The North American market for casual games is expected to grow from an estimated $281 million in sales this year to $1.15 billion in 2011, according to DFC. While people will wait for half an hour or more just to see a short trailer for big games that in some cases are months from release, casual games are little-mentioned and hard to spot on the show floor.īut what casual games lack in hipness, they make up for by being cheap to make, addictive and highly profitable. 'Casual games are a step in the direction of coming up with (the equivalent of) comedies and romantic comedies.'Ĭasual games like 'Bejeweled' and 'Zuma' still don't attract much attention at the annual E3 trade show here. 'The video game industry year after year is exceedingly good at pumping out action films,' says Alexis Madrigal, an analyst at market research firm DFC Intelligence. While not new, the casual-games industry is enjoying a renaissance driven by advertising dollars and the ubiquity of mobile devices. The game industry appears to have found its answer with so-called 'casual games,' a category of software-based entertainment that includes word and puzzle games, board games and even some classic arcade titles.

That's basically the problem the video game industry has had-until recently. You'd have theaters packed with young men, but people who'd rather steer away from action flicks, including many women, would find something else to occupy their time. LOS ANGELES-Imagine if all Hollywood cranked out was action movies.

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