If console games are Hollywood blockbusters, social games are soap operas

Posted on January 15, 2012 by justingibbs

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!

Can a social game make you cry?

Posted on July 31, 2011 by justingibbs

I got into the game industry and joined Playdom to experiment with interactive drama. I dream of a future where we play or interact with games for the drama more than the game aspect. It’s a lofty goal but very similar to Bing Gordon’s dream at EA to see if a computer can make you cry.

“We see farther”, we crowed. We predicted the games business would develop to stand side by side with the $20 billion annual revenues of movies and recorded music. We foresaw a day when a New Hollywood would be created by “software artists” who harnessed Moore’s Law into a new category of art. We believed that their digital games would one day deliver the kind of emotional experiences we all enjoy in movies, what Stephen Spielberg describes as “sitting back and being washed over with emotion.”

Sadly though EA failed.

But we fell short of the lofty creative goal of “Can a Computer Make You Cry?” because we didn’t develop new models of character and narrative. Floyd, the robot friend in Steve Meretsky’s Planetfall, was a heart-warming sidekick but, no matter what words we typed into the Infocom parser, he died a sacrificial, text-only, death for us.

Bing has since had an epiphany and replaced his dream with a strange amalgamation. Instead of eliciting emotion through story he thinks the answer is allowing people to relive their gaming moments socially, to reinforce and create social connections.

But while we were looking for movies powered by millions of transistors, we ignored the emotions we were creating in games as a new kind of playground. Instead of creating emotion-laden, but passive stories, we elicited emotional moments off the screen, between friends, in the retelling, in the trash-talking. The emotional moments turned out NOT to have correlation with processing power, visual effects, and 3d graphics. The emotion came from who we played with, not what machine we played on. Games help us create richer photo albums of our lives.

So rather than trying to create stories and characters that “wash over” our audience, rather than trying to prove that a computer can make you cry, let’s create play spaces that help us make more and better friends. We are the characters, the heroes, the actors. And we are making stories together.

In that light Bing sees social games as the perfect beast but I completely disagree. I agree that social games help us connect but we aren’t building stories here. We aren’t the character, the heroes, the actors. I think their original goal to have computers make us cry is still attainable even if they failed. When EA started it was a much different environment, but as Bing mentions the playing field has changed with social games. And where Bing now sees social games as a place to make connections I see them as the perfect opportunity to try and make a computer, a game, an interactive experience make us cry.

It’s not a technology problem

Bing starts his post by describing Moore’s Law and how at EA they thought it would do the same for the video game industry. As processors got more powerful so would the game engines and graphics.

For 25 years, the videogame business has counted on Moore’s Law to deliver the promised land of the New Hollywood. We thought more powerful chipsets driving higher resolution pictures, more lifelike animations and bigger production budgets would almost automatically deliver the emotion of movies. We thought that amazing hardware would spontaneously generate resonant characters and heart-wrenching stories, but the highest points turned out to be a robot, a polygonal babe, and a horny swinger wearing a gold medallion.

Though good story has never needed technology to be. Even as movies became a popular medium for story books and comic books remained, even thrived. Story isn’t a technology problem, it’s a problem of creativity. They were led astray by the visual, Bing even admits to it.

They went after the wrong audience

We’re all familiar with the video game industry and its struggle to attract women. Most games are built for men and why not, they’re the ones lining up outside the stores. Listening to Bing talk of the early days at EA I would think them ecstatic if EA could deliver Star Wars in interactive form, with graphics equal to the movie. I would have loved playing that as a kid – fly the X-wing fighter, practice with the lightsaber, all that. But in reality if you handed me the controls I would just wreck shop. I would cut Obi-Wan’s arm off just to see what he’d do. A controller in my hand I could care less about the story.

However if you could create an interactive version of Gone with the Wind I would expect women to treat it very differently. Taken in by the story elements I would expect them to play the parts. Men, boys are the wrong audience to start experimenting with story.

Social games are a new opportunity

Where as Bing thinks the promise of social games is making connections I think they’re ripe for attaining his original goal at EA.

For one, a large percentage of the social game audience is female and they’re looking for story.

They also tended to prefer games that emphasized narrative and character development over combat and preferred solo to group gameplay.

Secondly, social games are easily accessible so if there is a hit the audience can grow overnight. And thirdly, the technology isn’t complex and is already in the hands of artists.

The dream to have computers make us cry was never a technology problem as Bing thought, it was a creative problem. What we need is artists and narrative designers to experiment with story. Social games seem to be the perfect opportunity to try and achieve the dream to have computers make us cry.

Google Plus is the beginning of the end for social networks

Posted on July 11, 2011 by justingibbs

Google Plus has everyone talking. People asking for invites suggesting how it can beat Facebook, while others wonder if it ever could. As TechCrunch says, the war is on between Google Plus and Facebook. But is it really the beginning of the end for social networks?

