13 new casual games each week [actually 12]

[James C. Smith]

13 new casual games each week. This is how many games your game will have to compete with. Between Real, MSN, BigFish, Reflexive, Shockwave, iWin, Pogo, GameHouse, PlayFirst, WildGames, ArcadeTown, Oberon there are a lot of new games released each week. Each of those 12 portals launch between 3 and 7 new games per week. Many of those are the same game that was already launched on another portal or sometimes the same game is launched on many portals on the same day. But on average, 13 of those games are new games that were never released on one of those portals before.

Here is a sampling of a few recent weeks and all the new games what came out that week.

Week of     Games
2007-06-11  16  A Walk in the Park,Avernum 4,Cinema Empire,Diet Coke Daily Sudoku
                Dream Chronicles™,FastCrawl,Mahjong World,Midnight Pool 3D,
                Nancy Drew®: The Creature of Kapu Cave,Pozzle,Rain Talisman,
                Riddle of the Sphinx,Sudoku, Kakuro, & Friends,The Dark Legions,
                Tic-A-Tac Royale,Wu Hing

2007-06-18  12  Ammo Chase,ArchMage,Burger Island,Buzzword,Chicken Invaders 2 - The Next Wave,
                Chromadrome 2,Flowers Story,Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery,
                Ruckus Buck's Dangerous Mines,Secrets of Great Art,Sprill,
                Travelogue 360: Rome - The Curse of the Necklace

2007-06-25  11  Alien Disco Safari,Azada,Barrel Mania,Chocolate Castle,Jungo,
                Jungular,Lottso! Deluxe,Restaurant Empire,Super Collapse! Puzzle Gallery 2,
                Venice,YUMSTERS!

2007-07-02  14  Block Breaker Deluxe Midnight Challenge,Breaking News,
                Hyperballoid Golden Pack,Liong: The Dragon Dance,
                Mahjonng Championship,Miss Management,
                Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor,Mr Robot,
                Posh Shop,Rainforest Adventure,Scepter of Ra,The Last Hero,
                The Stone of Destiny,Turbo Pizza

(my stated average of 13 is based on 20 weeks of data starting 2007-02-19. In those 20 weeks I didn’t see any trend up or down. Just random fluctuation between 8 and 18)

Now hurry up and finish that game you have been working on for months (or years) so it can be added to the pile and quickly buried.

[Dan MacDonald]

Ahh James... you're so mean!

Though I do remember the days when the prevailing wisdom for indies was to be where everyone else wasn't.... ahh those were the days!

[Cartman]

Emmm. Thanks for bursting our bubbles there James. This is depressing.

[James C. Smith]

Count me in with the depressed. I have been working on Ricochet Infinity for over a year and busting by butt to finish it this month but I have no idea if anyone will notice it in the pile.

[Agent 4125]

Casual games never die!

They just end up on a huge list of links next to "Pat Sajak's Trivia Gems."

[cliffski]

Meh. 13 NEW games? or 13 rehashes of the same idea? There may be a lot of different games titles, but in terms of different player experiences, it's not so over-supplied, by any margin.
The trick will always be to make a game that's original and different. I would expect the next Betty Beer bar Clone to sell badly, and the next Mystery case Files clone to sell badly too, but I suspect Peggle still shifts some serious copies.

[Jack Norton]

That's the theory and what reason should believe. In reality, since I'm selling some copies as affiliate (reflexive, BFG, and so on) I notice that MCF serie/clones sells actually a LOT more than Peggle or other "original" games.

The world is doomed.

[Sparks]

The odds are still better than trying to compete with Assasin's Creed, Halo 3 or other PC blockbusters
And always remember Blair Witch, its not the budget, its the execution.
Democracy anyone...

[Applewood]

I'm with cliff. This fits the standard model perfectly.

See someone making money
Do the exact same thing too
Rinse, repeat until totally saturated market fit for nobody

Sound familiar ?

[Andy]

That's the theory and what reason should believe. In reality, since I'm selling some copies as affiliate (reflexive, BFG, and so on) I notice that MCF serie/clones sells actually a LOT more than Peggle or other "original" games.

The world is doomed.

I believe MCF series are pretty original RE-discovery for the casual genre. Every oldie here knows my opinion about Big Dish company. But I have to admit this is one of the best their achievement and deserves respect ( at least from me personally ) So, please Jack.... As for the rest of the topic - well... welcome to the hell of reality. Svero was predicting this by three ( four? ) years ago. And he knows something about the stuff. So what would you expect after all. And don't get catched on idea "I'll make better game". Try to sell it better to portals. Like ask for advance payment or something. Learn to do business. Not just make a game.

