Chris Natsuume, creative director and co-founder of Boomzap Entertainment, is our guest writer this week. You may or may not know it, but Boomzap is the sponsor of Casual Review; the company has been making casual games for three years and Chris for much longer than that (though we will not tell you exactly how long). He gives us his point of view as a developer to let you know how you, casual gamers, can show some love to the makers of your favorite games.

10 Ways to Support Your Favorite Game Developer

Just like sports or music, games are more fun when you become a “fan” of a game developer, and really get into their games. So-called “hardcore gamers” have known this for years, but casual gamers are starting now to flock to affiliate themselves with top studios like Popcap, Sandlot, Hipsoft, and Playfirst. That being said, once you *do* become a fan, how do you support your favorite developer? Wonder no longer. We’ve made a list of the 10 top things you can do to make sure your favorite game developer stays healthy, happy, and making great games specifically for you.

10) Buy Their Games
It may seem like a no-brainer, but you may be surprised to know that 99% of the casual games downoaded never get paid for. People play the free trials, and then move on to the next game. Because of this, developers (especially small indie developers) have a hard time paying the bills. And this gets worse every year, not better, as more and more developers enter the casual game marketplace. You don’t have to buy every game you play, but if you play a game you really like, go ahead and pay for it. Anymore, a casual game isn’t a lot more than the cost of McDonalds for a family of 4, or a few movie tickets. Heck, a lot of people probably spend more than $20 a week on Starbucks alone, and we’re pretty certain that your favorite casual game was more enjoyable than a few cups of overpriced coffee. The simple fact is: there is no better way to ensure that a developer will make more games like the ones you like than to buy a few of them.

9) Stop Pirating
Seriously, you already get a free demo of most games, so you really have no excuse for not buying them. Especially when they are so cheap. While we may have some sympathy for people who don’ want to drop fifty bucks on a game they have never seen at Best Buy, refusing to pony up twenty bucks for something you have already tested for an hour is just… not right. The developers did their part by making a game that kept you interested for an hour and letting you play it free – now it’s time for you to do your part. If you still want to play the game longer, it’s reasonable for them to ask you to pay. Playing any longer is stealing, and just not cool.

8 ) Play New Games
Sick of playing the same game over and over again? That’s because most casual game players are buying the same game over and over again. No decent game developer likes making clones. We’d all rather be making the newest, coolest, most original stuff. But if the money is in making clones, we’ll make clones. It’s really that simple. Want original new games? Play them, Better yet, buy them. As a developer, nothing makes me happier than to see a really new and original game do well - even if I didn’t make it - because now I know there is a market for original games, and I am encouraged to make an original game myself. But as long as almost every game on the Big Fish Top 10 is a Diner Dash or Mystery Case Files clone, it’s hard to get a publisher interested in funding creative new ideas. So they don’t get made.

7) Visit the Developer Site
Most casual game players never go further than the big portals like Big Fish and Real, or maybe a review site like Gamezebo of Casual Review. While we certainly appreciate the traffic, if you really want to get involved in casual games, go have a visit to the developer homepage. When the game starts, the real developer of the game will be in the opening credits. It’s likely the company you haven’t heard of before. If it’s not there, go look in the credits of the game, usually hidden in the options menu. If you’re still not sure, both GameTunnel and Casual Review make a point of listing both the developer and the publisher of all games we review – look there. (Here’s the Casual Review links page: http://www.casualreview.com/links/). Once you have found the developer, Google the name of the company, go visit their homepage, and see what else they have been working on.

6) Tell a Friend
Like the last game you played? Then tell someone! The best way to ensure that new users play a game is through word of mouth advertising. Say something on the forums you hang out in, tell your friends who play games, or even the ones who don’t. Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks are a great way to spread the word. Even adding “Playing Stoneloops!” to your Twiter posts or using a character form the game as an avatar for your MSN messenger is a great way to help developers get the word out. Almost every developer has an “email this game to a friend” or something on their site. Use it, and let people know about these great games.

5) Join their Newsletter
Every reputable developer has a newsletter, and none of them sell their customer lists. Join a few - especially developers you really love. Not only will you hear the best news about the next upcoming game, you’ll hear all kinds of neat news about special features, offers, etc. Developers like Sandlot, Hipsoft, and other great folks often send coupons, sneak peeks, and other offers to their newsletter members, which is pretty cool. Some even let their newsletter subscribers play “beta versions” of upcoming games, which means you can even get involved in the final testing and balancing of a game! Some developers have recently added “fan pages” on Facebook and other sites. Becoming a “fan of” your favorite game or company is a great way to support a developer, and also meet some people who share your interests.

4) Report Bugs
Believe it or not, developers love to hear about things that are broken in their games. Because they can only fix what they know about! If something is broken in a game, drop the developer an email, let them know in the most detail you can manage what happened. If you can replicate the problem (meaning make it happen on purpose) this is great - let the developer know the steps to reproduce the problem, and he’ll have a much easier time solving it. Info about where you got the game, and what kind of system you are running it on (at least the OS, like Vista or XP), is also hugely helpful. Reporting bugs doesn’t just help developers, it helps everyone, because you’re helping to fix a problem lots of other people are likely having - a problem the developer probably does not know about.

3) Comment on Their Site/Forums/Reviews
Developers need you to talk about their games, so they can know what to improve and what to stop doing. The best way to do that is to have candid conversations about their games in whatever forum is appropriate. Game review sites often have forums for users to leave comments. You better believe that developers read these closely, looking for ideas and complaints. Better yet, if the developer has a game-based forum, leave a message there! Nothing gets people excited about a game like a website with a really active community. Not only are you helping the developer, you’re meeting other people and sharing thoughts with people who share your interests.

2) Buy Direct
The amount of profit a casual game developer receives varies radically depending on where you buy it from. It you are buying from one of the large portals, that portal is taking a large part of the profit of that game, often more than half. However, if you buy direct from the developer website, the developer sees nearly all of that money, minus a few charges or credit card companies and bandwidth. In extreme cases, this can be the difference between a developer getting $17 a unit or $3 a unit. Buying one copy from a developer is like buying three or four copies from a portal. Think of it like buying from a farmers market instead of a supermarket. Sure, sometimes you want the variety and convenience of “supermarket shopping”, but when you know what you want, or have a developer you want to support, go right to the source and make your support go further.

1) Talk to Them
Want to make sure your favorite developer keeps making games? Tell them how much you liked their last game, and let them know what you did and didn’t like. Feature you loved? Let them know, so they can expand it. Feature you hated? Tell them why, so they can make it better. Information is power, and every bit of input you can give them helps make better games. I can tell you for a fact that if I get five letters telling me that someone dislikes a feature, that feature is going to be cut or, at the very least, heavily investigated. Casual games are niche, which means you have a lot of power to get what you want by letting the developer know what you like.

And beyond that, to be very honest, sometimes we just need the encouragement. Being an indie developer is pretty hard sometimes, and a lot of people drop out of the industry after only a few years. Heck, every now and then I think about going and getting a “real job” doing something less stressful that pays better. But a few times a month, someone writes Boomzap and tells us how much fun they had playing our games. And every time that happens, it makes my day, and validates what we are doing. Believe it or not, game developers aren’t in it for the money. We do this because we love games, and we love creating joy for a living. When we hear from our users how much fun they are having, it is a greater reward than any other.