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The "social" games space is ripe for revolution. There's no fun there, nothing virtuous in what they consider gameplay. You don't even play with your friends, s

The "social" games space is ripe for revolution. There's no fun there, nothing virtuous in what they consider gameplay. You don't even play with your friends, so much as exploit them for personal gain. It's a very cynical view of how to spend time with people. When the leading social games company is led by a guy like Pincus, what more can you expect?

eavc 16y ago
The high-profile "social" games are just really, super casual games that can be attached to something like Facebook. The fact that they're not fun is part of why they are successful. You're just kind of trivially there, so you don't feel dorky and you don't feel like you're wasting too much time, only a moment. All online multi-player video games are "social" games, but most of them aren't hyper-casual and can't be bolted on as a distraction to Facebook. Therefore, they feel a little dorky, a little like wasting time, and way more fun.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Yes, and that's an important observation. I'm not willing to accept that it's impossible to create a legitimately enjoyable game experience in the confines of the short attention span Facebook model, though. Scrabble, for example, lends itself perfectly to asynchronous, light, casual play (cf Scrabulous, Words with Friends). But it's legitimately fun at the same time. You're rewarded for imaginative approaches to solving problems. You can play with no skill or lots, but either way, you'll always find ways to get better. Most important: You're genuinely spending time with your friends. Sharing an experience that creates a memory. This is a big deal. This is missing from almost every other pseudo-social game. True story: I was job hunting, someone gave me a lead at Slide. Awesome guy, gave me good advice. But as soon as I found out I had to be conversant on the subject of a "game" called "SuperPoke Pets!" I vomited a little in my mouth and moved on to other options. Social game companies: Stop making horseshit, start building something fun. It's possible. It's just a little bit harder.
  - teej 16y ago
    Please remember that what you find enjoyable could possibly be different than what 40-year-old moms in flyover country find enjoyable. Also realize the latter group is what made Oprah, the Wii, and Zynga billion dollar businesses.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      Anyone who takes enjoyment from exploiting their friends in the furtherance of a glorified spreadsheet needs a hug, a trip to the ice cream parlor, and a meatspace game of Uno. There may be a baseline pseudo-fun available in the current crop of social games. Most social games, though, are more interested in bare metal compulsion than truly meritorious, universally recognizable fun. You're really willing to sit there and tell me that you're comfortable with social game evolution stopping right now? This stuff really is sufficiently fun for you? There's pandering to flyover country and then there's making something good. One will get you Oprah and Zynga. The other gets you Inception and Mad Men. One is quick cash, the other is integrity. I'd rather take a smaller payday from people I like and respect than make crap.
      - mattdeboard 16y ago
        Sincere question: Does that make you better than those who enjoy the "quick cash" entertainment? FWIW I think the answer to that is affirmative, but then I'm a walking example of confirmation bias on this topic.
      - danilocampos 16y ago
        @mattdeboard As a sincere answer... not really. All it makes me is better for me. And people who have a concurring viewpoint are also better for me inasmuch as we have shared values and my idealism (my self-righteousness?) makes values important to me.
