the discussion in this forum included comments like "the soccer moms will love this!"

I think this relates to goodsol's point about the game developer's stereotype of the middle aged woman. Some of the comments about this group seem to evoke images of an Eisenhower-era matron, baking cookies and listening to Pat Boone. In fact the women in this demographic group probably listened to Madonna or Bruce Springsteen in their formative years (or in the case of my friend in her 50s, Janis Joplin). Most of them go out to work, many in management or professional roles.

Maybe the high sales of games with childish themes and candy-box aesthetics is partly just because this is what is mostly on offer. Of course, I'm just speculating, but then isn't everyone? In the absence of hard facts about what people want, I'd be inclined to stick to making games I find appealing.

[Raptisoft]

Hmm... regarding the look of Bonnie's:

My wife is my primary critic, helper, etc. She's basically your classic soccer mom, except our kid is only three. She won't play a game that has cartoon characters in it. This is a hard distinction to make-- for instance, she'll play Insaniquarium, with its cartoon fish, because they don't function as cartoons, but instead, as playing pieces.

But when she sees a game with a still-life "cartoon" onscreen that basically acts as a backdrop to the game, she's turned off for some reason. If they move, if they're part of the action, if they're anything but a still life, she's cool with it.

Maybe this is a pervasive attitude?

[Bmc]

I think thats one thing that may of given BB more appeal... The fairie tale backdrops "coming alive" as the player completed more and more of the level, whether by brightening/revealing colors or adding animations

[Stu]

In retrospect, having the storybook setting and Bonnie as a children's author rather than, say writing mysteries was a mistake I think.

Have you seriously considered redoing the theme? It seemed to be time well spent for Retro 64 on Water Bugs/Cosmic Bugs. A slick, mystery solving theme could change everything.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Have you seriously considered redoing the theme? It seemed to be time well spent for Retro 64 on Water Bugs/Cosmic Bugs. A slick, mystery solving theme could change everything.

Nah, because I think another thing that hurt it was being a word game, and a theme change wouldn't help that. I'm looking more to make a new game.

[svero]

Id like to just note again (I did somewhere else recently) that if you look at the top selling games a lot of them are not cute and cartoony. I think we overdo the kid-like aspect of casual games. The top 10 games on real (from James Smith's site) are..

rebound, super collapse, zuma, diamond mine, gutterball 3d
bejeweled 2, bookworm, feeding frenzy , puzzle inlay, magic inlay

Quite a few of these titles have non-kid like themes. The exceptions being feeding frezy and bookworm. But clearly a hard core sci fi or other theme is not an automatic disqualifier for success.

[arcadetown]

The problem of developers wanting to make games for teenage boys but believing that the market is middle age women is a big one.
We see very healthy signs here that there is life beyond the typical adult women casual game. Sure the typical top performing women games do well here but we also get many outside the typical circle punching our top chart that are adult men geared games.

Very anxious to get Tower Defense in front of users and see how it does. Hoping users go nuts for it here and elsewhere providing life beyond "women" casual games.

[Rod Hyde]

The problem with 'make what you like', is that nearly 95%+ of game developer are 20-40 year old men who are into 'core' games, but the market (i.e. the universe of people who buy games) is much broader.
What about twisting that slightly? Instead of "make what you like", turn it into "make what someone you like likes". That opens it up to spouses, friends, 5 year old daughters, etc.

--- Rod

[steve bisson]

if there is one thing i noticed is that the most successfull games is the ones i saw advertised most often... take magic match... yes its successfull but was it widely advertised because its sucessfull or was it successfull because its widely advertised ? i felt like my whole webexperience was sponsored by magic match the week it came out.

when i first started looking at business models popcap was of course one of interest. They make cool games but they also seem to spend more money on advertissements than they spent on making a game.

it almost feels like some sort of payola (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpayola.html)

so, in a way, you also have to tell the market what they want.

edit " added this content "
------
"Pay-for-play," in which airtime is bought but the payments are disclosed, is still around. In January 1998, Flip/Interscope Records paid a Portland, Oregon radio station $5,000 to play one Limp Bizkit song 50 times over a five-week period. The band was able to generate enough interest to play a successful concert there. Other stations showed interest in their music, and Limp Bizkit broke into the music biz in a big way--a great argument for free enterprise if you're a Limp Bizkit fan. However, the argument against pay-for-play, even if the parties are upfront about it, is that it allows big labels to buy their artists' way onto the charts.
------

I am not saying paying for advertissement is wrong... not at all , im saying it seems to be one of the answers. Be original whitin boundaries and market yourself ?

