The International Game Developers Association Los Angeles Chapter has begun a reboot to revitalize the chapter, encourage networking and have a monthly educational gathering for members. Last night was the first of monthly meetings on the second Thursday of the month.

The meeting was held at Rich Media Institute in Venice and had 100 attendees. There was a roundtable discussion called “Beyond Facebook and the iPhone: The Future of Casual Game Development” and had four panelists including Quinn Dunki – Founder, One Girl One Laptop Productions; Zack Ford – Co-Founder & CTO, Zero G Games; Christopher Ulm – CEO, Appy Entertainment; and Cynthia Woll – Founder & CEO, Cul de Sac Studios.

One of the most interesting things I heard last night from the panel is “Facebook is an MMO,” but it’s a “stealth” game—one where users don’t really know they’re playing a game. They think they’re just checking in on their Facebook friends, checking their crops in Farmville, networking or socializing, etc. And this concept of “stealth” games is very good for the video game industry to expand our market and get more and more people playing our products and paying our salaries.

A long-held definition of casual games is “no commitment.” You don’t have to commit hours of time to play the game. You can spend five minutes between other tasks just for a short break.

I don’t believe that definition is still true. Games like aquarium or environment building may be considered “casual,” but they require a commitment to keep the gameplay going. Your fish, your crops, your village will die if you don’t keep up on maintenance and such.

I sincerely believe the future of casual game development is very exciting and will be extremely lucrative for the game industry. And what’s even more exciting is the potential expansion of the industry in so many ways. We’re going to start partnering with even more facets of the technology industry to bring gameplay to every mobile device, every social networking site, to many more product and brand sites as well as to new hardware coming out such as tablets and other computing devices.

Casual game development also will bring a lot of new blood to the industry—more women, more types of artists and programmers, more marketers and PR people as well as senior management from the channels we’re moving into. This means more opportunity for jobs as well as more opportunity for current game industry vets to expand their skillsets and portfolios.

I’ve been a “hardcore casual gamer” for going on 20 years, but my 13+ years in the industry has mainly been focused on AAA console titles. It’s every game worker’s dream to make the kinds of games they like to play. I’d like to move into casual game development and use the experience I’ve gained to expand that market and its offerings.

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