      - teej 16y ago
        > You're really willing to sit there and tell me that you're comfortable with social game evolution stopping right now? This stuff really is sufficiently fun for you? You seem to have a great vision for what social games could be. I cannot urge this enough - please go build that vision now. The industry needs innovation badly. There are huge profits to the person who can pull this off, and I hope that person is you. But my message is this - Build Stuff People Want. Many people have fallen into this trap, myself included. I thought I could buck the trend, out-innovate Zynga, and make a truly fun game. But in the end I failed because I spent too much time in an ivory tower making the perfect game, and no time making an enjoyable product. A great analogy is engineering brilliant software, but failing to build something people want to buy. Inception was a success because Christopher Nolan is able to carefully balance the things that make a great movie with the things that make great ticket sales. It wasn't the best movie ever, and it wasn't the best selling movie ever. But a careful blend of both lead to success. No one in social games today can do this. I want that to change. To think that one can simply "made something good" is a fallacious line of thinking along the lines of "build it, and they will come". Fundamental understanding of what your audience wants is so critical. I'm not saying Zynga makes good games. I'm not saying you should follow in Zynga's footsteps. I'm saying you need to understand what Zynga does right if you want to beat them. And if you think all Zynga does is "be evil" and "buy ads", you haven't been paying close enough attention.
- mattmaroon 16y ago
  As I said somewhere buried in this thread, it's not fair to say Farmville isn't fun. It is only fair to say Farmville isn't fun for you. It is fun to many people. Not me FWIW (I live next to farms) but I've put a lot of time and effort into figuring out why, and I at least get it. There's more than strict compulsion, though compulsion is present in every fun game as well. Compulsion is simply operant conditioning, and this happens as surely in golf, chess, or Scrabble as it does Farmville. It is important to distinguish between Facebook games and social games. Social games are massive, innovative, and at least one is orders of magnitude more successful than Farmville. Facebook games have severe technological limitations (web and Flash are still, right now, quite limiting, making something as immersive as WoW far from possible). They have clear-cut incentives both coming down from Facebook (API, platform rules) and coming up from customers (as you mentioned, their attention span is low, largely because they're at work).
mattdeboard 16y ago
What is unfortunate from my perspective (as a former WoW/EQ player) is that "real" social games are now besting Zynga at its own game: turning away from generating content for gameplay's sake and instead (again in my opinion) turning these games into cash farms. Morally? Well, what's morality in business if you're not using child labor, robbing a nation of its natural resources or engaging in otherwise clearly reprehensible activities? I don't make any claims about morality. It's just out-and-out dumb to blame companies for seeking money-makers for its investors (or parent company, for their investors). However, what Zynga has done has shown exactly how stupid the game-playing public is, en masse, and how ripe they are for exploitation for just a little bit of time-wasting. One can almost hear the boardroom discussions: "Look, developers, just take Zynga's model for 'game development,' scale it up for us and keep doing it until we have their numbers." Irony or coincidence? I keep getting the two confused.

