Seriously, somebody just give this guy a freaking medal already. James Portnow is one of those darling industry people who regularly and uncontrollably spouts nice big essays of complete sense and logic for the rest of humankind to benefit from.
I’ve always been a little bit peeved about uptight developers who look down their noses at the casual games industry. So I’m glad to see that in a recent Gamasutra opinion piece, James has made some points which are hopefully a bit more coherent and thought-provoking than my diatribes of blustering and harrumphing.
To put it simply: the “casual” and “serious” game markets are both a pretty big deal nowadays, yet there still seems to be little to no crossover in terms of skill pools or even interpersonal networking. It’s like we have two completely different camps of very talented game developers that have built a big fat wall between them and now spend most of their time growling at each other and throwing rotten fruit. This is how people prefer to interact as opposed to, say, working together constructively.
Admittedly, I’ve attached a bit more fire and brimstone to this whole thing than is necessary, so maybe you’re better off just reading the piece itself. I’m also not going to be a dick by pointing out that while some people a couple of years back sneered at the concept of a powerful casual industry emerging, I totally saw it coming. Because that sort of self-aggrandisation is really quite beneath me.
I’m off to play some Peggle. I hope that I’ve been preaching to the choir.