GDC was fun, informative and productive for me and iQ212 this year.  I think my GDC Mobile lecture accomplished its goal of getting people thinking and talking about casual and mobile design and the issues that even good games face when entering the mobile gauntlet.

My talk was called “Tetris: the Best/Worst Mobile Game Ever”.  Nice coverage of the talking points is here. 

In short, I declared Tetris as the best game ever.  Then I deconstructed the game, to look at the design elements and to see why it was such a great game, and how its play transferred to mobile. 

Slim Jim brand beef jerky was used as an example to illustrate the shelf space problem on mobile carrier decks.  A supermarket has all kinds of beef choices: filet mignon, short ribs, and prime rib roast, etc.  They have the shelf space for it.  But a convenience store only sells one type of beef, Slim Jim.  Small footprint, long shelf life, broad appeal, always in season, and in snack size portions.  It is because of this shelf space issue that carriers feature Tetris and that Tetris is a perennial best seller.  So Tetris is not beef jerky, but carriers are a bit like 7-11.

At the end of my talk, I asked the room, “If Tetris were invented today, how many of you think it would get published by mobile carriers?”  Exactly one guy in a room of 75 people raised his hand.  It is a telling indictment on the state of mobile when the best game in the world would not get published today.

GDC is right around the corner.  iQ212’s Rick Marazzani is speaking at GDC Mobile on Monday Feb 18th at 4:15pm.  The topic is Tetris: Best/Worst Mobile Game Ever.  It will cover a bit of Tetris history, design, its dominance on mobile, and how to build a mobile game to beat it.

Also at GDC, we will be showing off our portfolio of games, and demonstrating a beautiful new puzzle game for potential mobile and PC casual distributors. 

Ping Rick to book a meeting.  Be sure to catch his talk. See you at GDC!

There is no such thing as a casual gamer.  They are not the teens on NewGrounds, or college kids playing Jetman on Facebook, or old ladies playing Slingo. Everyone is a casual gamer.

The meager casual games space has tried to fracture itself, segment into target markets and demographics.  Frankly, why carve out such small pieces of the game pie?  Why not go for EVERYONE?

Time, attention, platform.
Every person is intrinsically aware of how much time they have available, how much attention they want to pay, and what platforms they can use.  Whether gaming or cooking or exercising, we all consider these factors. 

Please consider that…
• Avid hikers don’t take 50 mile backcountry treks every day.  More often they just stroll through the local park.
• Golfers don’t play 18 holes every day, more often they putt into a cup in their office.
• Chefs don’t cook themselves five-course meals every night, more often they have a sandwich.
So why do we assume that “gamers” will only play long, intensive, high-end games?  The result of that broken logic is that “casual” games are made for old ladies, thereby alienating the rest of the world.

The same considerations above apply to all people seeking interactive entertainment.  They are aware of the constraints to their time, attention, and the platform.

• WoW takes lots of time, lots of attention, and a connected high end platform.
• Monopoly takes lots of time, not much attention, and several friends around a table.
• Sudoku doesn’t take much time or attention, and can be played almost anywhere.

People play according to their time and attention available. Furthermore, people know what their platforms are capable of.  Folks can imagine whether or not a game is right for a platform.  They won’t play Solitaire on their Xbox360 anymore than they’d play Halo 2 on their Moto Razr.  It seems that only games industry insiders think they know better than the masses.

A real world example.  When a major portal launched a games channel a few years ago, the conventional wisdom was that teens would want to play arcade and extreme sports web games.  New twitch games with more youthful appeal were launched, and the kids didn’t play them!  The most popular games were and remained puzzles and traditional card games.  These kids already had Playstations and Gameboys; they played twitch games on the platforms that were best for twitch.  Online, on the family PC, in the browser, they played the same games as their Grandma because they were right for the platform.

The wisdom of the masses continues on mobile, where the top selling games are predominantly casual games.  It is not as if only old ladies are buying mobile games!  Mobile is definitely a casual platform.  Tetris, Poker, PacMan and Trivia are tops because the masses are aware of limited Time, limited Attention, and limited Platform whilst mobile.

To be a mass-market hit, games need broad (not old-broad) appeal.  Tetris is a great game, but if it were called “Molly’s Fashion Magic”, it would not have taken over the world.  On the other side, if Diner Dash were called “The Operational Art of Culinary Service”, it would have flopped like a medium rare steak dropped on the kitchen floor.  The best casual games cast the widest demographic net.

There will always be markets for all sorts of games: short and long, light or intense, and simple and intricate.  The most money potential comes from applying casual game thinking to mass-market theming.  You are better off with your target market being EARTH than AARP.

Casual games are any game that takes up small snippets of time, do not command undivided attention, and work on a wide range of platforms.  Likewise, a casual gamer is anyone with a moment to play, any amount of mental bandwidth, and any platform.  We are all casual gamers.