Casual Gaming = Big Business

The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Nickelodeon will make an investment of $100 million in the development of casual games. Casual games are games that are typically played for a few minutes at a time - examples include puzzle and card games. This announcement was made by Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group President Cyma Zarghami at the Casual Connect Gaming Conference yesterday in Seattle. Zarghami is quoted:

"Particularly in the kids' space, with more than 86% of kids 8 to 14 gaming online, we see great momentum for online casual gaming,"

Also, according to The Reporter:

"Included in the Nickelodeon initiative is myNoggin, a preschool educational game in the form of a subscription service; an expansion of the Nicktropolis multiplayer games franchise; Nick Gaming Club, Nickelodeon's first subscription offering featuring multiplayer games with 3-D avatars; the-NGames.com, a casual gaming site geared toward female teens; and the transformation of the site Neopets.com to NeoStudios, a property centering on the creation of new online virtual world experiences".

In addition, the Casual Game Association (CGA) has released some preliminary data from their Casual Games 2007 Report. Here's a few preliminary data highlights from a MCV press release:

The number of games being submitted to major online portals has doubled over the past two years, suggesting an increase in new publishers developing more titles.

In 2006 the most popular casual games were Mystery Case Files, Diner Dash, Cake Mania, Bejeweled and Slingo.

Women still make up the majority (74%) of all paying players online with men now represent about half of the much-larger non-paying player universe.

The number of games being submitted to major online portals has doubled over the past two years, suggesting an increase in new publishers developing more titles.

The rapid growth of the casual games market has prompted companies to create games for more audiences and also for more platforms, including the Internet, PC and Macintosh computers, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo DS, Wii and even mobile phones and PDAs.

The full CGA report will be released in the fall - if you are interested in receiving a copy watch the CGA website at http://www.casualgamesassociation.org or send an email to datastudy@casualgamesassociation.org