‘One size fits all’ approach to casual is wrong, says Big Fish boss

In fact, he joined the growing chorus of games industry execs looking to reject the ‘phrase’ casual in a consumer-facing sense, using NPD data to show that massmarket games are not all the same and that when it comes to online casual title “the larger market has created unique combinations of gamers and segmented platforms that can be addressed with new business models”.

Big Fish and US data monitor the NPD group teamed up earlier this year to research how the core and casual games market. They surveyed 2,611 consumers of all times, discovering that 67 per cent of them played games – and over half of those played casual games.

However, while many think the growing massmarket trends mean that game experiences need to be made open and have wide appeal across demographics, Thelen said that the survey results proved that it was still key to target specific casual games player groups.

Big Fish and NPD’s research resulted in showing 14 distinct types of games category that players enjoy – and they feast on multiple genres, Thelen revealed, saying many play at least eight from genres like music games, strategy titles and action games.

But in comparing two of the more extreme consumer types detailed in the research, ‘Nancy Drews’ (63 per cent of which are female, and 59 per cent are aged over over 35 – the ‘classic’ casual consumer) and ‘Heavy Action (the typical core gamer, 73 per cent of which are male and 45 per cent of them are aged18 to 34 years old), Thelen said it was clear that “‘one size fits all’ doesn’t work”.

“Internet and the other new distribution platforms have exponentially increased the addressable market,” he said. “But my conclusion is that you need to know where your focus is.

“You wouldn’t compete with iTunes, for instance – so don’t do it in games.”

He added: “Take your time to understand who it is your are serving. If you want to serve these audiences you want to find out what their favourites is and really focus on that.”