[cliffski]

There is definitely a market beyond the traditional gem-matching game aimed at 30 something american women.
The market is HUGE. There are four billion people on earth. If only 250 million of them have PCs, and 100 Million are on the web and 40 million buy games and just one in a thousand of those like the particular game niche you like, there are 100,000 potential customers for your game. Thats $2,000,000. Thats retirement time.

Yes those number are pulled out my ass, but the point is that the global market for games is so collosal compared to a single developer, that if your game is really good, you will get sufficient sales, regardless of niche. I wouldnt have thought there was millions of people who want to feed fish in a game, but it turns out there are more than enough of them. Unless you go out of your way to invent a really obscure niche, I think you should be able to get 5-10,000 sales over a few years.

If you are giving up a year of your life, and betting your financial stability on making a video game, I really recommend making the kind of game you personally enjoy.

[Allen Varney]

I think another thing that hurt it was being a word game, and a theme change wouldn't help that. I'm looking more to make a new game.
You mean a word game like... Bookworm? Or like, even, you know... Scrabble? Granted, Bookworm isn't as popular as Bejeweled, and Scrabble isn't as popular as the United Nations or Mahayana Buddhism, but both games seem to have found an audience sufficiently large to satisfy any indie developer.

Bonnie's Bookstore hasn't been out long at all by indie standards. As I understand it you can often iterate and promote one game for years before it finds its audience. If you don't feel like looking at Bonnie's Bookstore for that long, that's one thing, but to say "It was a word game, so it didn't sell real well in the first three months of release" seems very short-term thinking.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Portal-oriented casual games have to climb the charts early to make an impression, as opposed to 'indie' games which may have a longer life. Bonnie's will likely sell for some time, but it will not be a big hit.

Yes, Bookworm was a big hit, which is part of the reason I made Bonnie's. But 3 well-made, rather similar word games all released in Nov/Dec (Bonnie's Bookstore, Big Kahuna Words, Acropolis) all underperformed. Which indicates to me that the market is not, at the moment, enamored with word games.

Re-theming Bonnie's would be at least 60% as much work as making a new game. I'd rather make a new game (for now anyways)

[Chris Evans]

Bonnie's Bookstore hasn't been out long at all by indie standards. As I understand it you can often iterate and promote one game for years before it finds its audience. If you don't feel like looking at Bonnie's Bookstore for that long, that's one thing, but to say "It was a word game, so it didn't sell real well in the first three months of release" seems very short-term thinking.

I imagine he's targeting the portal audience. If your primary source of sales is portals for a particular game then there's not much iteration you can do unless you remain in the top ten for an extended period of time. Your game either sinks or swims. If it sinks, then no amount of iterations will help you turn around sales significantly since portals just have a "What's New" section, not a "Recently Updated" section.

I'm actually with Cliffski on this one. If you're going to bet the farm with one game, you might as well create a small/medium game that you personally enjoy and polish the heck out of it. Even if direct sales are slow initially with enough improvements/iterations you can build up sales over time. Your Match-3/Word games just don't have the same longevity if you fail to land in the portal top ten for more than a couple of weeks.

I also think if you're going to do a game that appeals to the portal audience, then you need to go all the way or just not do it. If you only go half way you're going to get stuck in no-man's land. I don't want to pollute Nexic's feedback thread, so I'll say it here but I think that's why he's getting mixed reactions with his Mighty Rodent shooter. He wanted to make a more portal friendly shooter but the game still has some hardcore mechanics and themes. It's a melting pot of his hardcore tastes with some known casual conventions. From my own personal experience this often does not translate well at all on portals and core gamers may not touch it because it looks too casual. Makes it tough to market.

As others have said, this really is a problem of young men trying to make games for middle-aged women with little understanding. If you don't have a family member or spouse within that target market, then you're going to struggle. I have a wife, but she's one of those other 98-99% downloaders who never buy anything. :) She's played Diamond Mine on Yahoo endlessly and other puzzle games yet she's never bought a game online. If I made a game based off her tastes (which I did, btw :p ), I could end up with a fun game but not something that's good enough to have a strong upsell incentive.

Basically I'm saying be careful with using your spouse, family member, or significant other as an example of a typical casual gamer. Every few days I'm always hearing someone around here say, "My wife is totally addicted to my game!". But if they haven't actually purchased a game online before (or nagged you to do it), then they're not part of your casual target market. Remember your game shouldn't just appeal to casual gamers, but casual gamers who actually fork out their credit cards and buy games online. Big difference.

[Ricardo C]

I've got some bad news, darlin'. (http://www.crazyfroggame.com/)

Great, I wasn't depressed enough today.