One developer's account of how he cheated his way on-stage at GDC

One developer's account of how he cheated his way on-stage at GDC

Flash game developer Ryan Creighton wasn't on the panel for the Social Game Developer's Rant session at GDC last week. Nor did he have anything he particularly wanted to get off his chest. But the panel played a game with the audience: whoever could amass the most tokens, given to every audience member, would win the right to speak on stage.

Once they eventually permitted him to speak with a condition he immediately broke he tried to explain why he felt developers are too quick to criticise those who break the rules. The session was about social game developers wanting the same respect other devs get, and Ryan stood up for Farmville creators Zynga,metin2 yangof all people. He feels the development community dismiss them for breaking the rules, but are happy to use the same tactics in their own games.

Problem with social games is that they:

1) SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM everyone you know. Unlike other spam though, they don't even offer male enhancement in exchange for the spam, just grinding.

2) Social games holds content hostage and drag things out for eternity. It's not the only game type that does that, but DLC and MMO gets the same look from everyone when they do that. So it's not just against social games. :P

3) The games leave a bad after taste. After fans finish Portal, they think time well spent. After Farmville fans quit the game, they feel that they've wasted their life. Again, similar problem in MMO, and there are even documentaries made to show how bad that problem is. It's a problem social games exhibit but the hate isn't biased against social games.

4) Social games are the anti-social of games. It works like a pyramid scam, where they force you to exploit your friends and waste their time so that you get stuff. If you don't exploit your friends, you usually can't "move up" and the game penalize you for not exploiting your friends.

Are these "new rules" people made up to hate on social games or are they common sense?

I wonder if its not a clever staged incident to generate more interest in and publicity for social games by falsely suggesting there can be more interesting mechanics.So no, it's nothing like David (in the right) vs Goliath. It's just an ignorant fool with a loud mouth.

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