Charles F. Moreira

“Everyone is a gamer,” Cyrille Even, chief executive officer of Boonty Asia told 3GSM World Congress Asia 2006.

With offices in New York, Singapore and Paris, Boonty provides hundreds of downloadable action, arcade, classics, fun, puzzle & word, mind, simulation, sports & racing, kids & family and other social casual games from its website at www.boonty.net.

“While 10% of the population play hard core games which generally are violent and sadistic for as long as 10 hours a day, 95% of people including housewives play casual games like Tetris, Zuma, Dinerdash & Luxor for a few minutes to a few hours a day,” said Even.

While hard core games are still the most lucrative, raking in a few tens of billions of dollars a year, the casual game market in the U.S. is worth US$400 million but Even sees a growth in opportunity for casual games in Asia.

“With a projected two billion Internet users in 2011, of which a quarter are in China, 15% in Europe and 12% in the United States, majority Internet use is shifting to Asia, while TV viewing is dropping as more people turn to playing games,” he added.

Even estimates there are over one billion casual game players worldwide and 55% of them are women, compared to hard core game players who are almost exclusively male.

Boonty was established in 2001 and in the first five years it mainly provided single-player games which one tried before one bought but now with more broadband, casual games are becoming multi-player, community driven and use new business models including stored value accounts in game currency, subscriptions, game accessory purchases like US$25 for a tatoo for the player’s avatar and so on and it also lets them customise their 3D characters.

“Basic features of our games are high quality, include chat features and leadboards, game lobbies and so on, while being very engaging,” said Even.

Most of Boonty’s games are designed for PC use, however some run on phones.

Other major casual game suppliers are NHN and Hangame.