What does the rise of casual games mean to the games industry? I submit that on the long run, it might not change a whole lot to how games are made, anyway. As to how they’re distributed and sold, well, I’ll keep that one for another day.

I remember the days when we bought shareware games on five-dollar, five-and-a-quarter inch disks in clear plastic sleeves next to the demo C64 at KMart. Those games were often made by a single individual, sometimes a crew of two or three. There were some good ones and some bad ones.
 

Among the worst pieces of trash out there were some so-called “adventure games” that required you to type specific sequences to move forward (see The Hulk for the Commodore 64 for example; how the hell could I have known that the right move was “bite lip”?). The graphics were actually not that bad, but… I was about to comment on gameplay, but there wasn’t any there to comment on, really.
 

There were some great ones too; as a kid, I was fascinated by planes and piloting, and so for me Zaxxon was simply awesome; the graphics were really cool (really!) and more importantly, the game got my imagination going.
 

Zaxxon really was a pick-up-and-play experience; sure, you needed to cue your TRS-80’s cassette tape to the right position and let the computer load for a while, but once that was done, the game was easy to learn and a single game lasted a short amount of time (for me anyway). Eventually, games with deeper gameplay and better graphics started emerging; from the first Falcon in CGA color, to F/A-18 Interceptor and Falcon on my Amiga, to EF2000 and then Falcon 4 on PC, to H.A.W.X. on consoles and PC. If you’re not a fan of flight simulators, look at how Zork lead to Rogue, to Diablo, to Diablo III or even Oblivion.
 

I’ve been following the playing habits of my girlfriend; she’s what I’d call a hardcore casual gamer. She used to play Flash games off web pages (most notably a Tetris rip-off). Then she transitioned to Zuma on her cell phone, and Playfish’s Word Challenge on Facebook (localized for French). Notice the transition in production value from Flash Tetris clones to Zuma to Word Challenge (oh look, characters). Now look at Microsoft’s 1 vs 100 (threedee characters!). And I’m not even going to mention Wii Sports so we avoid the debate of whether or not that’s actually a casual game.
 

I’m not trying to say that the only thing that’s going on here is better graphics and gameplay; note also the increasing importance and sophistication of social features. The point I am trying to make though is that casual games have already evolved far away from hobbyists’ basements and their production value is quickly going up (watch iPhone/iPad apps follow the same trend). Casual gamers’ tastes and expectations are rising, and successful casual gaming companies are putting up barriers to entry by fostering and answering those expectations.
 

The day when we care about having 1024x1024 normal maps on casual game characters may not be tomorrow; but that day when we have 3D characters in those games that are created by large organized productions with large budgets is not only coming, it’s now.