Casual gamers ready for RPGs? Looks like it..

[Sirrus]

So Aveyond is #7 on BigFish today - first of all, congrats...

Secondly, this must indicate *something* - Aveyond is a pretty traditional style RPG...so the question is, are casual gamers finally getting more evolved?

[Sakura Games]

Yes, Amanda will be very happy with the huge amount of money coming to her way...! I think she's ready to do a sequel.

Anyway is not the first signal: even tower defense was quite UNUSUAL (to say the minimum) casual game. Heck, even Savant featured on his site so must be not a bad game!

[Ricardo C]

Maybe it's not a sign of casual gamers beginning to embrace other genres, but a sign of portals expanding their scope, and thus attracting more hardcore gamers. Either way, it's a good thing.

[lakibuk]

Congratulations to the developer! Nice to see that the portal audience reacts positively to a non match-3 game.

[Emmanuel]

Actually Big Fish has launched non-typically-casual titles on a regular basis and for a long time, handling the publishing/distribution of Master of Defense for instance. They even tried Garden War! Aveyond is extremely engrossing and hit the market at the right time.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[cliffski]

It's the first step towards people rpeparing for the huge sales bonanza of Kudos
But yes, this sounds like welcome news.

[whisperstorm]

I still play Fate even after I bought it a year ago. And I forked over $35 for a lifetime membership at DragonFable.com - the sequel to Adventure Quest - because its the only thing I can play at off times. A casual rpg would be awesome ...

[amaranth]

Wow, this is so cool! I didn't even know

[Davaris]

I'm not surprised. Its targeted at the right audience and is very easy to pick up and play. Congrats Amaranth.

[Bmc]

speaking on casual rpgs, does anyone know if PopQuest is still in Pop Cap's pipeline or?

[whisperstorm]

Imagine if we got Amaranth and Papillon to collaborate on a game - they'd be unstoppable

[Sirrus]

speaking on casual rpgs, does anyone know if PopQuest is still in Pop Cap's pipeline or?

They announced it several years ago, I assume its been on the backburner for some time. Haven't heard any recent news on it.

Aveyond has risen to 6 now...nice.

[Anthony Flack]

It makes sense to me. Imagine your standard match 3 game, only with a more expanded story mode. The only thing left is to take away all that pesky colour matching. Even better!

[Dan MacDonald]

It doesn't make any sense to me. Occasionally niche games resonate with the casual market (see Platypus). But I hardly think it is any indication of a shift in the tastes of casual customers.

RealArcade put considerable effort into expanding their games to appeal to more then just the casual segment and sell new types of games to casual players. Every attempt failed miserably.

Still, if we ever did enter and environment where games like Universal Boxing Manager and Democracy were suddenly popular on portals I think it would be bad for independant developers.

[Ricardo C]

Why's that?

[Jack Norton]

I just want to comment that between Aveyond and UBM or Demoracy there's an abyss - not talking about "which game is better" etc, but by the fact that Aveyond is clearly more accessible and attractive even for women (manga art, nice story, easy to play).

Another very important aspect, I can at least speak for my game - I think female customers for UBM are more or less 1% of total

[Dan MacDonald]

Why's that?

Because portals are bad for sustaining independance.

[Coyote]

Don't forget the fact that Spiderweb's RPGs have been selling for a while on RealArcade... that's one of the few portals he's been selling through.

[Dan MacDonald]

Yes, but Jeff V. has stated publically that the protals dont generate much revenue for him. I would chalk that up as one of RA's attempts to expand the market.

[Ricardo C]

Because portals are bad for sustaining independance.

You don't have to sell through them if you don't want to. But you can still benefit from them growing the market.

[Dan MacDonald]

The markets are there and indies like cliffski and jack are selling to them, if by some bizzare chain of events the portals were able to attract and retain the members of those markest then it will certianly eat into indies direct sales and in turn make them dependant on portals to sell.

