Casual Connect Europe ‘a huge success’

The team behind this week’s Casual Connect Europe event in Hamburg have enjoyed their most successful show ever.

That’s according to Casual Games Association managing director and show organiser Jessica Tams, who spoke to Develop about the evolving event, and the market it represents.

"I think the thing about Europe is that there has been very steady and constant growth in the casual space," said Tams. "That’s helped our show really grow and be a huge success. This year we attracted over 1,600 attendees."

Tams has also seen more interest from developer’s in the event, which this year attracted the likes of Trip Hawkins as speakers.

"There’s been a fundamental market shift in the casual space, and that had brought us a new new kind of visitor to the the Casual Connect events," she explained. "We used to see a high number of triple-A publishers five years ago, exploring the market. Now we see an emphasis on games makers in the attendees we attract."

Tams went on to offer insight into how she, from her position at the helm of the Seattle, Kyiv, Hamburg and Singapore Casual Connect events, has seen a shift in the markets the Casual Games Association conferences serve.

"One thing that has surprised people is that despite consolidation in the downloadable casual games space, that market has remained very stable and important," Tams offered.

"Mobile gaming still hasn’t hit saturation yet," she added. "That is very important. There’s still lots of disruption ahead of us in the mobile space, and that means there’s a lot of opportunity. Really smart phone, looking at it globally, is only justovertaking the feature phone market"

"It used to be that everyone laughed at Trip Hawkins when it was the WAP games era and he said mobile gaming was this great thing. Now we can see that he was right all along."

The Casual Games Association recently revealed its new Casual Connect Asia event.