Sense and Sensibility of casual games in game consuls

It has been a wild move and it seems to be the right one – game consuls are getting more casual than ever, along with casual abilities, games and methods. How the consuls did influence the casual games industry and how did they influenced back on the consul game industry.

Atari>Sega>PC games and then the PS series, was aiming for the best graphic abilities. Only one poor gambling putted Nintendo's eggs in the casual basket and boy were they right…the casual thinking of Wii consul became a hit in the consul games world, and ever since then, the casual gaming has lifted its head and these days, casual online gamers can look straight in the eyes of the traditional consuls gamers.

After getting the casual games up front, the casual games started to have influence on other game consuls. PS2 and 3 came with 'eyetoy' for simple interactive games, and the PC games world / online games world are fulfilled with very simple yet addicting games.

A traditional game developer had to choose between consuls, PC, PDA's and web based development methods and goals. These days, there is a new generation of developers and developing tools for cross or (at the list) multi platform games.

There's something about NewGrounds….

Newgrounds।com or in its humanly name Tom Fulp (a young, talented site/games developer and naïve some might say) is a veteran gaming portal, still aiming for thaws lonely-lets-play-all-day teenagers. Nevertheless, Tom's wife gave birth almost live on their blog, the site handles hundreds of new summation daily, the unique points system still kick's ass, and the new gold membership method, along with the independent merchandise store, there's something about NewGrounds, that keeps it ticking.

Let's take a look at NewGrounds.com statistics

1. Tom (`30) launched NewGrounds.com on 1995.
2. More than 1.5 registered users.
3. Since Nov, 2007 about 500K of Flash files were submitted, about 30% are online.
4। July, 2007 – Tom relaunched the site with its content rating methods.

NewGrounds, in a social way

NewGrounds is one of the oldest 'let's make it a little more than just a game portal and let people create content regardless to the game' sites around। Every user gets a cool personal page with blogging capabilities and games/images/Flash files uploader। Flash game developers are enabled to integrate NewGrounds's API kit, and make money while serving NewGrounds Ads.

NG, Pros:
- Great games.
- One of the best places to be after you're a serial game developer.
- Tom keeps it updated - graphically and mentally.
- The game developing community is there.
NG, Cons:
- For a Flash game developer, it'll be very hard to start among sharks.
- Not that friendly for first time user, especially not for casual gamers.
- The personal pages are somehow boring if you see more then 10.
- It seems like only professional are welcomed.

Are there any NG alternatives?
1. For socializing and gaming: Kongregate, Nonba.
2. For gaming and socializing: Miniclip, ArmorGames and Hallpass.

Big changes – Kongregate is getting social

One of the only (and lonely) independent game developers community sites, is as well known – Kongregate। K gives a very profitable business model for game developers and recently changed their whole interface in order to become more social. Is it all about a new gamers/developers social network?

Since early 2007, young/old, companies & independent game developers has finally got the right web support they needed। Mochiads started serving in game advertising (as Google does since last month), NewGrounds became more serious and two American brother & sister established Kongregate.
The K interface changed few weeks ago living no doubt: Kongregate needs the casual gamers and is whiling to invest in socializing tools. As long as K's developing community stays in-house (as they called to stay since the restriction of using other in-game advertising methods), that just might work.

However, since the launch of the other gaming social networks for game developers, there are rumors about amazing socializing and marketing tools for game developers. The business model is the same as K's (without the restriction) + the Google Adsense revenue sharing.