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Breakfast Topic: Casualties of casual gaming
The other day over dinner, my wife and I were talking about a new game on Facebook and how easy it would be for us to game the system. My brother-in-law stopped us mid-conversation and asked, "What the hell happened to you two? You used to be hardcore raiders! Now you're talking about min-maxing a Facebook game!" My wife and I looked sheepishly at each other and hung our heads in shame. This is what it had come to. While we're committed to playing together come Cataclysm, we had now been reduced to the most casual of casual gamers -- playing browser-based games with no real, complex story or engaging gameplay. At least, nothing as complex or engaging as the World of Warcraft. But the reality is that casual gaming is a bigger phenomenon than we can imagine. Zynga's Farmville has over 61.6 million active users -- that's almost six times WoW's 11.5 million subscriber base. Never mind that World of Warcraft is subscription-based and that not all of Farmville's players are paying customers. Forget about revenue for a moment. That's 61.6 million gamers playing one game.
Social gaming company Playdom acquires Metaplace Inc.
It seems as though Playdom has added Metaplace Inc. as a Facebook friend. While earlier this year Metaplace closed up shop, Ralph Koster dangled a morsel of hope for fans by saying that "Metaplace Inc. isn't about to go away. In fact, we have some pretty exciting plans to announce in the not too distant future." Consider that "not too distant future" a present reality, as Metaplace Inc. has been purchased by social gaming company Playdom. The deal includes the transfer of the Metaplace Inc. game design group over to Playdom's domain. Metaplace Inc. was focusing on two Facebook games, Island Life and My Vineyard, prior to its closing. Both games boast an impressive number of players: Island Life with 457,000 monthly users and My Vineyard with 822,000. Playdom is especially excited to get their hands on Metaplace's technology. "We think the Metaplace engine is a competitive advantage in that it will take other companies years to duplicate its capabilities which will streamline and quicken our game development cycles," said David Sobeski, Playdom's CTO. Metaplace Inc.'s purchase is the latest in a string of studio acquisitions for Playdom, including Acclaim Games in May. Metaplace's technology, team and games represent a significant step forward for Playdom, and we're interested to see how the social gaming firm handles its new toys in the future.
Linden Lab CEO steps down
TechCrunch has announced more changes in the works for Linden Lab's troubled Second Life virtual world. On the heels of a move that laid off 30 percent of its workforce, the company has announced that CEO Mark Kingdon will be stepping down and giving way to Linden founder Philip Rosedale in an interim capacity. Additionally, CFO Bob Komin has taken on the role of COO. Linden has yet to announce a definitive reason for the upper-management restructuring, but many are speculating that the company will be looking to add a CEO with experience in the burgeoning social networking scene. Rosedale, posting on the Linden blog, had the following to say regarding the moves: "Our thinking as a team is that my returning to the CEO job now can bring a product and technology focus that will help rapidly improve Second Life. We need to simplify and focus our product priorities - concentrating all our capabilities on making Second Life easier to use and better for the core experiences that it is delivering today. I think that I can be a great help and a strong leader in that process." Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Brad McQuaid returns, forms new company
Brad McQuaid, the former CEO of Sigil Games and one of the driving creative forces behind Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and the original EverQuest, has announced his return to gaming after a three-year hiatus. Lost amid the hubbub of last week's E3 deluge was an announcement on McQuaid's personal blog that served as both a news update as well as a job recruitment posting for his new company. "After a needed three[-]year break from 11 years of working on massively multiplayer games with the large teams, budgets, and 3-5 year development cycles[,] I think this will be a nice change of pace. I'm also very excited to be involved in a genre that is relatively new to me. I look forward to bringing MMO design principles to casual/social gaming," he wrote. Dust off your resumes and view the full announcement on McQuaid's blog.
MySpace launches Games Lab, aims to tackle social gaming
Like a pokey little puppy, social network MySpace has announced that it's starting up a Games Lab to try and beef up the gaming space on the site. A pilot program has been underway for a while now with TheBroth and Meez, and MySpace has now announced Playdom as a partner in building the platform. Rival network Facebook has been growing in leaps and bounds, especially in the gaming space, but now MySpace wants to leapfrog its success on the music side into social games. Will it work? There's a lot of money still to be made in social games, and there's no reason why MySpace couldn't grab its own piece of the pie. But MySpace is certainly coming late to the game, so if it can garner an audience, it'll likely be a fraction of what Facebook already has running.
