Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Race to the top of Social Gaming

We see it on facebook on others computer, we see it on other peoples phones now, what is this new phenomenon called Social Gaming. Social Gaming is exactly what it sounds like, its games that you get play while interacting with other people across the Internet. It started with xbox live and now has come to the computer and the smart phones. 
So what does this have to do with any of us? A lot actually, the fact that one we all get bored and play games is the first thing, second its on all the major sites that we use, must commonly found on facebook which a majority of you spend your time. Again you say so what, well the so what is that instead of just talking to your friends on facebook you can play with
 them. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on video consoles and games you can just go on facebook which is free and then play game that might cost you like five dollars a month. 
Thats the beauty of the social gaming industry theirs a billion users but with all different interests, so they need a million different games to keep with because we get bored. Which in translation makes it cheap for us, as well as easy because it can't afford to be too complicated. As you can tell already I love the idea of social gaming, and it doesn't hurt that its being used the most on iphone and ipad instead of other applications.





This is were the race comes in though for social gaming. One they are competing for customers against many other companies who are doing the same thing. They also have to beat the critics who believe that social gaming is a scam and that people are just doing it for the quick buck. More importantly then just competing for customers they must compete for space that is becoming very limited on these social networking sites. 
Hopefully thats were Apple would like to come in with its Game Center technology for the iphone and the ipad. Basically how I read is that it will still be social gaming but instead of drawing people and friends form facebook it will use your contacts to get together with your friends so you can play with them. Their definitely a few draw backs and problems that will have to be looked out for but in general I'm very excited for this new technology because it will give another format for social game developers to be on. Lastly I would like to comment on what HeyZap did which is put up a Meebo bar. The Meebo basically is like a tab bar but with all the games you want on their so that you can switch between games without going to the original page. Its make everything a lot easier and smoother and it takes away from the advertisements and other stuff that hold up a gamer from playing the game.
 
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8641414725578218077&postID=8654214804355877969&page=1&token=1271852134154_AIe9_BFNo72hZZkSwZwf-qBsvUfR-ljYU8KaYPtnhblXtL58uGMmvW0e4ZFCeJFtWtLHw1WTRxhe_S14aQq4ODip-xzCVxDr75qaYBUAyPcfetQQ1PeOihh77__CNX5GYUJjNz_R3GTKpy2Qeeu8bO1kTZsZ4OdAo27M9ZHCFCV_E7bTMkuPbJ5dRqwjLFJhFeugbdtunC8Cxf--s3nmNwdA5X6lvHEtomn1bGFiS7Lzz5HXYW4noPtzwkWt5HkWmoptcLWv574r

http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/04/apples-game-center-more-opportunities-for-social-games-developers.php

http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/04/09/as-apples-social-gaming-plans-emerge-mobile-social-developers-respond/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/09/businessinsider-whats-wrong-with-an-apple-social-gaming-network-not-all-your-friends-have-iphones-2010-4.DTL

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10393957-36.html

http://jussilaakkonen.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/facebook-the-biggest-boost-for-gamings-positive-image-ever/#comment-365

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/20/heyzap-launches-a-meebo-bar-for-social-games/

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