Steven DeBenedictis (Publishing) Director of Marketing, SolidWorks Corporation.Peter Glover (Technology) VP, Games & Products, Atom Entertainment, Inc.Juan Gril (Production & Design) Producer, JoJu Games.James Gwertzman (Business Models) Director of Business Development, PopCap Games, Inc.Gabe Zichermann (Market Overview) VP, Strategy & Communications, Boonty.Greg Mills (Market Overview) Director of Premium Games, AOL.Brian Robbins Director of Games, Game Trust, Inc.With best regards, Margaret Wallace Co-Editor, Casual Games White Paper Co-Founder/CEO Skunk Studios īrian Robbins Co-Editor and Chair, IGDA Casual Games SIG Director of Games Game Trust, Inc. It is your willingness to share knowledge that enables us to provide valuable content by and for, the developers in this space. Finally, we’d like to extend a heart thanks to all of the contributors who have participated in the creation of this resource. Your cost for accessing this wealth of knowledge is to share your own knowledge back out to the community, and to assist others in the same way you have been assisted. Whether by updating the wiki with your own knowledge and best practices, or simply adding to the discussion on the mailing list, you are expected to contribute. If you learn something valuable, we expect you to contribute back to the community in kind. While the content has been given freely, this paper is not free.
Unlike the traditional “core” game space, our market is practically limitless, and we have only begun to scratch the surface, and by sharing our best practices, we will enable the entire industry to improve and continue to grow our market at the breakneck pace it has been. It is our hope that with this knowledge, everyone will continue to learn and improve or methods for bringing great games to the world. All of the information seen here has been given freely and openly by the casual game community. You can access the wiki version of the white paper here: As you read this document, if you notice something that is incorrect, or something that you can add to or expand upon, we encourage you to logon to the wiki, and make those corrections so the rest of the community can benefit. All of this content will continue to live on the wiki where we hope it can continue to be updated and expanded on by you, the casual game community. All of this has been done through a user’s web-browser, and became immediately visible to other contributors on the IGDA website. This paper has been created over the past several months by the community getting updates as minor as simple format updates, and as significant as complete restructuring of entire sections.
You are reading the results of the first step in this process. A wiki allows a community of people to easily contribute to a common resource. We have tried something new with this white paper, by creating it on the IGDA’s wiki.
It contains in-depth information about the market, the business models in use, issues relating to production and design, significant technologies used, and a full survey looking at the various means to bring games to the market. Nowhere is this more evident than in the white paper that follows. Everyone realizes that the market is big enough, and the risks are low enough that freely sharing knowledge and information is in everyone’s best interest. Through this rapid change and growth, we have been fortunate to have an extremely open and sharing community. Every day new players enter the market, new business models are created, and new customers are reached. 2006 Casual Games White Paper IGDA Casual Games SIGįORWARD While much progress has been made over the last several years, the casual games space is still a very nascent space.