Social Gaming...

Where do you see Social Gaming as a community building engine? Would you apply it to your site if you could? What benefits do you think you can gain from it?

Recent Social Gaming Events:
Playfish games purchased by EA Games, the price can be up to $400 million.

Zynga Game's popular Farmville sees up to 60 million players per day, larger than any other game.

World of Warcraft nets $500 million in profit a year.

Micro-transactions in games becoming more prevalent and accepted. That is real money to purchase items in Facebook games and MMORPGS.

Mini-games on mobile devices with cross-branding with websites and companies are taking off especially with App stores like iTunes, Blackberry App world, Wii Channels and more.

 

Around 1996 I got into online gaming with Quakeworld and Diablo. Some of people I ran into on gaming servers happened to live close to me,,, say about 30 - 45 minutes away. I still talk to some of them 13 years later.

Some of the problems is the maturity levels of the gamers, and the game hoppers.

A lot of gamers are kids, they just want to play the game and do not care about being social.

Then there are the game hoppres - the people that buy a game, play it for 2 - 3 months and then buy another game.

But then again, there are the people that have been playing the same game for 10 years. I'am guilty of that with Team Fortress Classic, Doom, Quake,,,, and a few other games.

The gaming niche is probably one of the toughest I have ever tried to tap into. The big sites like gamestop, Steam and a few others have the market wrapped up. Then there are the game specific forums like for Unreal Tournament who have a huge fan base.

If you can get the right people, then social networks can be formed around games. The problem is finding those people.

While playing Left 4 Dead, I will ask some of my team members to visit my forum. They say something like "ok, yea, I will" - but I never see them sign up or post anything.

When I tried to tell people I was playing Left 4 Dead with that I was giving away a copy of the game in a contest, they said - "its probably a porn site or something". It was like an argument just to get the people to believe me. And these are people I am playing with and talking to over a mic.

 

I can't see social gaming working for most of my sites, but on some of the less serious/targeted at a younger audience forums it might be a draw if it was extensively customized. For example, one of these days I plan to install P3tz (or the equivalent) on my service dogs forum; I think people would get a kick out of making virtual equivalents of their real-world dogs, competing in virtual "dog shows" and the like.

 

yeah, i think it would be a good idea, as long as it didnt make people post less and spend all their time on the games.

 

I reiterate the same points as kevin. There are less loyal patrons to online gaming in the sense of FPS nowadays. The hopping is quite frequent and really, its the company's making new games to release, followed by really not updating or keeping a said game going.

The MMOs are designed for greater social interaction leading to more longevity.

Having that base interface that accesses to such the ones you listed Wayne, makes it easier to more front and center to people, thus participate.

As with anything, access has to be simple and almost already mainstream to get it to take.

 

Really? An ice cream parlor game where each person runs their own shop, comes up with new flavors and so forth would fit right in with one of your sites.

How much money do you make per post? Are the posts quality or quantity? The key here would be ad views, click through rates and micro transactions making money for your site. However with a good game, people are going to spend more time on your site and more time posting than they do now.

 

Access is already mainstream. Look at Facebook and the hundreds of games on it that people play for free. Farmville is a Facebook game and has 60 million players. That is about 20% of Facebook's total population. It is almost the same number of XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and Wii consoles sold worldwide. The games are free to start play, cost nothing unless you really want the extras and are simple and easy to play. They are flashed based and run in any browser. Continuing with the Farmville example, my mother plays and she is 60. My niece also plays (albeit on her father's account) and she is 4. That is just one game.

This really has nothing about selling games or competing with large game oriented sites. The question wasn't about running a game site but about adding games to a site to increase revenue and eyeballs. This is beyond the idea of an Arcade with chunky flash games based on concepts 30 years old. It would be fresh and different game ideas related to the niche of the site itself.

 

I didn't word it right.

My point was affirming you, not that it wasn't there already or competing.

It's easy in those environments. I guess I should have answered your question...

I see it growing as it already is with the cited examples. There will be the strong ones and those attempting to enter that will get squeezed out. I think it will have a surge that will ride the wave of its base access (i.e, Facebook), which I think will last a good while.

I would not for the sites that I have.

I don't see any benefits with respect to what I've targeted. If implemented, then it would completely change the vision/target of my existing sites.

 

I've tried to get into the social gaming niche, but just don't have the connections, money, resources to do it. I'm a very big gamer, well I was at one point. I was addicted to WoW Multiboxing, which thankfully I quit. I was never social in them though, even at 16-17 years old. But I've played WoW since maybe 15 and started multiboxing it at around 16-17. Then I got hooked on AION Online recently, stopped playing that though, but might go back to multiboxing it though.

It could work if you got time, money, connections, resources, etc. I've even gone as far as trying to score sponsers like Nvidia, ATI, etc for forum contests and all. I do hope one day I can have a successful gaming social community, but it's gonna be very far off right now.

I'm also guilty for buying things in these free to play games to lol. I've donated to private servers for some MMOs for godly items, etc. I just am drawn to in game advantages for those who have money.