"There's going to be a lot of [game cloning]. The truth is that there's that in every industry. I mean, MMOs, there's no shortage of terrible World of WarCraft clones that didn't really work out, and you'll see the same thing I think here. A handful will survive, a bunch will fail. You're definitely in the stage right now in social games where there's a lot of bandwagon jumping, where everyone sees moneymoneymoney and suddenly all these new companies appear... It happened before in mobile, it happened before in casual – in the past it's tended to signal the beginning of the end.
"Not necessarily of the genre, but of the sort of golden era, where everything was a fresh blue ocean and all that stuff. It's getting into the era where it'll be a lot more hard-fought. It'll be tough. People will make money there, but there'll be a lot of competition and then margins will shrink and all that sort of stuff. That's my thought on where we're heading with social stuff. Facebook can't go that much faster, they're only going to tighten up their restrictions. Sooner or later they will raise their rates, do other things like that, margins will just get increasingly tough.
"You're already sort of seeing that, a lot of the viral growth of Facebook games is now shut down, they have to do it the old fashioned way, which is by buying ads or by having something that people are actually interested in playing and actually want to want to tell their friends about. From our point of view, we can live with that. That's an okay solution for us. So I'm fairly optimistic about the future – there's enough crazy stuff going on that you never know what's going to happen. I know Google are doing some sort of social network..."
-Popcap Chief Creative Officer Jason Kapalka talks to GamesIndustry.biz about what he sees as a fundamental shift in the social gaming market of late.
Hiển thị các bài đăng có nhãn Facebook. Hiển thị tất cả bài đăng
Hiển thị các bài đăng có nhãn Facebook. Hiển thị tất cả bài đăng
Thứ Ba, 7 tháng 2, 2012
Thứ Tư, 1 tháng 2, 2012
Facebook FPS: UberStrike brings gunslinging action to social networks
UberStrike
While browser first-person shooters (FPS) like Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes have been around for a while now, we've patiently awaited the day for our favorite modern American past time to come to Facebook: shooting things. South Korean developer Cmune has brought its browser FPS game, UberStrike, to Facebook. And it is, for lack of a better a word, awesome. Playing much like commonly known games such as Quake, UberStrike brings the traditional online FPS to the world of social games in a huge way.
Take a look behind the break for more about this shooter on Facebook.
Character Creation
For those familiar with how FPS games work, there won't be much different here than the novelty of having one on Facebook. But those new to genre will learn best through trial and error. Installing UberStrike requires players to download a one-time Java program to help run the game. Once inside the game, you'll find yourself in Character Creation where you're given a few options to customize your avatar such as skin tone, clothing color and hair color. (But only male avatars are available, what gives?) After that's through, the lobby awaits, which serves as the game's live chat room as well. This is where players can organize games together and buy Credits (the game's paid currency) bundles.
More importantly, this is also where you'll access games to play. Clicking the "Play" button will take you to a list of servers that are located in various parts of the world by region. It's best to choose a server closest to where you live to ensure the best play experience. For instance, I live on the East Coast, so choosing a West Coast server would still be playable, though I might suffer from serious lag and control issues. After choosing a server, you'll be presented with a list of games currently playing on that server.
Gameplay
Fortunately, the games are separated by map, player number and gameplay mode. There are currently only two gameplay modes available: Death Match and Team Death Match. In other words, you can kill everyone around you or kill everyone on opposing teams. Choose a game (or create your own) and you'll assume control of your character and get to the meat and potatoes of UberStrike.
Gameplay is simple enough, control movement using a combination of the WASD keys and the mouse to aim. Clicking the left mouse button fires and keys 1 through 5 cycle through weapons. The aim of the game is rack up as many kills as possible while staying alive, so be sure to pick up as many armor and health packs as possible. The balance between attacking other players and staying alive by collecting armor and health makes for a Facebook gaming experience that is sure to keep you on your toes.
