Social networks make friends with games
Facebook, MySpace gave birth to unusual games and new players around the world.
Before playing the game “Who Has the Biggest Brain?” You must ask yourself: “Do I really want to know the answer to this question?”
No matter what, this is a game in which you pass a series of tests and which then with the mercilessness of a high school teacher evaluates your intellect based on your answers. Moreover, since If you play this game on Facebook , then your friends and relatives will be able to compare the size of your gray matter with yours.
And while you are convincing yourself that you are a genius, there you can find out the cruel truth - that is, You and your friends may find that your stupid as a stone neighbor at the institute's dormitory has a brain like a computer, while you have a brain less than a Neanderthal (I speak not from my own experience ..)
')
Such is the harsh truth of games on social networks.
But ask any fan of Scrabble and he will tell you that now one of the coolest places to play is not consoles or portable gaming devices, but sites like Facebook and Myspace . Whether it is a “Biggest Brain” puzzle, a card game like “Texas Hold'Em” or a “Friends for Sale” game in which you buy and sell your friends as animals - social networks offer hundreds of gaming applications that you can use for free. to play More importantly, these networks allow people to seamlessly combine games and chatting with friends in a single digital shell, which even tech viewers can use.
And of course, last month at Casual Connect , a conference dedicated to the industry of casual games , games on social networks were a topic that everyone seemed to talk about. Many representatives of the business discussed how these fruitful networks for computer games open a new audience and give rise to a completely new kind of games in the world.
Kristian Segerstrale, the executive director and co-founder of the gaming company Playfish , even called social networks "the greatest gaming platform ever to be made."
Everything is changing
Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga , a fast-growing gaming company, emphasizes that games are inherently used for social purposes - like in the past, when board and card games existed in the real world and when people gathered around real tables with real friends to play.
With the advent of computer games, games pushed for solitude. And although Interent allowed the games to regain their social roots, Pincus noted that the inconvenience of finding friends online for the game was a deterrent for most people.
But with the advent of Facebook and MySpace , all your friends are now online in one convenient place. “And what we are starting to see now is that it takes less and less effort and that in one or two clicks you can be already in the game, and more importantly, being in a game with someone you know - everything unexpected has a habit of coming with an explosive effect, ”says Pincus.
Indicators are equally impressive. For example, the game “Texas Hold'Em” from Zynga, which is on Facebook , MySpace , Bebo and Hi5 , is played by 900 thousand players per day. In the meantime, the Biggest Brain game from Playfish has about 3 million players per month on Facebook .
The fact that players can easily find games that they like has in part made it possible to start playing quickly and easily. Games in social networks are usually distributed through "word of mouth", because friends invite each other to play a game. And it's great for game developers.
“Here you are putting something free for people to eat and they’re already hearing a rumor,” says Bret Terrill , a blogger covering games on social networks. "And this is kind of amazing."
Completely different platform
During a lecture at Casual Connect , Segerstrale from Playfish told game developers to “think of social networks as a completely new platform. You should not approach this market as a traditional video game market. For games on social networks, a completely different criterion of success. "
He says that for the popularity of games on Facebook , they should not only be easy to get started, but should initially be more interesting to play with a friend or friends than one. To do this, all Playfish games, such as Biggest Brain and Word Challenge, have a high score table that shows pictures of your friends and their points compared to yours. Tracking each other’s accomplishments is a really interesting (although sometimes humiliating) part of the game.
Terrill points to another important component of success - this is what is called “asynchronous gameplay” when you and your friends do not need to be online at the same time to play together. The game "Scrabulous", for example, has achieved success, because it allows players to take turns to play such a game as "Scrabble" in their free time.
Bite me
“I think it’s important to give users interesting opportunities to communicate with each other,” says Blake Commagere, the developer of such games: “Zombies”, “Vampires”, “Werewolves” and “Slayers”.
Like many developers making social networking apps, Commagere is a single boyfriend working at home on a small budget. A fan of horror movies, he made the game “Zombies” the previous summer over several weekends.
His games can now be found on MySpace , Facebook , Bebo and Hi5 and they have been played over 25 million times - despite the fact that they do not have any unusual effects and require control using complex key combinations.
When it comes to social media games, “If game design is interesting and the game really uses the fact that you play with friends, then it doesn't matter what graphics are there,” said Terrill.
Indeed, like many games on social networks, Commagere games are simple to look at and manage - you select friends from your network and click on their picture to “bite them” (so you invite them to play with you). So you get your own zombie, then level it up by engaging in fights with other zombies and feeding your friends to them.
“My games will not be able to live outside social networks,” commagere says.
Games like “Zombies” change the definition of a game, because The developer creates a new kind of gameplay that uses a unique social environment.
Segerstrale points to the game Friends for Sale, which allows you to buy and sell friends on the stock exchange making bets - a vivid example of the innovation that has appeared in social networks.
“This shows that you can throw out a book on game design and still succeed,” he says.
Looking for the right formula
But working in a new direction has to face special problems.
Trying to figure out which gameplay will be interesting in this environment is one of these problems. Plus, he and others note that MySpace and Facebook are constantly evolving and changing.
Making money on these games is also a problem. Commagere, like many developers, earns on advertising, which is shown in his games. And although he does not say how much he earns, he says that this is enough for life. At the same time, Playfish earns both advertising and selling special opportunities in the game for a fee. In addition, others charge a small fee for virtual items that can be used in the game.