[Sol_HSA]

And always remember Blair Witch, its not the budget, its the execution.

Blair Witch, like Deer Hunter - it's not the budget, it's just darn good luck.. =)

[princec]

I'm with Cliff here. We're doing our own thing, and our stuff will never be found on a portal. Ever.*

Cas

Should this mysteriously change one day in the future I will send round a lorry full of dead dogs to park outside of the house of whichever smartarse brings this quote up in some thread or other

[svero]

I'm with Cliff here. We're doing our own thing, and our stuff will never be found on a portal. Ever.*

Cas

Should this mysteriously change one day in the future I will send round a lorry full of dead dogs to park outside of the house of whichever smartarse brings this quote up in some thread or other

Alllllllready bookmarked.

[ZuluBoy]

Should this mysteriously change one day in the future I will send round a lorry full of dead dogs to park outside of the house of whichever smartarse brings this quote up in some thread or other

LOOOOOL

[Bmc]

A good chunk of those 13 titles being released each week are blatant uninspired clones that won't have any type of impact on the market, basically they are filler titles for sites like Big Fish that need to release a game a day.

[Desktop Gaming]

Now hurry up and finish that game you have been working on for months (or years) so it can be added to the pile and quickly buried.

*mumbles something about not receiving replies to e-mails sent to Reflexive*

(original e-mail sent 24th March, followed up 19th April 2007, if you want specifics)

Further e-mail sent about three weeks ago querying a Reflexive product which had been (possibly incorrectly) priced at $9.95. No reply to that either.

Its sort of annoying when people don't reply to e-mails. Even a polite "f**k off" would be an improvement.

[edit] Probably shouldn't single out Reflexive, when BFG are no better.

[princec]

I'm with cliff. This fits the standard model perfectly.

See someone making money
Do the exact same thing too
Rinse, repeat until totally saturated market fit for nobody

Sound familiar ?

But that's how markets work!! ALL markets to one degree or another. It happens especially fast in the media markets because it's relatively easy to create products.

See the pioneer? That's the guy with the arrow in his back. Let other people educate the market for you - eg. original MCF coders - then write something that's like it and ride the coattails. Perfectly sensible. I mean, we'd all love to write the next big thing but the chances are absolutely tiny. Look at the number of totally original concepts in gaming versus the number of developers. One needs to find another way to differentiate!

Cas

[GolfHacker]

Personally, I'm not too worried. We have a very original game in Fashion Cents, which was a 2004 IGF finalist and has won lots of awards and good reviews. It has never been on any portals (several turned it down, though, because they considered it a "kid's game"), but sales have done fairly well for us (despite our limited advertising). And when PopCap tried to buy the rights from us last year, it only confirmed to me that we had a winner on our hands.

We're currently revamping the game, and expanding it to onto Mac and Linux. When we're done, I have a plan for advertising that should work nicely for us.

The best part is this: I have a growing customer base that is becoming fairly substantial, and they're looking to me for similar games. That's all one needs to grow a business and become successful.

Portals - bah! Who needs them?

[James C. Smith]

Now hurry up and finish that game you have been working on for months (or years) so it can be added to the pile and quickly buried

*mumbles something about not receiving replies to e-mails sent to Reflexive*

I apogee. For a minute I forgot that I work for a company that launches a game a day to add to the pile. In that light, my comment seems very inappropriate.

You have to realize that I personally am a game developer. I don’t run a portal or sell other peoples’ games. I MAKE games. And I also run game-sales-charts.com that monitors what games are being made and sold. I try to identify trends on the portals mostly out of curiosity and somewhat to help me know what to make (or avoid making) in my next game.

I am not here to represent Reflexive. I am here to voice the opinions and share the experience of one casual game developer. ME! But much of my experience is from working at Reflexive so some of the advice I share is about services offered by Reflexive. In this particular topic I am sharing the knowledge I have from running game-sales-charts.com and combing over the data every way I can think of. I am also using carcasses to discuss a potential problem with my fallow game developer peers. But it doesn’t really come off that way if you think of me as a representative of the company that distributed your game.

Regarding e-mail replies, I am sure someone from Reflexive did reply. Every couple months I get PMed on this forum by people who tried to contact Reflexive and didn’t get a reply. Every time I go talk to the Reflexive Arcade producers about these cases they dig though their archives and find many replies that were sent to the person. They do not have a policy of letting e-mails go without a reply. But given the unreliable nature of e-mail these days, it can be a real problem to make sure the reply is received. Please check your spam filters, or try using a different e-mail account, or try contacting though a different channel.