Social networks are all about the newsfeed

Essentially the social network has become the newsfeed. Social networks provide the captive audience – your friends. You post because these people care and are more likely to respond with a comment. Prior to social networks blogs were all the rage and if you ever started one you probably know how lonely it could be. It’s like talking to an empty room, a dark empty room. And that was after you figured out what to write about in the first place. Social networks changed all that. You have a captive audience and you know exactly what to write about – yourself.

Which newsfeed, where do I post?

For most people today there are only two newsfeeds – Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn is also making a good showing. Though essentially they have carved out their own niche. And now there is Google Plus. Where does it fit in? No need to answer, the fact that you have to ask is already changing the landscape. The next question is where do I post? Well when in doubt why not all of them? Posting to them all isn’t that difficult actually, many already support automatically posting from other feeds. You can post on Tumblr and have that automatically feed into Facebook. And now the social networks are getting more aggressive with transitioning your social graph. With Google Plus it certainly is a different landscape, almost as if the social networks are being marginalized.

Reminds me of instant messenger and its “end”

I use to work on Yahoo! Messenger and remember well the instant messenger wars. In Silicon Valley that war is ancient history. It started with ICQ, then came AOL Messenger. Friends would fight over which one to join. Then came Yahoo! Messenger and soon people would just join all of them. Then the natural thing was to start demanding interoperability.

Then came MSN Messenger and new clients that logged you into all of them – Meebo, Trillian, etc. The talk of interoperability died down and actually so did much of the hype around the whole instant messenger space. By the time GTalk entered the market much of the commotion had all but died down.

Instant messenger went from being all the rage to being something I got when I checked my email whether I needed it or not. The excitement I use to feel working on the Yahoo! Messenger team dissipated. I moved on, everyone moved on and that’s what I mean by “end”. I mean “end” in the way we say tech companies are dead. Granted there is still a lot of excitement in social networks – Facebook will set records with its IPO as Google Plus will likely set records for user growth. But I think we’ll look back to the Google Plus launch as the beginning of the end.

Frivolous mediums evolve – so will social games

Posted on August 26, 2010 by justingibbs

Adam Rafkin has a very opinionated piece on GigaOM – Why Google has no game. It’s an interesting read but I feel like he’s just on the Facebook bandwagon. I remember a time when everyone was on the Google bandwagon and it was Yahoo! who looked like the chump. That’s the way they hype cycle rolls in Silicon Valley.

Adam starts off with quite a stretch.

Real social engagement comes from photo-sharing and chat. I thank Fred Wilson for that insight. It’s why FriendFeed was such a fantastic acquisition for Facebook: because they deeply understand that. Google should start by turning Picasa into a social application. If Google really cares about social engagement, copy Flickr.

As if all else doesn’t count as “real” social engagement. What does Adam mean by “real” social anyway? I’ve heard countless conversations started around social games.

Reading further you get the feeling that Adam just dislikes social games.

Many people are just not into social games. That’s right, half of Facebook users don’t play games, and many users hate games. Plus, the whole gaming ecosystem feels like it’s about to collapse on itself. It’s no wonder that Playdom sold out. For Facebook, games were a means to an end: a way to experiment with the pay-for-application-installs business model long enough to evolve into an advertising unit allowing brands and companies to promote (and pay for “likes” on) their Facebook Pages.

Lesson one of Product Management: Listen to your customer

I got into the social game industry six months ago and I was skeptical like many. Was it all a fad? I hated the viral spam as much as anyone. But social games had already done the impossible – garnered a large woman audience. That’s what intrigued me and the potential for interactive drama. Being a Product Manager I went in with open eyes and was a bit amazed at what I found. Some players actually loved sending virals, it was part of their game play. What was most encouraging though was how passionate some of the players were. Some of the games had become part of their daily lives and they would certainly let us hear it if we tweaked something they liked or were down. That kind of passion is a rarity. It’s what excites me about the medium and keeps me and the likes of Bing Gordon hopeful for it’s future.

We knock what we don’t understand

A lot of what Adam says reminds me of my friend and manga. My friend grew up on American comics and can’t stand manga because it’s black and white. To him it’s a step backwards, he doesn’t understand why people get so into it. However they do and they’re plunking down millions to feed their hunger.

A frivolous medium

Interestingly both comics and manga were considered frivolous when they began. However through the passion of their audiences and efforts of talented artists they both evolved.

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) is the godfather of Japanese manga comics. He originally intended to become a doctor and earned his degree before turning to what was still then considered a frivolous medium. With his sweeping vision, deftly intertwined plots, and indefatigable commitment to human dignity, Tezuka elevated manga to an art form.

-Back cover of Ode to Kirihito

Seeing audiences passion I expect the same evolution for social games.

The end of the one size fits all social graph

Posted on August 19, 2010 by justingibbs

Google’s Chrome presentation at GDC Europe, left Mashable’s Ben Parr asking just how will Google determine your social graph?