Fortunatly the chances of that happening are very slim, the portals ability to retain the eyeballs of their customers is largely dependant on the fact that the population of their target market is either too dumb or too lazy to look elsewhere for games.

[svero]

I have to agree with Dan. There's no real shift in the market here. Aveyond is a cool game and I wish them the best of luck, but I don't think they'll really see significant portal sales for it in terms of real dollars in their account. Portals would have to be willing to lose money for a while to build up a real good audience for other genres. It's a bit of a catch 22 though. You dont see a lot of quality rpgs being made because there's not that much of a market therefor there arent many quality rpgs to attract customers therefor the market doesnt build and so on. A company with good money could foster a new market by paying up front for quality games of a genre and really targeting and building a new market. I think casual games built up as the primary portal download market, in part, because it was very general and appealed to a wide spectrum audience. Id like to see genres developed and better niche portals crop up, but I don't see it happening right now. Also there's probably an exagerrated idea of the kind of money top 10 games make on the portals. Maybe not.. i guess it depends on your dev costs what would exite you.

[Ricardo C]

The markets are there and indies like cliffski and jack are selling to them, if by some bizzare chain of events the portals were able to attract and retain the members of those markest then it will certianly eat into indies direct sales and in turn make them dependant on portals to sell.

Fortunatly the chances of that happening are very slim, the portals ability to retain the eyeballs of their customers is largely dependant on the fact that the population of their target market is either too dumb or too lazy to look elsewhere for games.

if this were the retail industry, I'd agree. But the "infinite" nature of web space means they can't crowd us out like they could offline. We can always find ways to put our products in front of their users, and they can't suffocate our "stores" the way Walmart can break an independent shop in their target area. So if portals can grow the market, it's good for all of us, even those not in business with them. More available eyeballs means more potential customers.

[Savant]

You don't have to sell through them if you don't want to. But you can still benefit from them growing the market.

By this logic, it should be possible to rake in phat lewt selling a match-3 from your own site.

[Ricardo C]

Theoretically, it is possible. Not my fault no one will try it.

[Pyabo]

if by some bizzare chain of events the portals were able to attract and retain the members of those markest then it will certianly eat into indies direct sales and in turn make them dependant on portals to sell.

I have to disagree... there's a very simple mathematical equation here. If you can generate 4x the unit sales on a portal then you're making the same amount of money selling direct, assuming a 25% royalty rate. So if Real starts to attract large numbers of RPG fans... I certainly don't see that hurting the indie RPG makers. In fact, monetizing that segment might encourage more RPG makers to finish the half-baked projects that show promise. Being "dependant" on a portal is a moot point if you're making a living.

[Pyabo]

Id like to see genres developed and better niche portals crop up

HMMMmmmmmm...

[cliffski]

"If you can generate 4x the unit sales on a portal then you're making the same amount of money selling direct, assuming a 25% royalty rate"

I remember when the royalty was 50%. want to place bets when it will be 12%?
Also, 4 times the sales is 4 times the tech support, for the same money. Dont imagine that the portals handle anything but very basic tech support.

But the portal argument has been done to death anyway

[Dan MacDonald]

if this were the retail industry, I'd agree. But the "infinite" nature of web space means they can't crowd us out like they could offline.

Know whats funny, when RealArcade was just getting started, you know who they looked at as their competition? Dexterity. It didn't take them long to blow past dexterity any almost every other indie casual / puzzle developer / publisher out there. You tell me with a straight face that RealArcade did not "crowd out" Dexterity. That RealArcade had no impact on Dexterity's business?

Marketing dollars can absolutely crowd you out, in any distribution channel digital or physical.

That's why the first question VC's ask tech startups is "What will you do if Microsoft decides to move into your market?"

[Ricardo C]

You tell me with a straight face that RealArcade did not "crowd out" Dexterity. That RealArcade had no impact on Dexterity's business?

Did Steve make less money after RA entered the game, but while he was still an active developer? Was he on an upward sales trend that crapped out due to RA's presence?