Facebook Indie Games
Stealing Farmville's thunder one player at a time. 1 down, 80 million to go.
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David Barnes
Facebook's Game Chief Sean Ryan: "take a single player category and make it social".
He points to Playdom's hidden object game Gardens of Time as a good example of a game that targets the casual Facebook audience in a surprising way. "These guys are killing it. Absolutely crushing it on DAU, monetization, engagement, virality, because they took what was formally a single player category and made it social."
Facebook is clearly taking off as a broader gaming platform, and his hope is that it will bring success to smaller developers with more targeted offerings. "I'm so excited to see the developer community starting to realize that, and that's my mantra is, 'Push something that you really, truly believe in,' and, as well, get better at monetization. You should be able to have a successful smaller game company on us."
via gamasutra.com
Sean Ryan commends Playdom for taking a single player genre and making it social. The challenge is to rethink the established genre from the ground up, finding compelling ways to make it social and free-to-play, rather than just a single player game embedded in Facebook.
Posted
by David Barnes
.@socialgameuniv asks the questions, @fbindie has the answers!
Social Game Universe is an independent social game developer based in Toronto, Canada, with 2 social games published on Facebook so far: Hollywood Tycoon and Avastar. While these two games are played independently, it's possible to hire "stars" created in Avastar to appear in your Hollywood Tycoon movies. Clever eh?
Nathon Gunn: Question Master
On their homepage, CEO Nathon Gunn asks a series of questions. Nathon, you asked. Now... here are the definitive and utterly inarguable answers to your questions.
Can social games make a difference in people's lives? Can they be used to change perceptions?
Of course they can. I learned a huge amount about city planning, business, and strategic thinking from the original SimCity -- it transformed my perception of how the world works and my place in it. I even bought a strategy guide which I think taught me more about real life city planning than anybody else I know ever learned!
At their best, social games with their focus on strategy and decision making can be even more powerful because they provoke discussion and interaction around the game, not just within it. In a way, SimCity was a social game without social elements built in -- no other game in my experience lead to the same level of discussions, engagement with non-gamers, or "saved game sharing" -- even if the social element relied on 3.5 floppy disks!
SimCity: a classic non-social social game
However, SimCity worked because it simplified the real decisions, dilemmas and tradeoffs that real city planners had to make. I'm yet to be convinced that the decisions Farmville players have to make have any connection with the dilemmas and problems faced by real life farmers, or that real Holywood Tycoons spend their days worrying about whether to build trailers or writing workshops. Somehow these games have to find the right balance between a fun game mechanic and a decent simulation. From games I've played, none ever did this better than the original SimCity!
Can unrelated games be interconnected and share objects and material in meaningful ways?
I haven't thought about this before, but it sure looks like you've managed to do it! I like what you've done with Avastar and Hollywood Tycoon. How's it working for you?
Are the well-resourced industry leaders hurting innovation?
Not at all. Industry leaders show what can work, what people find accessible and fun. In any industry it's the smaller players who have the job of copying 90% of what the big boys do, innovating in a few key ways to produce something unique, interesting, and sustainable on a smaller scale.
Hollywood and independent film makers might hate each other, but there's a massive amount of "cross pollination" going on. Social games should be like that to.
If nothing else, the big players can advertise their work which grows the whole market for social games. Big, high budget movie advertising is what makes it acceptable for a normal person to spend 2 hours in a dark room looking at a screen. Indie producers should be grateful for that!
Are developers better off flying solo, or is there a feasible, mutually beneficial alliance that would help everyone?
There's a massive community of game developers for the AppStore. These guys help each other out, post tutorials, write up what they learned in the form of top tips or developer post mortems. They play, review, and plug each others games. Why aren't we seeing this for social gaming? I've started this blog because as far as I can tell there is just nothing for social game developers to reach each other.
Can we compete and still share resources? What would a federated currency look like? What are the issues?
Small players aren't really competing with each other; they're competing with the big boys that have hoovered up 90% of the social game players in the world. Focus on a common enemy and share the resources required to steal their thunder.
Look at indie devs on the AppStore or XBox Live to see what a community can look like.
Is user-generated content "within the game" or the games themselves?
Huh?
What about creating a language for game design? Can we create a grammar that lets everyone invent games?
Possibly. For me the more interesting question is, "what are the rules of successful social game design?" Of course these rules would exist to be broken occasionally -- but what are the best practices that work 80% of the time?
Will we kill ourselves with copies or invent ourselves out of the clone wars?
Copying is essential. Cloning is stupid. Take 80% of a successful game, and transform the remaining 20% into something unique and beautiful
Can casual games be made social? Is there a general solution or only specific ones?
Yes they can -- they are the perfect fit.
For me, truly social games are games where people interact with "real" friends rather than people they meet inside the game lobby. There are three ways to do this:
Create "head to head" games where both players have to be online at the same time.
Create turn based games (like chess) where players can log in and make their move.
Create games where the core mechanic is single player, but each player's actions can affect other players' experience too
The third is the most popular right now, and I think the most interesting. Converting a casual game to this format means keeping a single player core mechanic, but adding new factors and influences that come from the player's social circle.
If you're going to have "lobby based" social games then they need to provide ways for players to get to know each other -- you need to play against a "person" and not just a "competitor". And I don't think a chat room is enough for this.
Will this be the year of big brands and famous IP entering the social game space? Will it be creative or deadening?
I don't know what year you wrote this. But I think big brands and famous IP is inevitable in the long run. Has it already happened? Everything that happens in the world makes creative people do creative things. You don't need to worry about it being deadening!
Will this be the year that games overflow Facebook and other platforms get the same level of focus?
I don't think that any other social network has a demographic that matches the typical social gamer as well as Facebook
What are the big issues facing you?
Getting traffic to this blog and followers to the fbindie Twitter account! You can help by subscribing, linking here, tweeting this post or others on the site, following fbindie on Twitter, and Follow Fridaying us too. Why not do all 5?
Do you have a view on any of these? If so, post your answers in the comments. Even better post them on your blog and put a link to it in the comments. (Oh and don't be ashamed to link back to this post too.)
Posted
by David Barnes