We find the “Apps your friends like” section to be especially intriguing: is Google going to use Gmail, Buzz or something else to determine who your friends are?

It’s a very good question and it’ll be interesting to see what Google comes up with. However at the same time I have a small sense of dread for having yet another social graph. Is that a sign that I’m getting dated or that the social graph is? Depending on which it is, one of us is due for an update.

The social graph is so last year, or is it?

Working in the consumer Internet space I joined many of the social networks long before people heard of them, from Friendster to Cyworld America. The whole thing was novel years ago but now just seems so common. In a way it reminds me of how everyone cared about interoperability between messenger clients years ago. Today there still is nothing in the way of interoperability and yet people couldn’t care less. People’s Internet habits seem to change as quick as the weather. Messenger clients haven’t gone away, they’ve just evolved and handed the limelight over to newer trends.

I don’t prune my social graph, I just make new ones

It’s widely perceived that Facebook users can’t be bothered to recreate their social graphs and that these “switching costs” make user-acquisition too difficult for competing services. A win by Foursquare – heck, even survival – while in direct competition with Facebook will call that assumption into question.

- Places Is Facebook’s Biggest Bet To Date

For me it’s the exact opposite, I want to switch. I wanted to get far away from MySpace and was happy Facebook was there. I’m happy when I’m on GChat and my friends on Yahoo! Messenger can’t see me. Frankly I’ve forgotten who some of my Yahoo! friends are. Messenger is old, it has my old friends on there and like many of them I’ve moved on.

I guess I could always prune my social graph on Facebook or Messenger but I just don’t care too expend the effort. Plus I feel bad in a way about deleting someone I once knew but have since forgot. The only list I care to prune is the contact list on my phone and it would be a stretch to call that a social graph.

So in the end I counter the perceived notion that there are “switching costs”. I’d rather jump and create a new social graph that better represents my current life than prune an old one. Like leaving bread crumbs to mark my path, I’ll leave the Internet sprinkled with my old social graphs.

All too often my feed is just noise

Email was great when I first got an account. I eagerly awaited every message. Now I can never get my inbox to zero. I feel the same way with my feed on Facebook. I know I can filter it, but I’m not going to for the same reason I don’t prune my social graph.

Location just adds to my social graph fatigue

I have a lot of friends so when I come to town I can’t possibly see all of them, so I’ve taken to only alerting those that I can see on that trip. It’s easier if the others don’t know I’m in town, helps to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Also helps avoid the, “I don’t want to hang out with you outside of work” conversation. Why do I have these work friends in my social graph? Because they asked to be added. All of this just ads to the anxiety I feel about my social graphs – just who’s exactly in it and will get this message? We’ve already seen people be fired for what they send out. Why do I need more anxiety in my life? Should I be fearful of who might show up next time I give out my location?

All this anxiety makes me want to just step away

Speaking of anxiety, every time Facebook releases a new feature the more I’m worried about my privacy. Can I really trust them with my social graph? Can I trust anyone with my social graph?

I already established that I’m not going to prune my social graph so that leaves me with little choice other than pack up and move on.

The death of the one size fits all social graph

In the end I find myself taking the easy route and using Facebook less and less to share. I share less personal stuff and tend more toward broadcasting links – which I find is better a task for Twitter. But I still like some aspects of social graphs like Facebook. What I really would like is multiple social graphs – a social graph for my family, close friends, and local friends. Maybe I’ll keep Facebook as my clearinghouse of every friend I’ve ever known and LinkedIn for my business connections.

Multiple social graphs could work, however that strategy doesn’t really leverage the true power of the social graph. I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg has dreams for more unique ways to use our social graph, however based on my personal use I think I’m heading in the opposite direction. What I really want is more akin to Rapportive, a Gmail add-on that surfaces contextually relevant information about the email sender combed from the web. Open an email from a recruiter and see their avatar image, job title from LinkedIn,Twitter feed, etc. This is what I need – a loose social graph.

Maybe Rapportive can build in some levels to its social graph. If I email the person back we’re at level two of the graph. Maybe this unlocks other information that can be displayed. Maybe Rapportive can pull up information like what game I’m currently playing, book I’m reading, song I’ve starred.

Of course I don’t need this all to become noise either, I don’t want all of the info on this person. Maybe they could randomize it – surprise me. That’s what my daily routine needs more of anyway – fun surprises. And I’m being serious about the surprises.

Surprise me what social game my insurance agent is playing. Now that would be truly viral.

There is hope

After Facebook introduced Places all the talk last week was about what Foursquare would do now? From what it sounds like they’re moving toward splintering the all encompassing Facebook social graph. Just what I needed.

The goal is to make Foursquare a product that does a better job than Facebook Places of keeping users in touch with their real friends – as supposed to the 700 people they know on Facebook.