Social gaming has been around since the early days of AOL. Not to mention it isn't companies like Zynga that Nintendo is worried about. It the REAL sticky games like World of Warcraft. These games are incredibly profitable and crazy addictive.
Did Zynga pay you to write this article?
Ben Parr
· 7 months ago
The key to it all is how profoundly social gaming's evolved though, and how that evolution has fueled its growth. The games of the past (i.e. AOL times) didn't involve the social graph. I think that's the most important component of the new social gaming trends.
Bike Gamer
· 7 months ago
They better not. We need new faces and strong competitors, then maybe we'll see more great games developed/
Tony
· 7 months ago
MS and Sony have their own online gaming networks (XBL and PSN), and in the case of MS they've had it for quite a few years. I think the story here is the rise of casual gaming, or flash games that are drawing on a social experience, not gaming in general drawing on a social experience. I do agree with the "Watch out Nintendo!" in the title though, Nintendo has been very slow to join the online gaming experience (notice their absence from the above list).
Mark
· 7 months ago
Console gaming has never been more social. Xbox Live is an amazing service to meet up with friends to play an arcade game online, watch a movie together, or do some death match. The Wii is best played with a group of friends in your living room.
And don't get me started on Rock Band. That and Guitar Hero have sucked in so many new casual and hardcore gamers.
Games on facebook and myspace just seem like time fillers. Something to do while you wait for your favorite show to come on.
Watch out Nintendo? If you haven't read the news, Blizzard are already ranked way above Nintendo earning about $1.3billion a year due primarily to World Of Warcraft and it's 10 million, *plaid* subscribers. Who cares about free users...
Tom Brenneman
· 7 months ago
I'm sorry but Social Gaming from Zynga has a LONG way to go before you can compare it to the big boys like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft.
However, with companies like ID software releasing Quake Live offering free online play, decent graphics and having the ability to showcase awards via social media is more of a step in the right direction. Combine traditional PC gaming with Social Network integration? Smells like a win/win to me but only time will tell. I would love blizzard to do something like this with Starcraft or Diablo I or II.
niknah
· 6 months ago
A lot of Zynga games promote you in the game introducing friends into the game so the same person can start two accounts and introduce their other account into the game to get ahead. And some of their games like yoville only let you work to earn credits every 4 hrs, so if you have two separate accounts, you can earn every 2hrs and so on, you can imagine how many accounts someone can end up with.
Mikki
· 6 months ago
Uh...yeah, "watch out" indeed! Your social networking game Mafia Wars is apparently a punishable offense because Facebook PUNISHES people for adding friends who want to be in your "Mafia", threatening to shut them down, cancel or suspend their account, etc. Didn't you guys work that out with each other before hand?? Now Zynga "warned" me I was performing actions too fast on Mafia Wars, while I played slowly. On that note, I'm at my elderly mother-in-law's house, and her computer is running at a quarter the speed my at home computer can and does. That means your warning was unwarrented. What kind of operation are you people running? Hope you're getting rich, because we're getting frustrated and harassed!
Brandon
· 4 months ago
Advertorial?
Comparing a game developer against those that create consoles is somewhat misleading. The only part that didn't seem like a pitch was the last sentence about integrating FB Connect which I think is actually something very plausible but not because it has anything to do with crappy rehash games like Mafia Wars being contenders against Halo 3, etc. It's the user base, ease of sign on and the trend of releasing browser-based gaming (Battlefield Heroes, Quake Live, Fallen Legions) that could benefit from an established community.
All Comments
Social gaming has been around since the early days of AOL. Not to mention it isn't companies like Zynga that Nintendo is worried about. It the REAL sticky games like World of Warcraft. These games are incredibly profitable and crazy addictive.
Did Zynga pay you to write this article?
And don't get me started on Rock Band. That and Guitar Hero have sucked in so many new casual and hardcore gamers.
Games on facebook and myspace just seem like time fillers. Something to do while you wait for your favorite show to come on.
However, with companies like ID software releasing Quake Live offering free online play, decent graphics and having the ability to showcase awards via social media is more of a step in the right direction. Combine traditional PC gaming with Social Network integration? Smells like a win/win to me but only time will tell. I would love blizzard to do something like this with Starcraft or Diablo I or II.
And some of their games like yoville only let you work to earn credits every 4 hrs, so if you have two separate accounts, you can earn every 2hrs and so on, you can imagine how many accounts someone can end up with.
Comparing a game developer against those that create consoles is somewhat misleading. The only part that didn't seem like a pitch was the last sentence about integrating FB Connect which I think is actually something very plausible but not because it has anything to do with crappy rehash games like Mafia Wars being contenders against Halo 3, etc. It's the user base, ease of sign on and the trend of releasing browser-based gaming (Battlefield Heroes, Quake Live, Fallen Legions) that could benefit from an established community.