Session: The Rise Of The Non Combat Or 'Cozy' Game Genre - Athena Peters, Rainbow Unicorn Games

[Music] thank you [Music] we're just going to move on to the next uh presentation now and this is the rise of non-combat or cozy game genre now I'm English I don't drink tea but we are a nation of tea drinkers a cozy is something that keeps the teapot warm if there's a whole genre of games about this I'm very interested to hear about it and also mobile game doctor a unit come up and share your wisdom thanks very much [Applause]

[Music] thank you hi everybody you enjoying your day just relax for a little bit right I've been walking around a lot so I'm gonna stay here and um just chill for a little bit and listen to some good Tunes oh I need to figure out where the flicker is there is okay that might help at some point I'm going to talk about names yes so uh I'm Athena Zoo Peters and um I'm here to talk about uh the rise of cozy games

um I I chose this topic because I happen to be a huge cozy Game Fan um which uh you'll learn as I go through this topic um but I've been really excited to see how much they've been catching on in the last few years and um and how much growth there is and so I'm wanting to share it with all of you so that hopefully um there's other people in this audience that might discover new things um that they hadn't thought about or even just started thinking about you know how they might be able to incorporate some of the aspects of cozy games into their own projects um so we'll start off with like what is a cozy game when I say that you know what does that mean uh so the concept and what we usually talk about when we think about Cozy games is that the intention of the game is to have the player feel relaxed

and happy um while they're playing the game so instead of giving us that Adrenaline Rush right that uh big serotonin boost that we might have with more action games and the intention of a cozy game is to help you just kind of chill out right um meditate and we've seen a lot of like meditation style games so up here I have a few examples of them and as you'll see um in my examples above this is nothing new so Sims 4S or Sims right the franchise has been out for a long time and I would consider that one of the initial cozy games um there's not really big time pressures in Sims there's not like you have to go out and beat up some monsters and have a bunch of flashy things on the screen right it's um people sit in it and they create and they just kind of hang out and come up with their own stories uh with their characters Etc us so this has

been around for a while the next big thing and I think really what's set off the craze is Animal Crossing so Animal Crossing came out and um just so like a little snippet on that I remember I was in a game writing course many years ago and uh in the course we were deciding you know as a group what should our story be about and the mechanics of this game that we were inventing and uh myself and another person that was in the class who happened to also be a woman uh suggested uh to the group that maybe the story is that we need to like explore and collect things and make friends with people and our uh our teacher said nobody wants to play that that sounds awful so boring let's find out

I think Animal Crossing proved that wrong that game that's a great game right um is it for everybody no but it's uh cozy games are for everybody but for those of us that they are for um boy do we love them right um Animal Crossing is 100 that if you haven't played it it's uh yeah um I can spend hours picking up uh shells on a beach especially that beach because I don't come back with like sand in weird places that uh shouldn't be so picking chills up in Animal Crossing far more enjoyable experience even than real life uh this is the way I put it um another one that came out recently uh Disney Dreamlight Valley uh that's huge it's on multiple platforms uh it's a great game it gives you like the RPG aspect of doing Quests for all these uh

you know familiar characters and growing things and decorating your home all in this like warm and cozy environment uh with your favorite Disney characters right um it's I've poured so many hours into that game it's it's really well done um and beautiful and on multiple platforms so that's great another really uh great example and an indie game in this category like versus these other ones that are highly popular uh stardew Valley which was created by a single person originally which is just amazing to me um and and just came out um it just it was widely successful I I don't know very many people have never played stardew Valley or even heard of it um if you haven't I highly recommend going in it is it is a great example of a very well done indie game now that game does have combat so it doesn't mean that like my

category for cozy games um that's not to say a cozy game can't have combat um but it's also not the main goal of that game um it's there and if you want to go do it and you like fighting monsters you can totally have that experience but you can also just chill out in it but I've been Amazed by lately use actually that I'm getting Facebook ads that I could go have therapy in stardew Valley I'm wondering how much I'd actually get out of therapy if I was I mean that just sounds like I'm doing co-op with a therapist and uh we're playing games together I'm not sure that I would actually learn how to like go in and fix my deep-seated issues um one of which is my horrible addiction to Cozy games um all right uh who plays these games so as I said earlier nobody wants to play on these games um right that's not true so uh love this