Death Scene
As for visuals, this game looks impressive for being on a platform that normally only runs Flash games and not much else. Uberstrike operates in full, though minimally detailed, 3D with even a physics engine that affects the flight of projectiles and, how should we say, bodies. The graphics can be scaled for performance or looks through the Options menu where you can also remap controls and even sync a game controller for the console FPS crowd.
However, we're put off by just one thing: The Shop. Acquiring new weapons is far different than in other FPS games where they're found on the ground. Using Credits, players can buy licenses for more advanced weapons. The keyword here is "license." Buying a weapon or other enhancement only grants access to the item for a certain time period. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so expensive. To paint a better picture, buying, say, a Force Cannon for one week's use costs 2,184 Credits currently. However, that's about $4 for an item that's only going to last you a week as opposed to other games where that would be a one-time purchase.
While there are items and weapons available for coins, they'll never be as powerful as the paid items. Unfortunately, that's the current state of social gaming and it's unlikely to change for some time. That being said, UberStrike is a game that could get FPS fans hooked almost instantly and might even make some FPS players out of you.
Play UberStrike on Facebook Now >
While browser first-person shooters (FPS) like Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes have been around for a while now, we've patiently awaited the day for our favorite modern American past time to come to Facebook: shooting things. South Korean developer Cmune has brought its browser FPS game, UberStrike, to Facebook. And it is, for lack of a better a word, awesome. Playing much like commonly known games such as Quake, UberStrike brings the traditional online FPS to the world of social games in a huge way.
Take a look behind the break for more about this shooter on Facebook.
Character Creation
For those familiar with how FPS games work, there won't be much different here than the novelty of having one on Facebook. But those new to genre will learn best through trial and error. Installing UberStrike requires players to download a one-time Java program to help run the game. Once inside the game, you'll find yourself in Character Creation where you're given a few options to customize your avatar such as skin tone, clothing color and hair color. (But only male avatars are available, what gives?) After that's through, the lobby awaits, which serves as the game's live chat room as well. This is where players can organize games together and buy Credits (the game's paid currency) bundles.
More importantly, this is also where you'll access games to play. Clicking the "Play" button will take you to a list of servers that are located in various parts of the world by region. It's best to choose a server closest to where you live to ensure the best play experience. For instance, I live on the East Coast, so choosing a West Coast server would still be playable, though I might suffer from serious lag and control issues. After choosing a server, you'll be presented with a list of games currently playing on that server.
Gameplay
Fortunately, the games are separated by map, player number and gameplay mode. There are currently only two gameplay modes available: Death Match and Team Death Match. In other words, you can kill everyone around you or kill everyone on opposing teams. Choose a game (or create your own) and you'll assume control of your character and get to the meat and potatoes of UberStrike.
Gameplay is simple enough, control movement using a combination of the WASD keys and the mouse to aim. Clicking the left mouse button fires and keys 1 through 5 cycle through weapons. The aim of the game is rack up as many kills as possible while staying alive, so be sure to pick up as many armor and health packs as possible. The balance between attacking other players and staying alive by collecting armor and health makes for a Facebook gaming experience that is sure to keep you on your toes.
Death Scene
As for visuals, this game looks impressive for being on a platform that normally only runs Flash games and not much else. Uberstrike operates in full, though minimally detailed, 3D with even a physics engine that affects the flight of projectiles and, how should we say, bodies. The graphics can be scaled for performance or looks through the Options menu where you can also remap controls and even sync a game controller for the console FPS crowd.
However, we're put off by just one thing: The Shop. Acquiring new weapons is far different than in other FPS games where they're found on the ground. Using Credits, players can buy licenses for more advanced weapons. The keyword here is "license." Buying a weapon or other enhancement only grants access to the item for a certain time period. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so expensive. To paint a better picture, buying, say, a Force Cannon for one week's use costs 2,184 Credits currently. However, that's about $4 for an item that's only going to last you a week as opposed to other games where that would be a one-time purchase.
While there are items and weapons available for coins, they'll never be as powerful as the paid items. Unfortunately, that's the current state of social gaming and it's unlikely to change for some time. That being said, UberStrike is a game that could get FPS fans hooked almost instantly and might even make some FPS players out of you.
