subject: Perfect storm for social gaming [print this page] Perfect storm for social gaming Perfect storm for social gaming
The phrase "perfect storm" has been used to describe just about any series of events that takes place resulting in something major, over used if you ask me. That being said, it can be used to accurately describe how social games like Farmville, frontierville and Cityville have sky rocked in popularity since their creation. The combination of addictive games, popular social networking sites like mysapce and Facebook and the social aspects of these games is something not seen in any other type of game.
Anyone that has played Farmville can tell you there is not really much to the game. Literally anyone can play it and if they put the time and effort they can reach top levels. Most of the game is very repetitive and while there is always something new being added there are very few game changing' updates ever. The thing these social games have mastered is the art of constant accomplishment'. Humans have an in-born desire to accomplish things. Often times this leads to great accomplishments in life but Zynga and other social game makers have tapped into this desire by offering a near constant stream of little in game accomplishments. In Frontierville there are missions to work on, dozens of collections to complete and two types of levels to move up. Just about every time you log on you will get some sort of message congratulating you for something. That quick feeling of satisfaction keeps millions of players coming back every day.
Sites like myspace and facebook have allowed social game makers to have a huge audience of people that they can match up together so all the players can help each other out. Adding quests in one game which require you to start playing another one of their games is an easy way to build the popularity of their entire library of games. Another advantage of having their games on a platform like facebook is that even though people might think they want to take a break from Farmville, they still go on facebook. While on facebook they will see the Farmville items going by in their live feed, they'll see the Farmville icon calling to them on their home page and sooner or later they will be right back into the game.
Perhaps the most important element of this perfect storm is the social aspect of these social games. When playing a game like Cityville there is great incentive to have lots of facebook friends which are also in game friends. These in game friends, or neighbors as they are called in Farmville, Frontierville and Cityville, can help you out a lot. Neighbors have become so popular that there are many web sites that have sections dedicated to gaining more facebook friends so you can get more in-game neighbors. There are some missions which require you to visit your neighbors, other missions require you to have a certain number of neighbors. Social game makers know that if you have lots of in-game neighbors you will feel obligated to keep playing since your game play can directly affect your friends. Social games allow you to gift items to your friends or help out on their game giving them an advantage. The key to this is that all players are helping each other. Players do not compete against each other as in many other online games. Its this community feeling that keeps everyone playing and helping each other out.
If any one of these key items would not have been in place, social gaming would not have become what it is today. Companies like Facebook and Zynga have been able to take full advantage of this perfect storm and are providing millions of people with Billions of hours of entertainmentOr at least allows them to waste a lot of their time at work.