[James C. Smith]

I'm with Cliff here. We're doing our own thing, and our stuff will never be found on a portal. Ever.*

Cas

This is why I posted this in the CASUAL games forum. I am so tired of the debate about if portals and casual games are good or not. If you want to do your own thing that is great. But in the casual forum, we talk about the people who are doing the casual/portal thing.

[Desktop Gaming]

I am sure someone from Reflexive did reply.

I guarantee they 100% didn't!

I'm not having a go at anybody in particular here, I'm generalising. But, I find its all very easy to blame e-mail and spam filters and so on, when the truth is, a lot of company staff simply can't be bothered to do their jobs properly.

I used to work for a company with more than 4,000 employees and I've seen it happen countless times, first hand. Regardless of company policy, there are people who are employed by companies but do not do their jobs properly. Where I used to work, one guy used to sit reading newspapers all day instead of manning the phone like he was supposed to. When he was eventually pulled up about it, he threw a major eppy, told his line manager to 'get f**ked' and stormed out. This is just one example but I'm not going to delude myself that it doesn't happen elsewhere.

Point is, you can have as many company policies as you like, but if your staff can't/won't/don't follow them, it reflects badly on the company.

[Skinflint]

Please send me a PM and I will make sure your correspondence gets to the right person over here.

Unlike that huge company that you mentioned, were actually less than 25 people, and we're all people that love our jobs.

[Olivier]

Valuable info as usual James, but how frightening!

Joe Average: "With so many new games to choose from each week, I can easily get my game fix by only playing the demos. Yeepee! "

Joe Below Average (writing through my website's form): "Could you please put more games at your website because I have finished all of them?"
For sure that guy was talking about demos, not the full versions.

And let me quote myself from this thread: "Too many (new) games diminishes the overall value of the offer."

[princec]

This is why I posted this in the CASUAL games forum. I am so tired of the debate about if portals and casual games are good or not. If you want to do your own thing that is great. But in the casual forum, we talk about the people who are doing the casual/portal thing.

We're writing casual games though... they just won't be available on portals. Oh! The dichotomy!

Cas

[papillon]

Well, with Avernum 4 on that list, there's the obvious "What's a casual game?" question but it's still beside the point.

[Pyabo]

Well, with Avernum 4 on that list, there's the obvious "What's a casual game?" question but it's still beside the point.

Shhhhhh... that is #2 on the list of questions never to ask out loud. Man, I'm gonna make another post. Maybe an admin can sticky it...

[electronicStar]

Yeah it made me a bit sad to see avernum on that list. Spidersoft was one of my indie heroes , I hope he doesn't dilute his niche success by dealing with portals.

[cyrus_zuo]

Yeah it made me a bit sad to see avernum on that list. Spidersoft was one of my indie heroes , I hope he doesn't dilute his niche success by dealing with portals.

For whatever it is worth, some of the first games on Real Arcade were Geneforge 1 & 2. That is back before Real Arcade found success with casual games and was doing more traditional games.

http://www.realarcade.com/game?gamei...g&tps=ambient_

They are in the strategy/sim area.

So he dealt with the portals about 5 years ago...for whatever it is worth.

[ninesquirrels]

Now hurry up and finish that game you have been working on for months (or years) so it can be added to the pile and quickly buried.

That's sobering. Curious what your suggestions would be? That sounds suspiciously close to "just give up - you have no hope" - which I honestly know you aren't trying to suggest.

So knowing that you are genuinely trying to help, what would you suggest other casual game developers do with this information other than gnash their teeth and despair?

[James C. Smith]

what would you suggest other casual game developers do with this information other than gnash their teeth and despair?

Most of those game are “disposable”. Even the biggest fans “finish” them in a few days, maybe reply a second time to “do better” and then they are “done” with it. They move on to the next game. I guess making games like that is a good way to keep people buying more games (or trying more demos) but why would they choose your disposable game over the other 12 released that week?

What I do is try to make a game that will keep people attention for more than a couple days and have more ways to find it than just the portals. Many people have been playing Ricochet every day for years. I bet they have told a few friends about it in all that time.

Ring. Ring.
Hello?
Hey Tom, what’s up?
Oh… just playing Ricochet
Again? You play that game all the time!
Yeh. It’s great. You really should try it. There is something new every day.

With the amount of value they get out of my games like this, they are very likely to buy the sequel and very likely to tell many fiend about it. It really helps the game keep selling beyond the initial top 10 debut.

I am not saying this is the answer. There are many other approaches. But this is one approach I use.