eavc 16y ago

The high-profile "social" games are just really, super casual games that can be attached to something like Facebook. The fact that they're not fun is part of why they are successful. You're just kind of trivially there, so you don't feel dorky and you don't feel like you're wasting too much time, only a moment. All online multi-player video games are "social" games, but most of them aren't hyper-casual and can't be bolted on as a distraction to Facebook. Therefore, they feel a little dorky, a little like wasting time, and way more fun.

danilocampos 16y ago
Yes, and that's an important observation. I'm not willing to accept that it's impossible to create a legitimately enjoyable game experience in the confines of the short attention span Facebook model, though. Scrabble, for example, lends itself perfectly to asynchronous, light, casual play (cf Scrabulous, Words with Friends). But it's legitimately fun at the same time. You're rewarded for imaginative approaches to solving problems. You can play with no skill or lots, but either way, you'll always find ways to get better. Most important: You're genuinely spending time with your friends. Sharing an experience that creates a memory. This is a big deal. This is missing from almost every other pseudo-social game. True story: I was job hunting, someone gave me a lead at Slide. Awesome guy, gave me good advice. But as soon as I found out I had to be conversant on the subject of a "game" called "SuperPoke Pets!" I vomited a little in my mouth and moved on to other options. Social game companies: Stop making horseshit, start building something fun. It's possible. It's just a little bit harder.
- teej 16y ago
  Please remember that what you find enjoyable could possibly be different than what 40-year-old moms in flyover country find enjoyable. Also realize the latter group is what made Oprah, the Wii, and Zynga billion dollar businesses.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    Anyone who takes enjoyment from exploiting their friends in the furtherance of a glorified spreadsheet needs a hug, a trip to the ice cream parlor, and a meatspace game of Uno. There may be a baseline pseudo-fun available in the current crop of social games. Most social games, though, are more interested in bare metal compulsion than truly meritorious, universally recognizable fun. You're really willing to sit there and tell me that you're comfortable with social game evolution stopping right now? This stuff really is sufficiently fun for you? There's pandering to flyover country and then there's making something good. One will get you Oprah and Zynga. The other gets you Inception and Mad Men. One is quick cash, the other is integrity. I'd rather take a smaller payday from people I like and respect than make crap.
    - mattdeboard 16y ago
      Sincere question: Does that make you better than those who enjoy the "quick cash" entertainment? FWIW I think the answer to that is affirmative, but then I'm a walking example of confirmation bias on this topic.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      @mattdeboard As a sincere answer... not really. All it makes me is better for me. And people who have a concurring viewpoint are also better for me inasmuch as we have shared values and my idealism (my self-righteousness?) makes values important to me.
    - teej 16y ago
      > You're really willing to sit there and tell me that you're comfortable with social game evolution stopping right now? This stuff really is sufficiently fun for you? You seem to have a great vision for what social games could be. I cannot urge this enough - please go build that vision now. The industry needs innovation badly. There are huge profits to the person who can pull this off, and I hope that person is you. But my message is this - Build Stuff People Want. Many people have fallen into this trap, myself included. I thought I could buck the trend, out-innovate Zynga, and make a truly fun game. But in the end I failed because I spent too much time in an ivory tower making the perfect game, and no time making an enjoyable product. A great analogy is engineering brilliant software, but failing to build something people want to buy. Inception was a success because Christopher Nolan is able to carefully balance the things that make a great movie with the things that make great ticket sales. It wasn't the best movie ever, and it wasn't the best selling movie ever. But a careful blend of both lead to success. No one in social games today can do this. I want that to change. To think that one can simply "made something good" is a fallacious line of thinking along the lines of "build it, and they will come". Fundamental understanding of what your audience wants is so critical. I'm not saying Zynga makes good games. I'm not saying you should follow in Zynga's footsteps. I'm saying you need to understand what Zynga does right if you want to beat them. And if you think all Zynga does is "be evil" and "buy ads", you haven't been paying close enough attention.
mattmaroon 16y ago
As I said somewhere buried in this thread, it's not fair to say Farmville isn't fun. It is only fair to say Farmville isn't fun for you. It is fun to many people. Not me FWIW (I live next to farms) but I've put a lot of time and effort into figuring out why, and I at least get it. There's more than strict compulsion, though compulsion is present in every fun game as well. Compulsion is simply operant conditioning, and this happens as surely in golf, chess, or Scrabble as it does Farmville. It is important to distinguish between Facebook games and social games. Social games are massive, innovative, and at least one is orders of magnitude more successful than Farmville. Facebook games have severe technological limitations (web and Flash are still, right now, quite limiting, making something as immersive as WoW far from possible). They have clear-cut incentives both coming down from Facebook (API, platform rules) and coming up from customers (as you mentioned, their attention span is low, largely because they're at work).

mattdeboard 16y ago

What is unfortunate from my perspective (as a former WoW/EQ player) is that "real" social games are now besting Zynga at its own game: turning away from generating content for gameplay's sake and instead (again in my opinion) turning these games into cash farms. Morally? Well, what's morality in business if you're not using child labor, robbing a nation of its natural resources or engaging in otherwise clearly reprehensible activities? I don't make any claims about morality. It's just out-and-out dumb to blame companies for seeking money-makers for its investors (or parent company, for their investors). However, what Zynga has done has shown exactly how stupid the game-playing public is, en masse, and how ripe they are for exploitation for just a little bit of time-wasting. One can almost hear the boardroom discussions: "Look, developers, just take Zynga's model for 'game development,' scale it up for us and keep doing it until we have their numbers." Irony or coincidence? I keep getting the two confused.