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Businesses Puzzle Games (Games)

Casual Games Now Have Serious Budgets 32

Posted by Zonk from the hardcore-money dept.
eldavojohn writes "CNN is running a story on the increasingly-lucrative market for casual gaming. The article mentions that the latest PopCap game 'Bookworm Adventures' cost $700,000 to create. At $30 a pop for the title, PopCap is almost certain to make a profit." From the article: "Casual gamers play to relax -- the same reason people play solitaire, dominoes or mahjong. The games can be played for 5 minutes -- while the baby is sleeping or between office meetings -- or for hours at a stretch in a Zen-like trance. Big Fish Games Inc. released its most expensive title -- 'Travelogue 360: Paris' -- earlier this month. The Seattle-based company spent $300,000, hired seasoned illustrators and photographers, and bought the rights to images of historic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower. Players scour Paris for souvenirs as they are interviewed for an article in a travel magazine."
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Casual Games Now Have Serious Budgets More

Casual Games Now Have Serious Budgets

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  • Too low for development... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @12:35PM (#17019376)
    For one game company I worked at, $700,000 wouldn't cover the CEO's salary and his NYC penthouse apartment for a year.
    • I'm guessing that one game company created more than one game that year.
    • I wouldn't suspect $700k would cover a NYC penthouse alone for six months, but what is your point?

      Companies operate at different scales, one company may look at a 'casual' game and see a piss-ant not worth the effort, another could see it as a gold mine. For a company to produce a game from concept to market for less then a million, there is a very good chance they will find a profit at the end (no matter how crappy or small a target market). For another company, say a larger one, who can't call a meetin

  • That's not me, unfortunately I can't play games w/o being competitive.

  • Wrong price! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LoudMusic ( 199347 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @12:42PM (#17019532)
    At $30 a pop for the title, PopCap is almost certain to make a profit.

    $30? I wouldn't pay that for a package of 5 of their games. And furthermore, $30 isn't the correct price.

    Buy Bookworm Deluxe today! Get unlimited play when you register and unlock your Deluxe game! Only $19.95.

    Or a bunch of games at $5.29 / game.

    Get 17 games for only $89.95. Save over 70% with the PopCap Platinum Pack

    I'd like to where I got the information from but I used the one in the main post.
    • RTFA- the $30 is for a new game. Isn't out yet.
      • No, not really, most of their games are 19.95, even relatively less popular games like bigmoney for instance, at 19.95. I personally couldn't imagine playing that much for such simple games, and I'm a casual gamer myself. But I'm perfectly happy playing their free online versions. So I guess if you have deep pockets and $20 is nothing this is a perfect deal. And apparently many are buying and their target demographic are seniors who have plenty of money and time.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I think you nailed the point of the article. There are two markets:

          One for the regular gamer, who demands any or all of the following:

          - a storyline
          - 30 or 40 hours of solo gameplay
          - online capablity (so the game doesn't "lose" value when s/he finishes the solo gameplay)

          These people will pay $30 to $50 per game with the above attributes and feel that they got their money's worth, and that their intelligence wasn't insulted by pushing something like Pac-Man for $50.

          The second market is for casual gamers, who

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by blueZhift ( 652272 )
        Definitely too high. A $30 game is not going to move much with the casual crowd. Part of the reason for the success of the casual segment are the low, impulse buy range, prices of which $19.99 is usually the upper limit. Once you get out of that range, it's no longer a casual purchase. So I'd question the strategy of going to bigger budgets if it means the retail price of the games goes to more than $20.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kalirion ( 728907 )
      I loved the Zuma Deluxe (another PopCap title) trial, and when months later I noticed it for $9.99 at Best Buy, I bought it without a second thought. I'm not sure how many hours I spent playing and enjoying the game, but it was more than enough to justify that particular price. I don't think I would've bought it for $20, but in hindsight it still would have been a good deal. $30 would've been too expensive though.

      I still come back to it once in a while to try to finish the last level, but I don't think I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I loved the Zuma Deluxe (another PopCap title) trial, and when months later I noticed it for $9.99 at Best Buy, I bought it without a second thought. I'm not sure how many hours I spent playing and enjoying the game, but it was more than enough to justify that particular price. I don't think I would've bought it for $20, but in hindsight it still would have been a good deal. $30 would've been too expensive though.

        I played it on my XBox360 (didn't buy it), then when I got an iPod video as a gift, I went nuts

  • Burger King (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What about Burger King's new games? $4 for something that actually doesn't look too bad; probably Xbox-age graphics, but still playable no doubt.
    • Yes. Playable and very fun watching a stalker King while drunk.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Duds ( 100634 )
      Created by UK company Blitz (founded by the people who wrote the iconic "Dizzy" games). I would suspect we're talking quite low budgets but even if the cost was the $700,000 each we're talking about PopCap spending, a total of $2.1m for this kind of advertising would be good even if they gave them away. At $4 they're making a small profit after materials too.

      That said, PocketBike especially is probably more involved than a "Casual game" in terms of both making and playing.

    • Re:Burger King (Score:4, Interesting)

      by twistedsymphony ( 956982 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @02:03PM (#17021294) Homepage
      I'm quite fond of the Burger King games... the value meal I had to buy to get them was the first time I set foot in a Burger King in a LONG time but it was worth it for the cheap entertainment those games have provided. Sneak King is entertaining on concept alone, but Pocketbike Racer is entertaining for it's multiplayer capabilities (both online and off).

      I'm curious how much those games actually cost to make, and if the development costs were just seen as an advertising budget to get people to buy more burgers or if they're actually turning a profit on these games and the advertising/burgers is just a happy side effect.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Figured they were a total flop. I have fun playing bumper hockey, but have never found a game on Live.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by badboy_tw2002 ( 524611 )
          I'm guessing the cost of the game was to offset the publisher manufacturing fee and the entire budget was probably written off, so they weren't expecting to make a dime. (Generally MS, Sony & Nintendo charge upwards of %25 of a title in fees). I doubt though that it mattered much considering the advertising budget for playing all those commercials dwarfed the cost of the actual game. And seeing as the post above got someone to walk into a Burger King who hadn't been there in years I'd say they did th
  • Who can find j2me programmers? let alone finance them.

  • Big Fish Games at Lowtide (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @04:54PM (#17024796)
    It is funny that Big Fish Games can spend over $300,000 on a game but in another turn laying off a people to "streamline" the company (aka people who couldn't play the politics, so we got rid of them).

    You can read it here at Seattle Post Intelligencer site: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archive s/107586.asp [nwsource.com]

    The comments in this blog are fasinating.
  • (Disclaimer: I work for Big Fish Games)

    I've always considered myself a fairly traditional gamer.. FPS, RTS.. that sort of thing. A year ago, I wouldn't have looked twice at the casual games market.. It's only because I started working at BFG that I did. Perhaps it's a factor of getting older, but a lot of the casual games really scratch an itch for me. They're easy to get into, for one. I don't have the time/patience any more to learn all the intricate details of modern RTS games, for example. I can sit
  • Looks like these games have become, well, uncasual.

    I do not know how much Introversion spent on its very nice casual games 'Defcon' or 'Uplink', but I'm pretty sure it wasn't $700,000.
    Personally, I wrote the PC version of the 1984 Mac-Hit 'ChipWits', and it didn't cost me a cent (just some time).

    What's wrong with the companies claiming to write casual software? Grown too much? Too much bureaucracy? Too expensive managers? Too many people?

    Ciao,
    Klaus

    PS: PC ChipWits: http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/ [breueronline.de]

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