Lecture 7: (27 September 07)
Casual Online Game Development Planning
Abstract:
This lectures focuses on how best to plan for the development of a Casual Game.
Casual games pose
different kinds of game development issues and challenges, as well as
community management issues, compared to single-player or MMOGs.
- Conceiving
- Prototyping
- Play testing
- Marketing and deployment
- Community management and maintenance
Casual games
will also move to game play experiences that move across different
media or devices (for example, from networked PCs to Web sites to cell
phones, and possibly to broadcast television).
Common features of casual games are:
- Extremely simple gameplay, like a puzzle game that can be played entirely using a one-button mouse or cellphone keypad
- Allowing gameplay in short bursts, during work breaks or, in the case of portable and cell phone games, on public transportation
- The ability to quickly reach a final stage, or continuous play with no need to save the game
- No plot or character, or simple ones with no bearing on the game's mechanics
- Primarily 2D graphics and graphic user interfaces
- Some variant on a "try before you buy" business model
- Somewhat antithetical to console games
Casual games can include:
- Game-based virtual worlds (GVWs)
- Online social networking services or service gateways
- Connection to broadcast media programming
- Advergaming -- games designed to promote awareness or sales of
commercial products or services not related to games or the game
industry
Casual Game Concepts
- Traditional casual game genres
- puzzle games
- word games
- card games
- board games
- (limited) action games
- (limited) strategy games
- see Yahoo Games
- New/emerging casual game genres
- social networking/chat room and mini-adventure games
- Habbo Hotel--7.5M active users (mostly teenagers)
- Webkinz--3.8M active users (mostly pre-teens)
- Club Penguin--4M active users (mostly children and pre-teens)
- (limited) role-playing socialization games
- Fantasy, avatar dress-up role-play (most popular with young girls players)
- The Palace (now defunct, started in 1996)
- Stardoll.com
- WeeWorld
- Cartoon Doll Emporium
- BarbieGirls.com (from Mattel--now in development)
- racing simulation
- KartRider
- Item game
- Speed game
- Flag game
- virtual pets care
- Neopets.com--more than 100M registered users
- education and training
- advergaming, virtual merchandising, and product information games
- casual games whose primary/entire purpose is to promote a product, organization, or event
- serious games
- health care games
- persuasive games -- games that encourage socio-political action or social activism
- (many other topics)
- Game-based Virtual Worlds (GVWs)
- (Cyworld--1M active users in the U.S.)
- Virtual Magic Kingdom
- Exploration and interaction in virtual theme park, with branded content and characters (from Disney)
- VMK end-users have a higher rate of attendance at Disney theme parks than non-users
- Virtual Laguna Beach and Virtual Newport Harbor (from MTV Networks)
- Virtual shopping for avatar "fashion apparel" in virtual retail stores, based on real-world stores
- Tied to broadcast television programs
- Laguna Beach
- Newport Harbor
- Metaverse
- environments where humans interact through avatars with
each other (socially and economically) and with software
agents/bots in an online space, that uses the metaphor of the real
world, but without its physical limitations.
- Second Life
- There.com
- The SimsOnline???
- Google's MyWorld (in development?)
- IBM's Virtual Worlds initiative
- Web 3.0: The Game Web--Web sites that represent 2D/3D virtual worlds, rather than just a collection of text/media files
- globally distributed game
development communities
- free/open source GVW software
- end-user generated content in GVWs
- customized avatars (appearance, costume)
- in-world vehicles
- virtual real estate development and related services
- home/space decorating
- event planning services (hosting a group meeting)
- end-user branding and co-branding
- enabling the global industrialization and development of game culture and technology!
- Casual business/revenue models
- Online purchase
- retail casual games
- training games
- Subscription
- social networking games
- role-playing games
- virtual pets
- In-game item purchase/microtransactions (most popular in
Asia)
- social networking games
- role-playing games
- virtual pets
- racing sims
- Free-to-play
- traditional games
- education
- advergaming
- serious games
- GVWs
- Advertisement supported
- traditional games
- in-game advertising--not likely
- user-created advertising
- corporate sponsored end-users
- end-user created content brands and advertisements
Casual Game Prototyping
- Many known issues and challenges in single-site, small development team, and globally distributed game
development communities approaches to prototyping in online game
development can apply to casual game prototyping
- See previous Online
game planning--I and Online
game planning--II lecture
materials
- Casual games will not, in general, require multi-core processors
- casual game servers will benefit from multi-core processing
- Casual game will not, in general, initially employ heterogeneous user interface devices
- Casual games will be primarily developed using technologies like:
- Flash, AJAX, and Web browsers
- "fat client, thin server" game system architecture
- well known to develop, operate, scale-up or scale-down, and maintain
- Storyboarding tools (offline and online)
- Scenario development tools
- see new/emerging casual game genres above
- each genre benefits from tools to protoype, customize, or extend end-user game play scenarios
- Opportunity:
identify and prototype personal information services or personal life
management support services that can be realized through casual games
- Casual game development frameworks, libraries, components, and game engines
- Opportunity: to R&D casual game engines of different types
- see new/emerging casual game genres above
- casual game performance analysis tools also needed
- casual game designed for database-driven content delivery
- casual games may be more readily structured into modular game
play components that can be invoked and delivered to end-user
- enable generative/reactive delivery of casual game content based on accumulative game play experience
- Continuous development or prototyping only necessary for large-scale casual MMOGs
Casual Game Play testing
- "Easy" compared to testing online, PC, or console based games
- simple platform
- short duration game play
- mostly single user game play
- "instant gratification" assessment by end-users
- Well suited for "focus group" evaluation
Casual Game Marketing and Deployment
- Casual games and casual MMOGs are all about marketing, perhaps more so than game play!
- Focused around large Web portals, existing product brands, and content aligned with other media or venues
- Intense focus on collection, mining, and analysis of end-user access/play patterns
- leverages existing Web usage statistical tools and techniques
- casual game play enables "career paths" into world of game culture and technology
- casual gamers can become online gamers, and thus consumers of game culture and technology
- from casual gaming to persistent, online MMOGs, action games, role-playing games, or real-time strategy games
Casual Game Community Management and Maintenance
- Social networking, chat, socialization and role-playing games all encourage community participation
- casual games as a medium for establishing or building social relationships
- players can help one another to improve their game play or results
- Casual games increasingly targeted to specific demographic audiences
- casual games for girls--BarbieGirls.com
- casual games for children--Club Penguin
- casual games for corporate training (company employees)
- casual games for product marketing (prospective customers)
- Casual games can span multiple cultures
- some casual games now feature natural language specific phrases
for interacting with players in other cultures who interact in response
in their native natural language
- casual games can play a central role in collaborative environments for language learning
- game-based story telling
- game-based writing in community Wikis or group blogs
Casual play experiences across media/devices
- large-scale casual games can be tied to
brands, content, or experiences delivered through other media or venues
- broadcast television
- Internet broadcasting of television programs
- YouTube broadcasts of casual game play
- corporate training centers
- museums and science centers
- theme parks
- toys and merchandise (examples: BarbieGirls.com and Webkinz)