Casual Games Market Growing 20 Percent a Year

October 29, 2007 | By: David Radd

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If you're a core gamer, chances are you've been spending time with products like Halo 3, BioShock and The Orange Box of late. At work, however, you probably burn a little time during your lunch playing something like Mystery Case Files. You're not alone in this habit. We speak with Jessica Tams of the Casual Games Association about this growing phenomenon.

The Casual Games Association (CGA) today released the results from their 2007 Casual Games Report, highlighting a year rife with expansions in the casual gaming industry, be it on PC or with Xbox Live Arcade or the Wii console. Casual games are already a $2.25 billion a year industry, and CGA says that the market is growing at rate of 20 percent per a year.

"We wanted to give info about casual games from our perspective," said Jessica Tams, managing director of the Casual Games Association. "When [people] think about casual gaming, they generally think of a smaller portion of the major gaming audience. What we find is that, in fact everyone plays casual games and about 75 percent of the people buying casual games are women. These are exciting revelations."

Other demographic revelations to come out showed that online Internet usage and casual game consumers were, in general, split fairly evenly across the genders, tilted slightly in the favor of those over the age of 35. Most casual gamers also do not identify themselves as "gamers" so to speak.

"The reasons why we don't hear more about it is because we don't see people bragging to their friends about their casual gameplay," said Tams. "The reason people are playing these games is a relaxation system and they're often using it in place of television."
Other statistics show the heaviest playing periods to be from noon to 2 PM and 7 PM to 9 PM. The games are generally played in short 5 - 20 minute increments, though subscription and community users play an average of 7 - 15 hours a week. All in all, 200 million consumers visit casual game sites each month.

"Another thing we're seeing is that core developers are focusing more on making casual games," detailed Tams. "We also see more congregation of players at community sites and more 'funware' where game apps are added to MySpace and Xbox Live. It's key, because gamers are a great way to monetize your website."

According to the CGA the most popular casual titles in 2007 are:

- Solitaire (Microsoft Windows XP)
- Tetris (Tetris Holding, LLC)
- Bejeweled (PopCap Games)
- QQ Games Collection (Tencent China)
- Diner Dash Franchise (PlayFirst)
- Mystery Case Files (Big Fish Games)

The full report from the CGA covers a history of the casual game market, a breakdown and overview of the industry's various businesses models, and company profiles of 12 leading casual game companies. Data was collected directly from publishers and casual game portals and further research was contributed by San Francisco-based Pearl Research and London-based Screen Digest. The report is available for purchase at this page for $1500 ($500 for new members of the CGA).