'FIFA Superstars' Facebook game is first big EA-brand social game created by Playfish
EA Sports head Peter Moore has announced on his company blog that the label will be bringing FIFA Superstars to Facebook. The game is being created by social games developer Playfish, which EA purchased for a cool $300 million last fall. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the developer was working with a "well-known EA brand" for social networking platforms, and FIFA would certainly qualify as that project (despite The Sims being the best guess at the time). Moore didn't offer up any concrete details about FIFA Superstars' gameplay in his post, but did comment that additional information would be coming "soon." Seeing as how the World Cup kicks off in just a month, on June 11, it's reasonable to assume we'll hear more from Moore on the topic before then.
MyTown updates to version 3.1, adds collectibles and social features
MyTown is one of the hottest things going on the App Store right now in terms of social apps. As we mentioned in the interview with CEO Keith Lee a while back, they've actually got more users than Foursquare. The company has just released version 3.1 of the app, which introduces more collectible rewards earned by checking-in to certain local, real life locations (which you can then use to customize the properties you "own"), as well as more social features. You can now browse through the top trending properties, see your most frequent check-ins, and browse through where your friends are going out to and checking-in from. Additionally, Booyah tells us that the app is growing by over 100,000 players each week. They're suggesting that the average player of the game spends "more than an hour a day within the app." That's kind of incredible, but if it's true, that's one heck of an attachment rate. In fact, those are exactly the kind of usage stats that Ngmoco's Neil Young would drool over. Considering that MyTown just made an appearance in Ngmoco's We Rule splash screen, odds are that the two companies are at least sharing notes and, at most, possibly primed for a partnership. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
Playdom CEO: 'Core gamers are playing this stuff'
Social gaming is bigger than ever. Playdom CEO John Pleasants gave an interview on stage at the LA Games Conference today, and said that while the western market for Facebook and social games currently pulls in over $750 million, it's going to balloon to as much as $4 to 5 billion in the next five years or so. His own company is developing at an extremely rapid pace -- it's purchased and acquired enough companies and studios to have ten different teams developing, and they plan to release ten games, "all original ideas," in just the next five months. So why aren't you "core" gamers playing these games yet? Pleasants says you are. He told Joystiq after the presentation that "If you look at something like Mobsters 2, and you go look at the boards where people are talking about it, they're like, 'Look, I love this game, but I have to go back and play Halo.' Core gamers are playing this stuff." He said that the numbers alone prove that traditional gamers are already on board with social games. "This business is bigger than that business, in terms of reach," he told us. "By definition, those circles overlap." Pleasants also believes that the core game companies like Sony, EA, and Microsoft already know that -- in the next year or so, he said, almost 20% of the social gaming market will be owned by bigger brands. "This space has gotten enough notice now that people believe it's real."
OpenFeint's Jason Citron talks Game Center and Aurora Feint 3
The first thought on everyone's minds as we heard during the event yesterday that Apple would be forming their own social gaming network on the iPhone called Game Center, was probably, "What about OpenFeint?" Since almost the very beginning of the App Store, OpenFeint founder Jason Citron has been working hard to provide developers with a free and easy solution for implementing a social network and social features on their iPhone apps, and with one small announcement, Apple appeared to make all of that work obsolete. Quite a few unofficial social networks have spawned on the iPhone (OpenFeint is one of the first and definitely the biggest, with over 12 million users at last count), and with one fell swoop, it appeared that Apple's new official network would make them all unnecessary. Not so, Citron told us in a quick interview today. Yesterday, he confirmed in a statement that OpenFeint would still do their best to sit on top of any official network that Apple would build, and today he talked a little more with us about the future of OpenFeint, his worries about Game Center, and how the company's first iPad title, Aurora Feint 3, is doing.
Offer based incentives added to Nexon games
It's long been a known fact that most "free" services are supported largely by advertising. MMOs, by and large, have stayed away from the advertising model, instead opting for item shops and subscription fees to turn a profit. Nexon America, however, has decided to go in a different direction -- and you can probably guess what it is straight from the introduction. The company, producer of the popular games MapleStory and Mabinogi among others, will be adding offer-based advertising in exchange for item shop cash starting at an undisclosed time. The nature of the offers isn't stated, but it seems poised to run in a similar methodology to Facebook-based games, albeit hopefully without the sometimes rampant scams. No word on whether or not the ads will intrude on gameplay itself, but it seems unlikely -- and at least for now, they simply remain another option on the main site to earn item shop currency without money. Still, it's a notable change in model, and not something that's commonly seen outside of the realm of social gaming. Only time will tell how players will react.