Play UberStrike on Facebook Now >
Thứ Hai, 9 tháng 1, 2012
Facebook's Zuckerberg 'pretty sure' company won't make social games
Riiight. We're onto you, Mark. Jokes (momentarily) aside, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) and COO Sheryl Sandberg told journalist Charlie Rose during a PBS interview that aired Monday night that Facebook will not build its own social games, Business Insider reports. However, it's interesting to note that the Big Z is the one who led the conversation into games, and continues to praise them.
"One thing that we haven't talked about at all here are games, right," Zuckerberg told Rose. "I mean, games is probably the biggest industry today that has gone really social, right. I mean, the incumbent game companies are really being disrupted and are quickly trying to become social. And you have companies like Zynga."
Despite his deep enthusiasm for social games, the Facebook chief said, "No, I'm pretty sure we're not going to build any games." That is, after Rose repeatedly interrupted the guy ... jeez. Zuckerberg went on to elaborate that Facebook is better off focusing its resources on creating a single ecosystem for smaller products, like games, music streaming services and more.
The guy kind of has a point. For Facebook to start its own game studio, it would draw focus away from the company's core product: a social network and platform. Here's a piece of the transcribed interview in which Rose appears to interrupt Zuckerberg, like, a lot:
Mark Zuckerberg: One thing that we haven't talked about at all here are games, right. I mean, games is probably the biggest industry today that has gone really social, right. I mean, the incumbent game companies are really being disrupted and are quickly trying to become social. And you have companies like Zynga.
Charlie Rose: Yeah, well –
Mark Zuckerberg: – which are going public soon and will be valued at most likely at multibillion dollar valuations. And basically all of their games are built on top of Facebook for the most part.
Charlie Rose: Exactly.
Mark Zuckerberg: And a huge number of other companies as well. So I mean, does Facebook build any games? No. We build no games.
Charlie Rose: You say that today –
Mark Zuckerberg: No, we –
Charlie Rose: You say that today.
Mark Zuckerberg: Actually –
Sheryl Sandberg: I'm pretty sure we're not going to –
Mark Zuckerberg: No, I'm pretty sure we're not going to build any games.
Sheryl Sandberg: [unintelligible] we're not going to build games.
Mark Zuckerberg: We build –
Charlie Rose: Well, why are you so sure?
Mark Zuckerberg: Here's why. Here's why.
Charlie Rose: I'm only saying this because people thought that Steve Jobs –
Mark Zuckerberg: I'll tell you why.
Charlie Rose: – would never go into retail, and he did.
Mark Zuckerberg: I'll tell you why.
Charlie Rose: All right.
Mark Zuckerberg: Because building games is really hard. And so that's –
Charlie Rose: So that's the only reason.
Mark Zuckerberg: And we're doing - what we're doing is really hard. And we think that we're better off focusing on this piece. I think that building a great game service is really hard. Building a great music service is really hard. Building a great movie service is really hard. And we just believe that an independent entrepreneur will always beat a division of a big company which is why we think that the strategy of these other companies trying to do everything themselves will inevitably be less successful than an ecosystem where you have someone like Facebook trying to build the core product to help people connect and then independent great companies that are only focused on one or two things doing those things really well.
Sheryl Sandberg: And those companies can't - don't have the discipline to do it, right. They get big, and everyone wants to do everything, and they just say yes. And then they don't do everything well.
"One thing that we haven't talked about at all here are games, right," Zuckerberg told Rose. "I mean, games is probably the biggest industry today that has gone really social, right. I mean, the incumbent game companies are really being disrupted and are quickly trying to become social. And you have companies like Zynga."
Despite his deep enthusiasm for social games, the Facebook chief said, "No, I'm pretty sure we're not going to build any games." That is, after Rose repeatedly interrupted the guy ... jeez. Zuckerberg went on to elaborate that Facebook is better off focusing its resources on creating a single ecosystem for smaller products, like games, music streaming services and more.
