Back in blighty... and time to write up general impressions of Casuality Europe:

1. Casual games are a much bigger business than I had them down as. MUCH bigger.
2. I liked the format and venue of the event; it reminded me of dConstruct. That's a good thing :)
3. Much of the stuff I heard seemed very US-centric. In many ways this was actually quite useful (I'm not that familiar with the US) but it meant that I didn't really get a feel for casual gaming in Europe, as such.
4. There was less of a mobile focus than I'd expected. I still don't really understand how the Xbox can be considered a platform for the casual gamer; I can see why casual games make sense on it, but the (set of casual gamers) seems so much bigger than the (set of people who will buy an Xbox) to me.
5. So... I still don't understand why mobile isn't seen as the primary platform for casual gaming; given that it's everywhere, and that it combines mechanisms for distributing, billing, and consuming casual games content.

A thousand thanks to Jessica Tams for organising the event, and to Paul Munford for capably herding together the last panel of the event...

Comments

[Kim Pallister]

Nice notes on the conference. I've linked to them from my blog.

On the above post:

- Agreed on points 1-3
- On point 4: Whether or not the total number of casual gamers is bigger than the number of xbox users is kind of irrelevant. ANy platform that can boast enough paying customers to sustain one or more developers is a platform that makes sense. Is it as big as PC or mobile? no. Is it big enough for a few developers to make some money? Yes.
- On point 5: This is an easy one. First off, yes, phones *are* a target plaform for games. But the PRIMARY target? You have to balance the pros (HUGE number of phones out there) against the cons (fragmented operators & phone standards, carriers in the US taking 40 points, games on the platform not being as compelling, etc). PC still boasts huge numbers, an open development platform, an "open marketing platform", low barrier to entry, and compelling features/performance.
To put it more simply, there are some people offering stuff in each space. As soon as consumers start spending more on games on phones than on PCs, then that's when it'll become the primary platform.

Cheers,

Kim

[Tom Hume]

Kim: thanks for the comments :)

I just don't see how a games console - of any kind - can be described as "casual". But I think this hinges on the fact that I've been working with a slightly different definition of casual to the games industry... I see casual as reaching an audience of folks who don't play games at all right now.

[Darius Young]

Casual game downloads are more for people who don't have time to sit down for hours upon hours to complete an entire game.