Casual Goes Mocial

Tortured combinations of terms aside, Casual Connect Hamburg has been all about the impact of Mobile and Social gaming on the Casual Gaming market.   It seems no conversation is complete without looking to the expansion of the space from downloadable games to new channels and new business models.

The cornerstone of the ongoing changes to Casual Gaming was the fascinating perspective shared by Rovio, the publisher of uber-popular title Angry Birds.  Channeling the most forward-thinking entrepreneurs of our time, Rovio’s Mighty Eagle, Peter Vesterbacka, shared how the company’s flagship title is as much a brand and a franchise as it is a wildly popular and addictive time-suck.  If you thought Angry Birds was ubiquitous on smartphones, you ain’t seen nothing yet: the brand will soon extend onto your TV, into your living room and throughout retail chains.

Casual Game publishers are starting to emulate Hollywood, whose products’ success was once measured by cinema ticket sales, but is now defined by crossover product marketing and multi-media sales.  For some publishers that means taking a single popular title and creating ever more acquirable items (plush toys, board games and advertising tie-ins) to expand the brand.  For others it means taking their catalog of games and building a studio-based franchise revolving around audience communities and continuous cross-promotion.  Either way, the day of measuring success by number of units sold of a given title is becoming a thing of the past.

Certainly, Facebook’s decision to impose its Facebook Credits as the primary way to buy into games that inhabit its world has caused some consternation and concern.  Nonetheless there is a sense that this may be just what the industry needs to start some reflection on whether to commit to a single platform led and controlled by someone else.  There’s lots of innovation around allowing players to carry their in-game identity (and game progress) across channels – imagine taking those level-ups you’ve achieved on iOS and having them persist through your PC-based or IPTV-based game play.  Ultimately, carrying one’s persona from channel to channel will open up the ability to build ongoing relationships between studio and player.  Simultaneously, it confounds the efforts of the walled garden managers to retain control (and a large share!) of player revenues.

While it’s not wildly clear how the social gaming meme of the last year or two will play out in the next 12 to 24 months, there’s absolutely no question that casual gaming is delving deeper into the persistent relationship between player and game.  Nor is there much challenge to the idea of building a movie franchise-like halo of offers around any title that gains traction.  If ever there were a year to Go Mocial, it seems, 2011 is it.

Simon Jones,

VP of Strategic Solutions

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daryl_mitchell/3560636199/