GAMING EVOLVES: Casual gaming to become key pastime

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.-Casual gaming will become a first tier of entertainment thanks to innovative thinking by entrepreneurs and barriers lowered by technology, John Welch, president and CEO of Playfirst, said in his opening keynote address at the Games and Mobile Forum at the LA Games Conference 2007.
“We actually think that we’re driving gaming to its true possibilities,” he said.
Casual gaming represents “way more than half of what people are doing online,” he said. “Most people in the universe don’t want that big, fully rendered gaming universe.”
Welch predicted 2007 will be the year games become more social and interactive for the end user.
Cellphones represent one of the most prevalent platforms available to the interactive gaming system he envisions, but Welch didn’t provide many details on what role the mobile environment might play in the industry’s progression. Much of the market will be centered on a fully connected living room experience, he said.
Gaming is the earliest form of interactive entertainment, he said. “Through the ages, the only thing you could do with your television set was play games,” which led to the rise of a “console-only approach,” he said.
The gaming industry, which has ridden a wave of success on the console ecosystem for the past 30 years, doesn’t face its greatest challenge from the PC, Welch said. He believes the major entertainment and communications companies are already eyeing a future where a wholly interactive system becomes available to the end user on readily available platforms like cable boxes.
Companies who put entertainment systems in living rooms for free will drive “99.99% of the gaming market,” he said.
“It’s not about the games, it’s about bringing movies to your living room, it’s about bringing music to your living room,” Welch said. “For the mass market to enjoy gaming it’s got to be cheap, it’s got to be simple.”
One impediment to social gaming is the inability to communicate with other users-something that everyone enjoys on their mobile phones. “The platform matters,” he said.