The Year of the LOLz Minigame Collections


Image from www.videogamecritic.net

2007 was the year that Nintendo's "Blue Ocean" strategy became a casual gamer tidal wave. Attracting new players, families, and most famously, senior citizens, the Wii and DS systems were the recipients of dozens of short, simple game collections (such as Carnival Games for Wii or Clubhouse Games for DS).

As for what games were successful, it seems that game developers have a hard time reading the tea leaves. Boogie, EA's major effort on Wii for the fall of 2007, flopped. It also suffered from something all of these games suffer from: poor critical reception.

Boogie may or may not have been a fun game. Most people I know who played it really like it, actually. EA still hopes that it will be a "slow burn:" industry speak for a game that doesn't move big units early, but moves some units consistently every week (this is what made Phoenix Wright a big success in America).

A big winner in the casual game sweepstakes was Global Star's Carnival Games. Every week it would appear in the top five since it was released, even hitting number one in the charts for Wii. Simply put, it was one of the best selling titles of 2007, joining the ranks of "Cars" as "big sellers that make the naval gazing press scratch their heads."

The success of Carnival Games must have been the novelty of doing something that is normally done in an arcade or carnival at home. Players thrilled to the realistic depictions of classics like Skeeball, probably inducing waves of "why didn't we think of that?" from developers across the globe. In this blogger's opinion, the success the Wii's motion controlled games often rests on finding activities that are fun, but normally done away from home. Hence the success of Wii Sports (don't need to get bowling shoes and go to an alley) and Carnival Games (don't need to go to a Dave and Buster's just to play Skeeball).

On the DS side, players got the same assault of casual titles, but with a fair mix of "gamer's games" as well. Simply put, the DS had fully hit its stride as a gaming platform in 2006, and 2007 was another year on the gravy train of the dominant handheld. To hear a gamer on a message board proclaim that the DS doesn't have games is to say that the sun won't set and rise.

Yet the DS benefits from its casual audience as well. Majesco reported in early 2007 that its revenue forecast was going up, thanks to sales of games like Cooking Mama on DS.

Finally, even Microsoft tips its hat to the mighty Nintendo handheld juggernaught, in the form of announcing Viva Pinata, their casual game developed by Rare, will be released for the DS. The release date is still TBA.