iGame Radio

Cloud Technology…this was one of the key themes in a panel on Casual Games Trends at Casual Connect this year. Presented by Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners, the panel focused on the current state of casual games and where they are likely to go in the next five years.

Today’s economy is making it difficult for smaller companies to survive. Chang compared it to the “ant riding the back of the large elephants dancing.” Large companies are maneuvering in the corporate space, merging and just trying to survive, and the small company may only be able to survive by grabbing onto the tails of these larger monsters.

Chang’s key theme about the gaming space in this economic upheaval was a need for a re-invention of traditional media. This will involve, he said, participation and social interaction. To monetize this, advertising is not the way to go. Rather, virtual goods and other MTX (microtransations) will be the monetary theme of the future.

Chang sees growth in new App store clones, the Android, Netbooks/MIDs, social gaming, virtual goods, a shift to F2P (free-to-play), and utilizing cloud technology to expand casual game sharing.

Casual games, Chang says, have evolved from a simple downloadable, free web-based system where developers use exclusive distribution portals, to one that includes a variety of monetization methods, open and viral distribution social networks, and online social gaming. However, a large portion of players, an astounding 85%, still don’t pay for the games they play.

Not to worry, says Chang, there are ways to engage these players that will extend your brand and your game. Ideas he provided included engagement methods such as advertising and surveys, using them as viral agents on twitter and blogs to promote your games, engaging them to provide tags, reviews, and otherwise contribute towards your online community, and providing what he called “engagement currency”, benefits or achievements for loyalty towards the community or the game.

Casual 3.0, he believes, will introduce a new level in monetization…premium casual and social games. He analogized this with a nightclub illustration. Everyone wants to get into the exclusive nightclub, but once in, there is another layer of exclusivity where attendees can sit that costs money. And yet, those attendees will still pay for drinks and food on top of that (microtransactions).

This next level in casual games will also introduce cloud-based meta-gaming. An average casual game session can take between 5 to 30 minutes to play. However, says Chang, if you tie this into something else that is bigger and more compelling, the player feels part of a larger whole. This is the meta-game wrapper. It can be as simple as a credit or badge for another game the developer publishes, or as complex as connecting several developers together.

To encourage meta-gaming, one wants to engage the player everywhere and all the time. Cloud-based technology is the key. A player can access a cloud-based server with any device. This would allow for integrating many levels of social gaming as well as sharing, both between players and between games.

Chang sees many opportunities for casual and social games over the next 3 to 5 years. Over this time, more and more “digital natives”, those of us who were basically born with a mouse, keyboard, and tv controller in our hand, will be around, and fewer of those who grew into this revolution will. Gaming will thus become more mainstream, and become more of an engagement and monetization vehicle for all corners of society.

Chang also pointed to the rise and mainstreaming of cloud technology, opening up of more international markets, and XaaS (”everything as a service”) as a stimulator for more opportunities.