The DeanBeat: Casual Connect shows that the game business is a daily Darwinian struggle

The Casual Connect game conference was a big affair this week in San Francisco, and it was a bellwether for the health of the game business. To me, it showed that the Golden Age of Gaming is still happening, but the industry is dividing into a small group of winners and a large group of losers. Survival in the game industry is a daily Darwinian struggle. Developers and publishers are always struggling against huge odds, and one of their worst enemies is the rising cost of user acquisition, or acquiring new players in games.

While many parts of the game industry are growing, and there were plenty of big parties to celebrate the good times, I saw some relative weakness of what was once the heart of the game business: San Francisco and greater Silicon Valley. The Bay Area has been home to pioneering companies throughout the history of gaming, including Atari and Electronic Arts. And while it still has a unique advantage as the nexus of technology innovation and gaming, it’s also clear that this region is going through a time of consolidation.