was undoubtedly the convergence of social media and casual gaming, forging a new social gaming genre primed for a mainstream audience. All three days whispers echoed that casual gaming and social gaming, as industries distinct from one another, is an outdated concept. The two sectors have now essentially merged.
“In the future, all games are going to be social,” Matt Hulett, the chief revenue officer at Seattle-based GameHouse—which rolled out its own social gaming platform in May—said in a presentation entitled the “The Not-So-Casual Journey to Mainstream Entertainment” on Tuesday. And GameHouse isn’t the only one. Many local game developers have made the move to social and mobile over the past year, including casual leaders Big Fish Games, WildTangent, and PopCap. Why? Because games have always been social historically, according to Lloyd Melnick, the general manager of international operations at Mountain View, CA-based Playdom.
“It’s actually a 6,000 year old trend,” he said in a lunchtime session Thursday entitled “Learn How to Bend and You Will Never Have to Break.” During the seminar Melnick chronicled how Playdom—already successful in the casual gaming space—made the decision to “abandon casual” and refocus on social gaming. And by virtue of being social, rather than solo-player, social gaming has the capacity to reach everyone who engages with others in the cloud, not just gamers.
Just look at the viral success of San Francisco-based Zynga, and it’s immensely popular lineup of games integrated right into social platforms like Facebook, MySpace, My Yahoo, and mobile iPhone applications. Its hit FarmVille game has paved the way for a number of follow-ups like FishVille, PetVille, and FrontierVille. It reminds me of the classic PC-based game of my childhood, The Oregon Trail, only on social and mobile steroids. The big difference is the old game was played solo. Today, you’d share the experience on Facebook, or through your smartphone, with your friends in real-time.
“I can’t think of a demographic—except for two-and-a-half to three-year-olds—that aren’t on Facebook,” Melnick said.
As I made my way through Benaroya Hall on the third and final day of Casual Connect yesterday, I noticed that it wasn’t just the industry that was “going social.” Everywhere I looked there were people: big gaming suits with ties and briefcases, and startup reps clad in jeans and old sneakers. The one accessory they all shared was a social connection. Everyone was armed with a cellphone—usually a smartphone. Some gripped an iPhone in one hand, and an iPad in the other. There were more laptops and gadgets than people. It was almost like a uniform every attendee sported, along with their badges.
And everyone was plugged in. Outlets were coveted the way watering holes are in the Sahara. People sat through seminars typing notes on their laptops with one hand, tweeting 140-character snippets from their phones on the other. Maybe this intensity of technology is typical for a gaming conference. But there was one thing I didn’t doubt: the presenters were right—“social” just may be the new “casual.”