code uh you know writing for wireframe Helen Johnson notes is a fundamental indicators of a cozy games but they tend to be more inclusive in terms of representing gender sexual identity race and disability through their gameplay characters and stories and that inclusivity is also reflected in the community so if you just look through top videos of cozy games on Tick Tock or YouTube shows um also like my little caveat there's also the wholesome games hashtag you should look up and we'll give you similar things um these content ink creators don't just fit into your stereotypical idea of what a gamer is so for my 20 plus years of experience in the game industry almost every game I worked on I was told that the only demographic that matters is white men ages 18 to 35. that is so ingrained into my brain I could just spit it out over and over and over and over again but that's it that's the only audience that matters those are the only people who

play games and spend money on games all of that that is not true I'm going to tell you that right now there's plenty of data to disprove that those are not the only Gamers and and and those of you who are in the audience that's awesome I don't have a problem with and there's plenty of games for you to play I have loved making many games for you and your demographic uh for years but there are other demographics out there and one of the uphills of cozy games is that a lot of the creators of cozy games are specifically going out and seeking those other audiences right and saying and then in doing so they're also creating more representation for those other audiences so we actually have a better chance of actually seeing ourselves in the games that we're playing um which is uh which is amazing but that doesn't mean that um men don't play these games too they

do you know I know a lot of men who play cozy games and enjoy them I know a lot of men who design them and uh create them um but yeah you also have that broader Market um of like women and non-gen uh you know non-binary folks and uh folks uh you know pocs and people of various sexualities Etc playing these games so it's a great way to like widen your audience to really reach out to them um so why now why why is this like I've told you that um The Sims uh was a cozy game and that's been a long around for a long time but why why am I saying the rise of cozy games right now why are we seeing even more of those on the market um I gesture vaguely at the entire world it's a mess out there it's really exhausting right we're

dealing with uh you know climate crisis and wars and economic crisis and pandemics and health issues um I love this quote the world's a mess and I want all I want to laugh because I can think of how horrible and how beautiful it is right we love the world but it's also a mess and it's sad and it's depressing and um we need something else right we need some break from that we don't like a lot of us craving like at the end of my day my work day where I already had to fight a bunch of deadlines and argue my case and um you know tell my 11 year old for the third time to please put pants on that don't have holes in them um you know I don't want to then go in and have a giant boss fight to deal with also right or get aggravated that I can't get this jumping puzzle right and then then I just want to throw my controller against the wall I'm not

solving my frustration issues that way um this is a lot better this is it with some plants I'm gonna take care of the plants I'm gonna post a message about how I feel today and I'm gonna relax I'm gonna listen to some Lo-Fi music like we're listening to right now and then all of a sudden I get to chance to wide down and also remember why I love this world that I'm so frustrated and and saddened by the fact that we're dealing with the climate change issues and the mess and the horror and all of that I can go to a cozy game and be reminded about what's beautiful about it and what's lovely about it and why I want to have these connections to people and plants and the Earth and all of that so it was kind of World game by Lumi interactive um is amazing it's kind of a

mental health app combined with a little bit of gameplay mechanics and you just you get a plant you can water it like twice a day you send it a message about how you're feeling today there's a little like white samoyed dog that comes in checks in on you you get messages from butterflies it's very sweet um it's not there's not a whole lot of gameplay because the point is that you just check in on it and take a meditative few minutes and then you log out um they were really successful they actually funded via Kickstarter originally so it was uh and then that Kickstarter encouraged investors to go ahead and and give them money for their seed rounds so they had a very successful one of the largest uh game raisers for an Australian development company so definitely something worth looking into and one of those things that makes those of us who are looking

