Post for the night: the wall of alienation between the “big” and “small” game industries

Read about the conflict between the two segments of the gaming industry in the post of the App2Top editor.

A few months ago, we talked with the director of the Casual Games Association, Jessica Tams. When asked by App2Top how much the casual industry has changed over the past seven years, this cute petite brunette, who has been holding Casual Connect for the past year in a row, proudly noted that today the perception of such projects has changed within the industry itself. If, for example, no one in the “big” industry considered match 3 to be full-fledged games before, then today, looking at the results of Candy Crush Saga, everyone dreams of making them. 

But is this really the case?

Has the high wall between the two industries been scrapped? 

Talking about possible ways to monetize endless runners, Mikhail Katkoff lamented that many game designers of mobile projects, instead of creating good mobile games, are developing an ideal game that they would play if they didn’t have a PC or console.

More than once or twice I have come across developers of mobile projects who have stated that there are no good games in mobile app stores, with the exception of a couple of titles (usually hardcore, like Deus Ex: The Fall and Room), that all “farms” and match 3 are garbage, and at the same time For some reason, these same people continued to develop their own time managers. 

The other day I invited the leading Russian gaming publications and portals to the February Winter Nights. The owner of one of the leading sites in Russia in terms of the number of readers replied to me that the topic of mobile games is not so relevant at the moment to send authors to St. Petersburg.

Again, if you look at the list of the best games of 2013 of various both Western and domestic gaming media, then with very rare exceptions (Kanobu, thanks for the wonderful top), there are almost no mobile projects in them. 

What is it but a wall of alienation between the “big” and “small” industries?

Yes, to some extent Jessica is right, the industry of casual projects, to which most mobile games belong, began to look a little differently. Take a closer look. But, as it seems to me, many of both hardcore developers and hardcore players have not lost their disdain.

Despite the fact that in terms of mechanics and balance, most midcore games will give odds to “adult” role-playing and strategic titles, despite a number of highly artistic projects bordering on a full-fledged art house, despite the millions of dollars that top games earn daily for months, there is still a gap in the heart of the industry.

Is there no tragedy in this?

Does the “big” industry put itself back into a narrow niche with the mentioned neglect? 

And is it worth breaking this wall of alienation at all? Or will it resolve itself in a few years?