A Research Project: The rise of casual games and it’s effect on gaming.

In my previous post I explained that I am starting this blog to share the results of my research project, among other reasons. The subject of my research project will be the rise of casual games and the effect they may have on the more ‘traditional’ gaming market.

Why this topic?

When our assignment was first explained, we had a discussion on the subjects each of us was irritated or concerned about related to gaming. Some moment during the discussion I vented my frustration that both in the news and in school, there was an awful lot of focus on casual and social games. I had a sneaking suspicion that this might be bad for me and other gamers who prefer to play ‘traditional’ or ‘hardcore’ games.

My suspicion is that more developers will focus on casual games which means there will be less developers working on bigger games. Of course I might be completely wrong on this. Maybe these developers will later go on to make hardcore games. Maybe there is no significant effect. There’s a lot of factors that might play a role. This is why I think it might be interesting to investigate this trend and it’s effects. Thus my research will be as follows.

Abstract

In recent years the gaming industry has increasingly noticed and catered to the growing market of casual gamers, reached through new platforms like social media mobile devices. These days a huge number of  people play casual games, be it on the train or the bus, on their smart phone or on their social network.

These simple, short games are much more accessible to people who would not normally consider themselves gamers which is why they represent a new market. Traditional video games or ‘hardcore’ games as I like to call them focused on a demographic of people already familiar with video games and who were expecting to invest time and effort into the game to enjoy its fullest potential. These demands are in direct contrast  to the demands of casual gamers.

This study intends to examine the hypothesis that ‘The rise of casual gaming has a negative effect on new games for hardcore gamers’ using the questions ‘What are the sizes of both the hardcore gaming and casual gaming industries, now and in the past?’, ‘Has the supply of hardcore games changed in the recent years?’ and ‘How are these related?’. I will examine these questions using revenue statistics and games reviews.

Next post in this series: A question of definitions

The birth of a game developer’s blog

Lo and behold. Welcome to my new blog about game development musings, research, snippets and other stuff. Here’s your achievement for reading the first post!

With that out-of-the-way, now for the important part of this post.

Why create this blog?

Recently, during my Game Design course, we got the assignment of doing a small research project on a subject related to game development or the games industry. For my own research subject I decided to investigate a recent and very specific trend in the game industry, which I will describe in my next post.

One of my tasks was determining how I intend to do my manifest. How should I present the results of my research to the outside world? The obvious choice for research results is usually a scientific paper. But that’s boring. Me and my classmates were encouraged to use alternative forms of media appropriate to our research subject. Finally I settled on a weblog for two reasons.

1. I know my target audience will be mostly game developers, and to a lesser extend, gamers themselves. Developers will be interested because it might influence how they think about the game industry and how they make games. Some gamers might be interested because the trend I’m investigating is likely to have an effect on their gaming. A blog is very accessible to both groups and might encourage discussion in the comments on each post.
2. For a few years I have been gathering experience in game design and development and occasionally, I felt the need to share my findings with others. At the same time I was reluctant to create a blog for fear of losing interest and neglecting it after a while. Maybe this will provide a kickstart to get me going and keep me blogging even after this project.

In summary:

I will use this blog to share the findings of my research project as it progresses and later on, I will use it to share other stuff related to game development. Stay tuned, and don’t hesitate to comment on my ramblings!