into these alternative game styles really helpful that there is a market here and then investors are really starting to pay attention and notice that these things are important so how popular are they really so we say people want to play this while other people say they don't well but here's the I think the biggest tell of it all animal crossing has sold 42.21 million pieces on switch it is the second largest game sale on switch the only thing that is outsold Animal Crossing is um Mario Kart [Music] that's it that's the only thing that people want to do more on switch is drive around Mario Karts then uh chat with their animal friends and a farm and pick up shells on the beach um so that tells us there is a need

right there's there's a need there's a strong desire and these are very popular when the when the games are developed and they're they're actually given the time and the love and the um you know depth of design of quality of design it they can be giant hits uh like this game other things to know just in the last year we've seen searches for cozy games go up by 155 percent so this is something that people are just really starting to go like I want more of this how do I find it how do I find out more about them how do I find you know these games to play we're seeing communities pop up all over the place on YouTube and Instagram and Tick Tock there's specific to the Cozy games themselves right or somebody will sit down and just chill out with some music and decorate their house and make friends with animals and

you know people are watching that to also chill out with these influencers right um and that's encouraging big Brands to start taking notice and bring in sponsorships and then one of the other great um you know showing how popular they are is that Netflix actually recently purchased fried frogs which make cozy Grove another great little cozy game if you haven't checked it out yet and spycraft's entire like mission statement is to bring happiness to the people who play them I feel like their games um and so you know when a giant publisher like Netflix is like we want an entire Studio who's just going to focus on playing making us these happy games then um you know that tells us that we're really they're becoming a thing to know to notice so I particularly work a lot in Mobile so a lot of the games I was just talking

about or console and PC games um but do these exist on the mobile space um they do actually Kinder world is a mobile game uh but here's just some examples from uh the mobile games right so this isn't just limited to your single player games that you can pay you know you just get that one single payment and then you're done um cozy games in the mobile space can actually monetize really well so here's a nice like just kind of a you know I went through a large list of some of our top grossing mobile games this is in just one month this is just the month of April Candy Crush in April made 85 million dollars or 84 million dollars if you don't want to round it up in one month right and that's like you know that's the one of those games that's been around for a long time people just like

their like Puzzles but maybe you're like hey that's a little too pure into the like pause on my baby that's not quite cozy enough I then give you gardenscapes and homescapes which are all about decorating either inside your house or outside your house it's the exact same game and one on outside and one on the inside and then going through these narrative stories about this uh gentleman who's inherited this house and is decorating it um those games individually make you know 51 and 39 million dollars a month um you know then you've got uh your hidden hidden picture games June June's Journey which is uh this like hidden objects game up here um you know follow along in this little narrative story find hidden pictures uh 10 million dollars a month and uh the latest one that I just started downloading and playing

um because I love myself a dress-up game uh is life makeover life makeover just came over I think it's been out for a little while in Singapore like we're develop it was developed in Singapore and it's been in the Asian market for a little while but this past month is its first month in the U.S market and I made five million dollars and that game is a game about dressing up and decorating your house [Music] that's it you dress up and you decorate your house and you follow along on a story that's not quite translated fully into English it's a little confusing but uh the other gameplay aspects are fantastic and I look forward to seeing how that improves in their localization improves over time so I've just told you all about um these cozy games and how great they are and why we should be doing them and who plays them um how do you get involved in doing that um maybe you aren't in a place where you can specifically go out and make a brand

new cozy game um I would also encourage that you look into what are the aspects of your games that might have other mechanics that could add in cozy mechanics in because here's the thing when we design a game when we design gameplay right we want to give our players even if we're trying to get that adrenaline that action going the Mind needs space to take a pause and a brass before we go back into it right and so even if you're writing an action game designing an action game you can still take some of these mechanics to to put in there so that the pacing of your game isn't too exhausting for your player um and so those are places that we can like think about these mechanics um some of the you know key ones that you can grab from cozygames being things like cultivating Gardens and you know trees that kind of thing friendly in PCS

