Casual Games or Shareware Games?

BY: BRIAN ROBBINS  |  Casual Games, Game Industry

One thing which I’ve found interesting over the years is the large dichotomy between “shareware” game developers, and the shareware industry, vs. the typical “casual” game developer, and their counterpart, “the portal.”

My first experience of this was when I went to the Shareware Industry Conference back in 2000 (or was it 2001?). That was where I “discovered” this very stable, very established group of shareware developers. At that time the shareware industry had been hosting conferences for several years, and had even formed an industry association (complete with infighting and power struggles!). This entire industry was almost systematically ignored by the game industry, and I only remember about 5 game developers even attending the show. The majority of the shareware developers were creating various utilities and small scale business apps, with most developers having their entire business revolving around just a couple products.

Furthermore, while everyone had tips and best practices for making the most from selling shareware, the tips were almost universally the same. Essentially everyone had the same model, and same tips for everyone else, and it didn’t seem like anybody was trying anything new.

At the same time, what is now the casual game industry started to take off. Portals like Shockwave.com and Pogo were starting to generate significant traffic, and perhaps most importantly, they were starting to successfully monetize that traffic by selling downloadable games (although nobody called them shareware).

Amazingly today the shareware industry, and the casual game industry are still largely separate, with very few developers active in both. However, it is far from an even split. I’d wager that a majority of casual game developers don’t even know what the ASP is, and haven’t ever considered going to the Shareware Industry Conference, yet I’d be extremely surprised if the shareware game developers didn’t know about the IGDA, and Game Developer’s Conference. Unfortunately, the shareware people seem content to stick to their ways on the sidelines and complain about it amongst themselves, while the rest of the industry becomes the success that many of them wish they could have been.

This is a shame because both sides could learn a great deal from the other. Casual game developers can use some of the tips and advice that the shareware industry has learned over the past 15 years (price points, how to upsell and how to track what actually works). While, shareware developers can start to break our of their preset ways and discover new tweaks to their existing formulas (ie. the 1-hour trial, which nobody was talking about it at the SIC, and yet it seems to be the established standard now).

So why the dichotomy? Why do we still have shareware developers and casual developers, with very few people involved in both? I have a guess:

The shareware industry is largely irrelevant to game developers. There isn’t a driving need for a game developer to participate in this niche, as none of the major players are active in the “shareware” market. In short, the shareware industry has been passed by, while casual game developers created a new market for themselves.