Casual developers rule New York

The report, called Getting in the Game, is comprehensive overview of the gaming industry in New York - commissioned to discover if the city is capitalising on the current video games boom.

New York, the report says, "has several of the nation’s largest and most well-known casual game companies", with at least 20 casual games firm in the city. Diner Dash creator Gamelab is one of the most well-known in the region, with other key developers there are Large Animal Games, Black Hammer Productions and SMERC Design.

In fact, the report assets that the growing casual games industry in New York means it can in time have a booming local industry;

“Casual games are a great place to enter the sector because the larger games companies have not established a foothold,” says Gregory Fischbach, founder and former CEO of Acclaim Entertainment and current chief of MumboJumbo is quoted as saying.

“The casual games industry has the potential to continue to grow at an accelerated rate by addressing a much larger audience than that serviced by those large games companies.”