Richard Garriott and the choppy waters of social gaming
The term "social games" or its frequently-used cousin "Facebook games" is one that gets talked about a lot by MMO gamers these days. Specifically, it gets talked about in a similar tone to the UbiSoft DRM nightmare or the entire Infinity Ward fiasco. So it's going to turn some heads -- and raise some hackles -- when Richard Garriott moves into the social gaming scene. Creator of the genre-setting Ultima Online and the much-discussed Tabula Rasa, Garriott has explained in an interview with Gamasutra why he made the shift and what he thinks of the social gaming scene as it stands now. In short, he sees in social and mobile games the same things that marked other major shifts in the overall philosophy of making games, making them the next big wave. It's not an uncommon sentiment, but he goes on to point out that many of the virtues these games have, such as no installation and no up-front cost, are desirable traits in any game. He goes on to discuss stories in games and how he thinks that even social games can have them, even as he advocates less emphasis on freeform player-generated narratives. Take a look at the full interview to get a clearer picture on what we can expect from Garriott next -- and considering his place in the field of MMOs, it should be notable.
Study: Average social gamer age is only 29 in the US
If you think that those silly social games like Farmville and Mafia Wars are full of teenagers, you're only half right. The average player of social games is actually younger than previously believed, according to a new study, but a little older than teenage: 29 in the US and 27 in the EU. That's an interesting conclusion, especially since the average gamer is actually a little older than that (s/he was 30 a few years ago and has been getting steadily older since then), and most people believe that social gamers on Facebook tend to skew even older. This survey by GamesIndustry.com, however, goes against that grain, and claims that while there are more females playing these games than males, they tend to be younger than expected. Peter Warman of that site says that the reason for this is that most such surveys don't poll any lower than age 18: "It is therefore not at all surprising that their average age is extraordinarily high ... Data from kids and teens is vital and should always be taken into account." If these surveys aren't representing anyone below age 18, then it's possible gamers, especially those playing social games on Facebook and elsewhere, are even younger than anyone's guessed previously.
Flash Games Summit looks at social gaming
The arena of social gaming is a hotly contested one, with two equally enthusiastic schools of thought on whether or not they even count as MMOs. Regardless of your opinion, social gaming is here to stay, and more and more developers are turning their attention to the games (and the profits they potentially represent.) The very nature of social gaming allows development teams to take it in either direction: a distinctly non-MMO direction such as Bejeweled, or the ever-growing MMO format. It's a relatively new and growing market, and several developers sat down earlier today to take a look at it during the Flash Games Summit. Moderator Sana Choudray of Traffichoney led a discussion of what is needed for a successful social game, as well as where they stand now and where they will go in the future. While the developers acknowledged that social gaming is lacking at the moment, they all agreed that it's only going to grow over the next year or two. The full discussion is well worth a read.
Faunasphere goes Facebook
We've received word today from the team over at Faunasphere that they're taking their game over to the land of Facebook, to show the "social gamers" what a MMO really is. Faunsphere Facebook and Faunsphere.com will be linked together into one large world, letting users from both realms interact with one another. The game will continue to run on the same microtransaction system, where users can buy additional items for their fauna and commission scientific tests to know more about the hidden skills that lie in their favorite animals. All we can do now is pray that this style of game catches on in Facebook, so when we ask our friends if they play any MMOs, they don't respond with, "Oh, yeah, Farmville!" Then, we won't feel the need to throttle people.
Richard Garriott re-enters games atmosphere with new social media project: Portalarium
Known spacefarer and castle-owner Richard Garriott isn't going to let a relatively unsuccessful MMORPG launch keep him down. Lord British himself, along with former NCSoft colleagues Dallas Snell, Fred Schmidt and Stephen Nichols, has revealed the launch of a "broad-based" social media company dubbed Portalarium. The outfit is working to first offer "online game apps" and then hopes to expand into "open learning, open health, open science/environment, open government and much more." Whatever that means. The announcement was kind enough to detail the company's first big project: The Portalarium Player, a browser plug-in that allows games developed on a number of platforms (i.e., not just Flash) to work within the confines of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Garriott is speaking more about the young company's future at D.I.C.E. -- so we'll flag him down later today to find out what gamers can expect from the studio. (At the very least, we hope to get some totally awesome space stories.)
