Casual Gamer Chick had a chance to sit down with Daniel Bernstein, the CEO of Sandlot Games. The interview went well and even contains a small scoop that hasn’t been revealed yet. Below is the interview.

How big is Sandlot games?

About 50 people in the states and in Russia. Three teams, dedicated developers and contract teams.

How many different franchises do your teams work on? It seemed like you had a lot of projects going on.

We always do. We have the Westward franchise, the TradeWinds franchise, the Cake Mania franchise, the SuperGranny franchise and Glyph. Five major franchises and every once in a while we also do a new project like Eye for Design. We have dedicated teams on all of our franchise games.

Are the people that work on Cake Mania very familiar with every new release of the game?

Yes, Yes we have people that have worked on Cake Mania since the very FIRST Cake Mania.

How long has Sandlot games been in existence?

We have been in business since 2002. Since the beginning of the casual games revolution so to speak. We have been around for a while and we have seen a lot of companies come and go and we have focused on games that we like to play and I believe our audience likes to play as well.

Speaking of which, in 2006 you guys had the best casual games award from Yahoo for Cake Mania did that bring on a new wave of Cake Mania fans or were they already dedicated by then? Did that bring you a lot of different exposure or did you already have that momentum?

The momentum was there, I think, just on the success of Cake Mania alone. You’ve got a game that is pretty much a phenomenon everywhere that it launched. As a DS title, we sold about 300,000 units of the first version of Cake Mania one DS. Cake Mania 2 DS is out, Cake Mania Skills is out. We have a Wii version planned by the end of the year. We’ve got two mobile games for Cake Mania, Cake Mania 1 and Cake Mania 2. Cake Mania PSP and PS2 just launched. It’s definitely a phenomenon and we are excited by the success of Cake Mania. By the time that article came out, it was pretty clear what direction Cake Mania was headed.

Would you call Cake Mania your flagship game? Was that THE game that got you guys going or was it a combination of everything?

It’s a combination. There are people here that love Cake Mania and there are people here that aren’t really crazy about it at Sandlot. We have a wide diversity of developers that like the games they develop, that is what makes a successful developer. Making sure whatever your guys are working on they like to build it themselves. In the case of the Westward team they are really crazy about Westward Read the rest of this entry »

Ben There, Dan That is a totally free downloadable puzzle game from independent developers Zombie Cow Studios. The game follows Ben and Dan, two geeks that find themselves on an alien spaceship. The two have to work their way off the spaceship through solving puzzles.

Ben There, Dan That boasts cartoon graphics, hilarious dialog, interesting characters and awesome in game music. Players can’t really go wrong, considering the price is free. I guess you could look at it as a waste of time if the game was not good, but you still have your hard earned cash in your pocket.

The game sounds like an interesting concept. Sounds like a game that goes out of the way to focus on the dialog and bring humor to the game. Hope it is as good as it sounds.

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GamesIndustry.biz interviewed Technical Director at 2K Boston Christopher Kline and discovered Kline feels there is no room between casual games and blockbuster hits. 2K Boston was the studio that developed BioShock, which was a huge hit. Kline said they came to realize there was no space left in the middle of casual games and big hit games for the Independent developer. The middle market was not going to sustain an independent developer, it was only going to get them the money spent on the game, but not make them a profit.

“I think what we realised, which really started that transition back at Irrational, we were doing games that I’d say were mid-budget – maybe USD 3-4 million – that there was no real market left,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.

Kline’s thoughts on the market are not really good for the consumer, but, if true, is good news for the casual games market. The casual games market can benefit from the independent developers that can’t market to the middle market. Those developers will bring new games and new ideas to the casual market. If 2K Boston has figured out there is no middle market, I am sure other developers have done so or will figure it out soon. Only a good thing for the casual games market.

Thanks PALGN

There is an interesting article by Daniel Cook over at Gamasutra that discusses the potential for the casual games industry to become what hard core games have become. The article has nothing to do with the actual games themselves, but more to do with developers and the outlets developers have to get their games published.

Once upon a time in the games industry there were not huge publishers around and developers were able to get their games out there to people in Arcades or even early home consoles. Of course, if there is an avenue for a business eventually someone will make that business, enter game publishers. As the years progress, it becomes harder and harder for developers to get their games on retail shelves due to the space limitations. In the current state of hard core games, publishers make more on the games than the developers make.

Casual games don’t have shelving space limitations, but they are now dealing with portal space. One would think that only hard drive space limits the space on a portal, but that is not ultimately true. Hard drive space is a limiting physical factor much like shelf space, but the more damaging factor to developers is the massive amount of games that the portals “publish” to ensure customer retention. Now developers games can get “lost” among games that may not be as good as theirs.

Portal customer retention tactics also mean the customer may be more likely to return to the portal to purchase games and not the developer’s web sites. If customers are more likely to return to the portal, the portal becomes the publisher for casual games and it becomes harder and harder for the developers to get their cut from the games they develop, which forecasts an outcome for the casual games industry very similar to the hard core games industry.

The article brings up some interesting facts for casual developers and is a good read, but be warned it is fairly long.

Thanks Gamasutra

Hothead Games and Penny Arcade have partnered to form Greenhouse, a digital distribution platform dedicated to Independent developers. Greenhouse will give gamers an outlet to find games created by independent developers and gives independent developers a way to get their games published. Normally, big publishers are reluctant to publish what they consider “risky” games. In other words they only want to publish games they know will make money. Greenhouse gives independent developers a way to get their games published without meeting the big publishers rules. This could lead to more innovative games and games that break the mold.

“There are so many great games out there that you don’t hear about,” explained Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “They’re too niche or too risky in terms of game play for the top publishers to be comfortable with distributing. We want the Greenhouse to be an alternative for these developers.”

Greenhouse is currently in beta and can be found at www.playgreenhouse.com.

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