TV companies realize 'casual gaming' is a big market

Last friday I went to Seattle Lunch 2.0, hosted by Parker Services and featuring a short speech from Big Fish Games.

I mention this because Big Fish Games is one of the big success stories in casual gaming. They make over $51 million in revenue.

That’s pretty big money for something that people tend to toss aside.

It looks like the big media companies are starting to notice that the market for casual games is extremely compatible with television. The New York Times has an article today about how Nickelodeon is planning to launch hundreds of casual games to tie in with their kids shows.

I have always thought that the term “casual games” is a bit of a misnomer. It should really be something more like “lightweight games” or maybe “pausable games.”

What’s really interesting to me though is how critical Nickelodeon sees their gaming outreach to be in terms of their overall business:

“What video is to TV, games are to the Web,” Steve Youngwood, the executive vice president for digital media at Nickelodeon, said in an interview. “For us to be relevant to our audience, that is where we need to put our investment.”

I think he might be right.