The website isn’t updated yet, but I’ll be speaking at the Austin Game Conference next week on the Casual Game Evolution Summit: Moving Beyond Downloads panel.
I’ve heard good things about this event in the past but this will be my first time attending. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there!

This probably isn’t something we’d normally blog about since Advergame developers won’t get access to this technology until a plugin developer actually incorporates it. (hint-hint Virtools, Macromedia, etc )
Local Ottawa-based company TransGaming has just released SwiftShader. This is a technology that provides a software renderer for the latest pixel and vertex shader effects. To [...]

If you are based in Europe or are looking for an excuse to visit Paris, you should consider attending the The 2005 Online Games Summit. I will be co-chairing this conference and it is being put on with the support of the IGDA’s Online and Casual Games SIGs.
We think that we’ve put together a strong [...]

If you’re based in or near Europe this should be a great conference to attend. Casuality Europe, a Casual Game focused conference that will be held in Amsterdam next February. There isn’t a lot of information on the site yet, but considering that it is being organized by some of the same people that put [...]

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 [...]

There’s a great article up from the escapist on Casual Fortunes, which talks about the “fortunes” people are making developing casual games.
Overall it is an excellent article and definitely worth the read, although there’s a few points that I have to take issue with.
Perhaps the biggest thing is that Mr. Varney seems to imply that [...]

Day 2 of the Casual Games Conference started off a bit slow with everyone trickling in a bit late in the morning. Once things got going the conference content again proved to be very solid.
Casual Game Audio: This session from Guy Whitmore of Microsoft was tragically underattended. Guy obviously knows a tremendous amount about game [...]

Today was the first day of the Casual Games Conference. Overall it was a very good day. There is about 450+ attendees here, and the mood is very good. This is a small developer community that is extremely friendly, and that shows throughout.
Multiplayer Session A great session to kick off the conference. The main themes [...]

The press release is now starting to hit the wires, so we can finally announce the formation of the IGDA’s Casual Games SIG. This SIG is going to focus on casual game development, including web/downloadable titles, advergames, etc. We created it to address the growing needs of this rapidly expanding marketplace.
Currently there is no single [...]

There’s been several sites talking about the recent Grand Theft Auto fracas, that I won’t bother rehashing it here, other than to say that there’s a game within GTA that was not publicly accessible, and somehow, somebody found a crack to make it accessible. The game in question allows the player to simulate having sex [...]