I’ve been playing games for a pretty long time. I’m not old enough to have owned an Atari, but you can be damn sure I had an NES.
Moreover, I’ve been a PC gamer since a very young age, and can quite easily put myself into the category of what today we call “core gamers”. Do you consider yourself one too?
Despite their differences (and other than a penchant for flaming), one thing console and PC gamers have always had in common (before the Wii) is this “core” gamer status. No Solitaire and Tetris players here. This is only a half-truth however, as before a few years ago the concept of a “core” gamer didn’t even exist. This is because it didn’t have its evil twin, “casual” gamer, to necessitate the distinction.
If you're headed to the comments to tell me this is Freecell not Solitaire, you’ve just had your “core gamer” license revoked.
In the last couple of years, casual gaming success stories have triggered a video game gold rush; everybody wants to get filthy rich creating the next Farmville or Angry Birds. Interestingly, the handheld market, which one would think would thrive on this, is under major threat from smartphones and tablet PCs.
No doubt Sony is feeling hot under the collar with the recent launch of their “hardcore gaming” handheld – wouldn’t people sitting on the porcelain throne or subway rather just be checking e-mail, reading, and gaming, all on the same device?
The old-school gamer has now been put in a strange position. Does he/she fight against this perceived threat to “how games should be”, or welcome this new, more diverse group of gamers into the fold? As a long-time gamer I can’t help feeling like I’ve been a little boy sitting in my “no girls allowed” treehouse club for 15 years, and now someone’s sister just showed up with her friends to play tea party (this analogy isn’t highlighting gender, I am aware that that elusive entity the girl gamer does exist, and that she’s totally hot and plays Halo with you and is also your girlfriend).
Looking at my iPhone, I’m almost ashamed to admit it has two different Angry Birds games, as well as Stick Cricket, Jailbreaker and Draw Something. I play these games. I play them all the time. Standing in line at the shops, in the bathroom, while watching TV – I play them often, and I like them. I like them because they’re easy, and for the most part, pretty fun.
And because I freaking rock at Stick Cricket.
That said, I do still prefer my more “hardcore” games. I still enjoy playing games competitively and getting yelled at by adolescents. I can’t foresee a future where I turn my back on my mouse and keyboard. Casual gaming is a supplement for me – something I can do when I don’t really feel like paying attention or when I’m away from my home setup.
But I don’t think hardcore gaming is in danger of losing its fans to iPhones, and I never did. That’s not where the threat lies; most of us core gamers will be core to the bitter end, old stalwarts who’ll sit around reminiscing about the “good old days” of gaming like war veterans with Pick ‘n’ Pay pensioner cards and arthritic hips.
The real threat lies in the casual gaming market inflating enough that it begins to overshadow the “core” gaming market. If enough soccer moms and jocks and teenage girls start wearing Angry Birds T-shirts and tapping furiously on their phones and tablets, they may become a more attractive market to develop for. The ugly truth is every single day “casual gaming” gets ever closer to becoming the mainstream, while hardcore gaming is slowly relegated to niche status.
Still, this is a niche market with serious profit potential. When Modern Warfare 3 launched, it grossed $1 billion in 16 days. To put that in perspective, it took the movie Avatar 17 days to reach that number. Five years ago defeating a James Cameron blockbuster with a video game would be like defeating Roger Federer with a hockey stick.
Modern Warfare 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV both grossed over $500 million in the first five days alone. Video games today represent serious money – but this comes at a serious cost. Modern Warfare 2 cost an estimated $50 million to produce, with GTA IV coming in at a staggering $100 million in production costs.
When he saw Kotick’s akimbo FMGs, Cameron began to regret the bow and arrow.
Then you get the poster boy for casual games, Angry Birds. Instead of a $60 investment, developer Rovio asks you for $1. That’s the kind of sales pitch that gets you sales upward of 500 million. Rovio can charge $1 because the production costs are so much lower.
For a developer, the risk here is very low, but the potential reward is almost limitless. Other examples are companies like Zynga, now valued at over a billion dollars, which made its fortune through Facebook games such as Farmville. Casual gaming represents a chance for companies to make millions of dollars without sinking millions of their own first.
This is where I feel the most threatened by casual gaming. The hardcore gaming contingent will never lose their big franchises – Valve, Activision, Rockstar, these guys are still going to be making games. When you can gross more than Avatar and your company is worth billions, the risk vs. reward is a doozy.
While these profit margins are impressive, very few studios have that kind of money to invest – and risk – in a video game. It’s difficult for fledgling developers to try and compete with these big names and big budgets. This isn’t to imply the casual gaming market doesn’t have competition, it certainly does, and the future is going to bring a lot more – but the fact is you’re risking a lot less developing a casual game, and that’s an attractive option for developers and investors alike.
This means that in the hardcore gaming market, we’re at a very real risk of losing our new, innovative and breakout games. Small studios are less likely to take a chance with a new idea, or take a chance at all, when they can try their luck in the App Store instead.
Even recently we’ve seen big studios like Sega drop all their non-franchised stuff and focus development on well-established IPs. We may be headed towards a future where hardcore gaming is a niche market populated by long-running IPs and big blockbuster titles, and the real innovation is happening on Facebook and tablets and smartphones.
In the future, the real innovation might be what you’re playing on the toilet.
