With the console game business dropping off a cliff (sales plummeting 20% in December and 8% for the year) many developers are fleeing to the social games space. Seems like a logical move however most freely admit to not liking social games. Some even go so far as to explain their move as a chance to “make them real games” such as Philip Holt, co-founder of social gaming startup Row Sham Bow.
“What we want to focus on are things that have frustrated us as gamers on social games, one of which is that they’re highly compulsive, but not very compelling. They’re just not the kinds of experiences that we long to play on that platform,” he said.
What Holt and others should understand is that social games are the equivalent of soap operas. It’s like packing up the car and driving out to Hollywood with the dream of making movies but only finding jobs making soap operas.
If soap opera jobs are the only ones available what is one to do? Well make soap operas more, make them movies. How long do you think you would last in the soap opera business doing this? The soap opera audience might really enjoy movies too but Monday afternoon they’re looking for something different – they’re looking for the unbelievable twists and turns, the cheesy relationships, the bad acting. Introduce aspects that are more akin to movies and the audience might rise up in revolt or just find something else to watch.
What happens when Holt and his brethren introduce aspects of “real games” into social games?
“We want to innovate in gameplay, and one of the key areas we tried to do this in Woodland Heroes is we wanted the result of a player’s decision to matter in the game. There should be a loss state. You should feel that the stakes are high, so you take it more seriously. There’s a level of engagement you have when you go, ‘Oh crap, what do I do here?’ That, I think, is a fundamental tenet of what makes a good game,” said Holt. “A lot of games on the platform, in the pursuit of the broad public, have sometimes not delivered those essential elements for us.”
How many FarmVille players want to fail? How many players return after a long weekend to see their crops withered? If players wanted loss states why do they complain about them so much? Most new games today, like CastelVille have moved away from the spoilage mechanic.
But there is a “hardcore audience”
Developers Kixeye and Kabam have found luck with a “hardcore audience” and others like U4iA would like to join them.
U4iA (pronounced “euphoria”) believes that there is a new segment of players emerging: the hardcore social gamer. Facebook game creators Kixeye and Kabam have already discovered this. But Welch said in an interview that his company aims to shoot even higher on the quality bar, creating AAA-quality games along the lines of what Riot Games, creator of League of Legends, has done for web-based combat games.
There does seem to be a hardcore audience but how big is it and more importantly – do they pay? Seems like to me most payers are older woman.
Social games are soap operas like it or not
I understand how many of the people who enter the social game space hope for more, but that’s like saying you want to revolutionize the soap opera business. It’s great to see all these different perspectives in the industry but eventually people are going to have to come to grips with what we’re building. If all these experiments to create “real games” fail (I’m guessing most will have limited success) we of the social games industry should come to grips with what we’re building. And that isn’t all a bad thing; soap operas pioneered early television, more importantly how to make money. They entertained millions for decades, that is until social games came along!
