Posts tagged casual 
NPD breaks down Heavy Core, Light Core, Casual PC players
Of the US population age 9 and older, 37 percent of people play games on the PC, the NPD reports in its new study, Understanding PC Gaming: 2014. PC players game for an average of 6.4 hours per week. NPD breaks PC players into three groups, Heavy Core, Light Core and Casual. Heavy Core players p...
Zynga co-founder Justin Waldron strikes out on his own again
Zynga, formed in 2007, lost one of its eight co-founders today. In a post on Facebook, Justin Waldron says he'll once again pursue personal projects. "It's incredibly humbling to have worked with such a talented team. I am grateful to have had the chance to help build a company that touched so m...
Yahoo buys social gaming software company PlayerScale
While Yahoo was in the news recently for its acquisition of Tumblr, it was also busy buying up another company this week: PlayerScale. PlayerScale's CEO Jesper Jensen announced the company's acquisition on its official site. Founded in 2011, PlayerScale creates software that aids developers in s...
FarmVille 2 updates Zynga's cow-clicker (but not too much)
FarmVille. Just the name likely conjures up some vivid thoughts and opinions in the minds of gamers everywhere. As the flagship casual social game for both Facebook and Zynga, FarmVille can't help but be a lightning rod for debates about gaming's audiences, game design, and the role that video game...
Amazon announces 'Amazon Game Studios,' starts with a Facebook game
Amazon's evolving from a digital marketplace into a content creator as well, today announcing its first game development studio – "Amazon Game Studios" – with the launch of its first game, "Living Classics." The company's starting somewhat unremarkably with a hidden object game (which ...
Cave to put projects on hold, refocus on social gaming
It's easy to forget sometimes that video games are a business, as well as a means of artistic expression and recreation. Even developers like Cave, whose sterling reputation is due almost entirely to its long-time devotion to the incredibly esoteric bullet-hell genre, have to make tough decisions...
Arkadium and Microsoft Studios sign multi-year publishing deal
Casual and social game developer Arkadium has inked a deal with Microsoft Studios to develop exclusive titles across multiple, unnamed platforms. The agreement is described as a "multi-year, multi-game partnership" between the two companies, though exactly how many years the deal will span is unc...
Former Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta now former Zynga executive
Owen Van Natta has resigned from his position as an Executive Vice President of Business Operations at casual/social gaming megalith Zynga, according to a regulatory filing released Thursday. While Natta maintains his position on the company's board of directors, his involvement in the developer'...
Report: 'Casual' interest in portable gaming systems down 29 percent
Got your grain of salt ready? Good! Survey and statistical analysis firm Cowen and Company has published the results of a survey that suggests "casual" gamer interest in dedicated handheld gaming systems has declined by 29 percent over the last 5 years. 37 percent of people polled play games on a...
We want to play Peter Molydeux's 'CasCore' prototype
One of our favorite Twitter accounts, @petermolydeux, is a constant source of entertainment, but now he's taken it to the next level. Rather than leave it up to us to imagine his insane gaming ideas, he's gone ahead and created a video proposal for CasCore, a game that marries the casual gamepl...