The Fringe: The Dos and Don'ts of Facebook games
Welcome to The Fringe, where we totter on the edge of MMOs with a guide for playing Facebook games. When we asked on the Daily Grind if you played Facebook games, many of you said you did. But Facebook is very polarizing. Some people love the games, while others don't see them as games at all and hate everything having to do with them. It doesn't help that there's so much spam associated with most of the games. But those of us who do play know that there are a wide variety and that many of them include the same gameplay that our favorite MMOs have. We get XP, levels, acquire loot, make avatars, play minigames within the games, quest, trade items and even participate in PvP. The sim games are extremely popular and require quite a bit of strategy for proper allocation of resources. But if you don't like text adventure games or never got into games like old school SimCity, you're not going to get the Facebook versions either. If you do play these MMO-lite games, there are things you can do to get the most out of your play sessions. And there are things you shouldn't do so that you don't annoy your friends (as much) nor imbalance your life. Those of us who have spent time playing casual games of all kinds know that they can suck you in even more than full-blown MMOs. Most of us can't play WoW at work, but casual games with their low resource consumption and their easy access are tempting when work isn't keeping our full attention. This applies to games like solitaire, but add the comeraderie and variety of Facebook games and we can be even more tempted to play when we shouldn't. So here are some general Dos and Don'ts:
Sony launches a salt on Home with 'Sodium One' social gaming space
Sony heard you liked games, so it put an MMO in your Home so you could socially game while you socially game. The company just announced the launch of Sodium One (yeah, we don't know either), a self-contained social MMO space within PlayStation Home. By taking the Teleporter installed in the Central Plaza, Home users can receive in-game objectives from an AI called "VICKIE." Said objectives then task the player with playing various minigames, including "objective-based meta-games, full arcade-style games and community events." The first game accessible in the space: Salt Shooter, a game in which players use tanks to shoot robots. Only five levels of this minigame are available for free, with more levels and items unlockable through microtransactions. Sony is giving away 1,050 free Salt Shooter unlocks to early Sodium One adopters, so be sure to go check that out soon if you're interested. More games, events, and virtual goods will be added over time.
Civilization Network bringing Facebook persistence to Sid Meiers' series
Civilization Network may not exactly be an MMO, but it's the closest a new game in the series has ever come to the concept. The announcement isn't too surprising as we've heard rumors in the past of a potential persistent version of the game being developed. Frankly, it's nice to finally know the pioneering developer's next game. Meier himself explains the general design goal of Civilization Network on the official Facebook page, and it's more or less all about cooperation with friends and family. That's not to say there's no competition either, but the biggest edge a social networking game has is similar to an MMO -- cooperation with other players. We'll be watching this project closely, as the blending of MMO qualities with a series like Civilization is by far abnormal. The next piece of the puzzle is the game's business model, but as of yet there's been no announcement of how Firaxis plans on making any money with the game. You can watch for beta news on the game's official Facebook page, and we highly suggest it.
TUAW exclusive: Makers of Aurora Feint unveil new game, codenamed "VSL"
Aurora Feint was one of the iPhone's first big games, way back in the early days of the App Store. Since then, the company behind that first hit has added on a few different games in the same universe, each with their own separate features and focus, but all in the same vein of puzzle-based RPG. Today, Aurora Feint, Inc. has pulled back the curtain just slightly to reveal their very first original effort since that initial App Store release. The game is only codenamed so far -- they're calling it "VSL" -- but the developers at Aurora Feint plan to turn it into a "showcase" of what's possible with Apple's new policy of allowing free apps to provide content on demand. Above is the very first screenshot of the yet-to-be revealed game, and TUAW got a chance to talk exclusively with both Peter Relan and Jason Citron of Aurora Feint about the new game, what it'll be like, and how it'll integrate with their growing social gaming platform, OpenFeint. Click the link below to read on.
Report: EA acquires social games dev Playfish
Industry sources claim EA has completed a deal to acquire social games developer Playfish, report Inside Social Games and Silicon Alley Insider. Unconfirmed estimates put EA's buyout bill at $250 million, while ISG believes Playfish could earn as much as $75 million in revenue this year alone. That's alotta money for those janky, little games on Facebook, right?For years, EA has been dabbling in social gaming -- a slightly less dirty designation than "casual gaming" -- starting with the launch and consolidation of the EA Casual Entertainment division in 2007, and then with the creation of EA Blueprint expressly for social ventures in 2008. The company has done plenty of outside spending, too, like throwing some dollars at Napster creator Shawn Fanning for his Rupture service. Just this week, EA launched Pogo Puppies for Facebook -- which actually competes with Playfish's Pet Society (pictured above) -- and scooped up social games publishing technology company J2PLay, as reported by Games.com.It's difficult to predict how EA Casual's major investments in social gaming might affect the EA Games label -- makers of the kinda games we care about -- but let's just hope there's a mighty thick wall between the two divisions. Okay, so maybe we've got some social anxiety, but we just can't stand the thought of our extravagant, big-budget, dim-the-lights, and shut-out-the-world games go the way of the dodo.[Via Industry Gamers]Source – Is EA Going to Buy Zynga or Playfish in Social Gaming Bid? [Inside Social Games]Source – Rumor: EA Acquires Playfish For $250 Million [Silicon Alley Insider]
