I am sitting in a hallway…actually, in a corner off of the hallway…in Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington. The Casual Connect Casual Game Conference is happening right now. I’m covering it for both iGame Radio and the DigiPen PodClass.

It’s been interesting so far. Lot’s of talk of disaggregating the broad terms for games right now (which are “casual” and “core”) into more niche groups based on types of gameplay that people like or the behavior patterns that people display based on their gameplay. This was introduced at a keynote by Paul Thelin of Big Fish Games. The Internet is really good for that…basically people could locate their games based on keywords that they search for, not on going to a portal that has “casual” games, or going to a webite (or brick-and-mortar store) and buying “core” games.

Also, there’s a lot of merging between television and casual games. Game developers creating games based on television show brands, television networks moving into casual games space and creating games based on their brands, television shows created based on games. The line between what is a game, and what is non-interactive media to just view is being blurred further and further.

Social gaming is becoming very predominant as well. By social gaming, I mean creating games specifically to work on MySpace or Facebook, or creating multiplayer games that one can play together (in small groups) or asynchronously (in large groups). When one thinks of multiplayer games, one usually thinks of MMOGs, not casual games. But developers here are looking at multiplayer as one of the big futures, and there’s already a few games out there (like PlayFirst’s Diner Dash: Hometown Hero) that do.

Lastly, the definition of what we call casual gamers is changing a well. Many casual gamers don’t play games to relax in the classic sense that we have thought of in the past…kick back, take a breather, have a drink of coffee, meditate. They play the games to take a break from real life, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t compete. They compete, but their competition isn’t to succeed, but to have fun. And they play a lot of hours during the day.