Discovering Casual Games - PlayFirst Grapevine
I recently wrote about PlayFirst's guidelines saving me from my blogging addiction. But in PlayFirst's new Together service, I face another old addiction: chat rooms. I was an IRC junkie in 1992--I couldn't get enough of chatting to far-away people and finding out how they lived.
Now that we've added features for filtering the yobbos out, Together Chat provides me similar insight into our game audience's lives. A girl in the Diner Dash Lounge recently complained about babysitting her 15 siblings--I would never have imagined that many kids in a 2-parent family or them sharing a handful of computers without killing each other!
I also wrote that casual games benefit society. That girl's family must surely show it: by giving the kids something to do, our games can make that family less chaotic, and we might even reduce the global population problem if the parents ever decide to play Chessmaster Challenge one night instead.
I never used to think much about games, except for a bit of X-Blast when that IRC server was down. The few games that grabbed my attention were more about creativity than my non-existent hand-eye coordination. I did enjoy that city-building one, even though some stupid dinosaur would inevitably stomp all over my hard work, but I probably spent less than 10 hours total on it. I would've played more if it allowed me to arrange timetables for the transit systems I built but the game's creators probably thought that feature wouldn't sell.
Working here is changing me. I'm discovering the breadth and depth of casual games and enjoying them more than I could've imagined. Subway Scramble grants me my timetabling fix and I have a girlfriend who I'm sure would be delighted by Mariposa. I'm also finding games help clear my mind between web-engineering challenges. I only worry that casual games will be my next addiction.
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