The Role of Casual Games in Every Day Life

Posted on September 4, 2008 - Filed Under Casual Gaming, Editorial |

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Rick from iQ212 wrote an interesting article about the “void” casual games fill in every day life. Basically, he feels there are three main areas that everyone needs to be happy in life. Those areas are home, not meaning you need to own a house, but a place you call home, work and a social setting, be it a bar or pub or an online community site. He goes on to make the connection that the biggest group of casual games players, Women age 35 - 54, are using casual games to replace their void of a job. They treat casual games as their job and developers of casual games should recognize this and develop games that are going to appeal to these women, the biggest part of the casual games audience. iQ212

Rick makes some interesting points in the article and it got me thinking. There are some women gamers out there that will spend hour and hours a day playing casual games and these are the women that probably have kids that are school aged and during those school hours have some free time on their hands. It is the time they use for “me” time. Once school lets out, I am sure they are driving the kids here there and everywhere and there is not another free minute until bed time.

I agree that developers of casual games should cater to their largest audience, but I don’t think every casual game developer needs to do that. If every developer did that, we would lose the innovation and creativity in the casual space. No doubt, some of the bigger companies have made huge hits by making games that appeal to Women age 35 - 54, such as Cake Mania and DinerDash, but those companies make different games as well, such as TradeWinds.

Casual game developers have to remember that Women age 35 - 54 make up a big piece of the casual game demographic, but they are not the only casual game audience. Developers can’t forget about the minority or casual games won’t become mainstream games.

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