“I think we all kind of experiment, trying to find the right formula,” says Commagere.
Before playing the game “Who Has the Biggest Brain?” You must ask yourself: “Do I really want to know the answer to this question?”
No matter what, this is a game in which you pass a series of tests and which then with the mercilessness of a high school teacher evaluates your intellect based on your answers. Moreover, since If you play this game on Facebook , then your friends and relatives will be able to compare the size of your gray matter with yours.
And while you are convincing yourself that you are a genius, there you can find out the cruel truth - that is, You and your friends may find that your stupid as a stone neighbor at the institute's dormitory has a brain like a computer, while you have a brain less than a Neanderthal (I speak not from my own experience ..)
')
Such is the harsh truth of games on social networks.
But ask any fan of Scrabble and he will tell you that now one of the coolest places to play is not consoles or portable gaming devices, but sites like Facebook and Myspace . Whether it is a “Biggest Brain” puzzle, a card game like “Texas Hold'Em” or a “Friends for Sale” game in which you buy and sell your friends as animals - social networks offer hundreds of gaming applications that you can use for free. to play More importantly, these networks allow people to seamlessly combine games and chatting with friends in a single digital shell, which even tech viewers can use.
And of course, last month at Casual Connect , a conference dedicated to the industry of casual games , games on social networks were a topic that everyone seemed to talk about. Many representatives of the business discussed how these fruitful networks for computer games open a new audience and give rise to a completely new kind of games in the world.
Kristian Segerstrale, the executive director and co-founder of the gaming company Playfish , even called social networks "the greatest gaming platform ever to be made."
Everything is changing
Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga , a fast-growing gaming company, emphasizes that games are inherently used for social purposes - like in the past, when board and card games existed in the real world and when people gathered around real tables with real friends to play.
With the advent of computer games, games pushed for solitude. And although Interent allowed the games to regain their social roots, Pincus noted that the inconvenience of finding friends online for the game was a deterrent for most people.
But with the advent of Facebook and MySpace , all your friends are now online in one convenient place. “And what we are starting to see now is that it takes less and less effort and that in one or two clicks you can be already in the game, and more importantly, being in a game with someone you know - everything unexpected has a habit of coming with an explosive effect, ”says Pincus.
Indicators are equally impressive. For example, the game “Texas Hold'Em” from Zynga, which is on Facebook , MySpace , Bebo and Hi5 , is played by 900 thousand players per day. In the meantime, the Biggest Brain game from Playfish has about 3 million players per month on Facebook .
The fact that players can easily find games that they like has in part made it possible to start playing quickly and easily. Games in social networks are usually distributed through "word of mouth", because friends invite each other to play a game. And it's great for game developers.
“Here you are putting something free for people to eat and they’re already hearing a rumor,” says Bret Terrill , a blogger covering games on social networks. "And this is kind of amazing."
Completely different platform
During a lecture at Casual Connect , Segerstrale from Playfish told game developers to “think of social networks as a completely new platform. You should not approach this market as a traditional video game market. For games on social networks, a completely different criterion of success. "
He says that for the popularity of games on Facebook , they should not only be easy to get started, but should initially be more interesting to play with a friend or friends than one. To do this, all Playfish games, such as Biggest Brain and Word Challenge, have a high score table that shows pictures of your friends and their points compared to yours. Tracking each other’s accomplishments is a really interesting (although sometimes humiliating) part of the game.
Terrill points to another important component of success - this is what is called “asynchronous gameplay” when you and your friends do not need to be online at the same time to play together. The game "Scrabulous", for example, has achieved success, because it allows players to take turns to play such a game as "Scrabble" in their free time.
Bite me
“I think it’s important to give users interesting opportunities to communicate with each other,” says Blake Commagere, the developer of such games: “Zombies”, “Vampires”, “Werewolves” and “Slayers”.
Like many developers making social networking apps, Commagere is a single boyfriend working at home on a small budget. A fan of horror movies, he made the game “Zombies” the previous summer over several weekends.
His games can now be found on MySpace , Facebook , Bebo and Hi5 and they have been played over 25 million times - despite the fact that they do not have any unusual effects and require control using complex key combinations.
When it comes to social media games, “If game design is interesting and the game really uses the fact that you play with friends, then it doesn't matter what graphics are there,” said Terrill.
Indeed, like many games on social networks, Commagere games are simple to look at and manage - you select friends from your network and click on their picture to “bite them” (so you invite them to play with you). So you get your own zombie, then level it up by engaging in fights with other zombies and feeding your friends to them.
“My games will not be able to live outside social networks,” commagere says.
Games like “Zombies” change the definition of a game, because The developer creates a new kind of gameplay that uses a unique social environment.
Segerstrale points to the game Friends for Sale, which allows you to buy and sell friends on the stock exchange making bets - a vivid example of the innovation that has appeared in social networks.
“This shows that you can throw out a book on game design and still succeed,” he says.
Looking for the right formula
But working in a new direction has to face special problems.
Trying to figure out which gameplay will be interesting in this environment is one of these problems. Plus, he and others note that MySpace and Facebook are constantly evolving and changing.
Making money on these games is also a problem. Commagere, like many developers, earns on advertising, which is shown in his games. And although he does not say how much he earns, he says that this is enough for life. At the same time, Playfish earns both advertising and selling special opportunities in the game for a fee. In addition, others charge a small fee for virtual items that can be used in the game.
“I think we all kind of experiment, trying to find the right formula,” says Commagere.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/37769/
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