It’s getting a wee bit repetitive writing about casual game companies (see here, here, here, here and here for our coverage). Doesn’t anybody have some other kind of business plan? Sure, it’s a great opportunity to go after the market of people who are just discovering simple “casual” games that don’t take a lot of time to play. But it feels like there are too many start-ups in casual games, just as there were too many mobile games companies.
Thankfully, Greg Costikyan, who has 30 years of experience designing games, has hardcore games alongside the casual ones in the portfolio of his independent developer games site, Manifesto Games. The games — either casual or hardcore — are the result of “indie” game designers. That is, they were created by independent developers who are more like hobbyists or under-capitalized professionals trying to break into the inner circle of the game industry. Costikyan wants to create the Miramax of digitally distributed games and is raising a round of funding, VentureBeat has learned.
To be honest, I love the idea but I’m not sure this company can pull it off. It’s been trying to get off the ground for a few years, with visitors to the site a couple thousand a day. If there were justice in this world, this company ought to be able to raise money. Hey, if investors want to throw money at casual games, Costikyan deserves a few million to launch version 2.0 of his company. I’m not sure that will happen. As much as I admire Costykian’s intentions, I have to classify his effort as a long shot.
Three-year-old Manifesto Games is the anti-Electronic Arts if there ever was one. Its name came from a rant that Costikyan gave periodically at the Game Developers Conference. CEO Costikyan says the company’s manifesto is to “create for games what indie music and film provide: an audience and market for creativity and individual vision, defying the big publishers’ mediocrity and hype.” Read the rest of this entry »
