SharkJumping

I flew to NY last week on Song, Delta's "cool" sub-brand - I normally fly United, but Song was significantly cheaper and I had wanted to try out their concept, including the entertainment options.  Outside of each leg being late, the flight was just fine, but the best part of it for me was the casual game set up.  In addition to Dish TV, some on-demand movies and a pretty strong music on demand solution, there were 11 casual games available for a $5 purchase per game.  It wasn't obvious, but it looks to me like the games (and a specific multiplayer trivia game) were provided through a partnership with eFlyte, which has an almost non-functioning web site so I can't comment on it myself.  The 2 bigger brand name games were Bejeweled and Insaniquarium, but there were a host of other less known ones available to customers.

What I love about the casual game business is the idea that almost any device today can provide the game experience - could be the Sony PSP, a TV set-top box, a mobile phone, or in this case, an on-board entertainment system.  I walked up and down the aisle seeing who had purchased the casual games - I'd say it was in the low single digit percentage, but some of that was due to the lack of free play option ( a key part of the success of casual games when there are fewer brands) and some of that was probably just the nature of the business - it appeals to a certain type of user and there were a lot of other entertainment options.  In the end, it's all gravy since the core business is on the PC, but this is another great example of ways to extend success in the core business to another distribution channel - there are a lot of ways to play this game.