that people can talk to create relationships with creating just in a timer free environment right where you're not time pressured to do things and these are all things that you can do I gave an example here um so that picture right there is a hobbit party in Lord of the Rings online I was an executive producer for Lord of the Rings online for a couple years and um one of the things I think that game in particular was one of my Discover rays of the Cozy genre with it not even necessarily being that when I took over that game I realized that a lot of the things that players were asking for wasn't more quests it wasn't more skills and fighting or Monsters to battle they wanted a new Festival ground they went at a stage to hold host their festivals they wanted new outfits to

change into when they were posting their festivals they wanted new instruments to play while holding their festivals we had an entire community of Lord of the Rings dedicated players who've been playing that game for 10 years and will probably never stop playing that game and all they want is a wonderful environment to play pretend in and have hobbit parties and how wonderful is that don't we all and I think we could all use a hobbit party every now and then right let's chill out the sunshine bare feet eat food maybe dance if you want eat more food so this brings us into like what am I working on and I'm working on a cozy game for the mobile market one of the things that we're doing actually is creating two apps so we're creating one app that's just a reader app so similar

to your magazine apps your webtoons Etc that just tells the story of our stories in our world it's a newspaper from our world and um and we are we're encouraging this cozy aspect of just being able to like sit in front of the fire whether it's the one you put on your TV or a real one I'm not judging and like read some stories that let you kind of go into this pretend place where you know you can get to know various characters and you know various aspects of the world and and ReDiscover this is an alternate history so ReDiscover history through a more uh equal lens as we've changed a lot of the history um to make it more uh accommodating to the diversity of our

actual world and then from that we'll be creating a full 3D game for the mobile that combines a lot of these things that we've been talking about in cozy games so dress up and um you know house decorating and cultivation in your Gardens as you are a socialite who is making their way through Society making sure that you're dressed up correctly for the right ball and establishing your state and growing that over time um in and getting to know characters and Romancing them regardless of what your gender identity or sexuality or um you know racial uh aspect or religion might be all of this is um we have all of these things available to folks regardless of that so um that's kind of like how we rainbow unicorn games are working

through our own cozy aspects it's just a quick summary who am I this person who's been talking to you um I'm a fantasy Peters uh I am the CEO and co-founder of rainbow unicorn games I also work as the senior product Management Consultant at mobile game doctor I've been in the industry for 20 plus years I started in a massive multiplayer games a long time ago with shadowbane who's been the first game I ever worked on I spent seven years working for Warner Brothers as an executive producer on Lord of the Rings Online Dungeons and Dragons online Batman Arkham underworld and Game of Thrones mobile um and and yeah so that's what I do if you need to reach out to me I can find you can find me most places as Athena Z Peters LinkedIn Etc I'm happy to talk cozygames mobile development Etc anytime all right we've

got like less than a minute but if anybody has any questions I'm happy to take them yeah I think that's some great questions follow up has anyone got a question [Music] there's a mic coming up foreign you mentioned like there was a meditative aspect to some of these games so have you seen like an increased role with like mental health professionals and helping to design some of the experiences in the game and like how has that I guess has that yeah yeah um I've actually been seeing a lot of apps and games that are developed with that in mind where they're actually a combination of mental health professionals with game designers creating games for that purpose to help people with meditation and health aspects but I also highly recommend like if that's something that your studio can look into and like I think getting a health professional a therapist to work

alongside your game designers um to kind of really think about you know what opportunities are you giving your players is is really powerful right and I think it's something I'd love to see the industry moving into more right anymore I think we've got time for maybe one more okay I've got a final wrap-up question yeah do you think the growth in cozy gaming has got anything to do with the rise of ASMR content that's come through social media I think they're very similar right because I think that also is that like that calming sound idea right and it comes from the same place of us all feeling a little overwhelmed by the world needing someplace to just kind of needing something to bring us down and to meditate I think the ASMR like movement has come from a similar yeah space totally cool thank you awesome thank you very much Athena

[Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] foreign