The guy kind of has a point. For Facebook to start its own game studio, it would draw focus away from the company's core product: a social network and platform. Here's a piece of the transcribed interview in which Rose appears to interrupt Zuckerberg, like, a lot:
Mark Zuckerberg: One thing that we haven't talked about at all here are games, right. I mean, games is probably the biggest industry today that has gone really social, right. I mean, the incumbent game companies are really being disrupted and are quickly trying to become social. And you have companies like Zynga.
Charlie Rose: Yeah, well –
Mark Zuckerberg: – which are going public soon and will be valued at most likely at multibillion dollar valuations. And basically all of their games are built on top of Facebook for the most part.
Charlie Rose: Exactly.
Mark Zuckerberg: And a huge number of other companies as well. So I mean, does Facebook build any games? No. We build no games.
Charlie Rose: You say that today –
Mark Zuckerberg: No, we –
Charlie Rose: You say that today.
Mark Zuckerberg: Actually –
Sheryl Sandberg: I'm pretty sure we're not going to –
Mark Zuckerberg: No, I'm pretty sure we're not going to build any games.
Sheryl Sandberg: [unintelligible] we're not going to build games.
Mark Zuckerberg: We build –
Charlie Rose: Well, why are you so sure?
Mark Zuckerberg: Here's why. Here's why.
Charlie Rose: I'm only saying this because people thought that Steve Jobs –
Mark Zuckerberg: I'll tell you why.
Charlie Rose: – would never go into retail, and he did.
Mark Zuckerberg: I'll tell you why.
Charlie Rose: All right.
Mark Zuckerberg: Because building games is really hard. And so that's –
Charlie Rose: So that's the only reason.
Mark Zuckerberg: And we're doing - what we're doing is really hard. And we think that we're better off focusing on this piece. I think that building a great game service is really hard. Building a great music service is really hard. Building a great movie service is really hard. And we just believe that an independent entrepreneur will always beat a division of a big company which is why we think that the strategy of these other companies trying to do everything themselves will inevitably be less successful than an ecosystem where you have someone like Facebook trying to build the core product to help people connect and then independent great companies that are only focused on one or two things doing those things really well.
Sheryl Sandberg: And those companies can't - don't have the discipline to do it, right. They get big, and everyone wants to do everything, and they just say yes. And then they don't do everything well.
Thứ Ba, 20 tháng 12, 2011
FarmVille Upgrade window asks for permission to publish app activity to the ticker [UPDATE]
Many FarmVille players, myself included, were recently met with a new FarmVille Upgrade window upon entering their farms. We were asked to give Zynga (via the FarmVille app) our permission to publish games and app activity... but to where? According to the in-game pop-up, this all points to the new Facebook Games Ticker (which, as we reported earlier, can be considered a way for your friends to stalk you while online).
This ticker will show your friends when you've logged into a specific app, such as FarmVille, or can simply be used as a way to prove that you're online (and are capable of accepting their requests or messages) without you needing to be signed into Facebook Chat. Either way, the details about this FarmVille Upgrade were incredibly shaky when it comes to privacy, as are most other things when it comes to Facebook.
As usual, the general rule of thumb is to never store or publish information on Facebook that you wouldn't be comfortable with the entire world seeing, regardless of how locked down your profile may be to "strangers." For these specific options, though, you can see exactly what Zynga is asking for below. It all looks pretty straightforward, and looks like permissions we've given the developer before.
Since things are so cryptic, this also could be a precursor to the upcoming ability to add FarmVille neighbors that aren't your Facebook friends. Either way, your gameplay experience shouldn't change when allowing these "upgrades" to occur, so if you're confident about what you're sharing online, feel free to do just that.
UPDATE: Zynga has commented officially on the pop-up, since it caused confusion. Here's their statement:
Hey Farmers! You may have seen our latest message 'FarmVille Upgrade', and we'd like to assure you it is not spam, nor will clicking "OK" affect what is posted on your Newsfeed. We're simply only collecting permissions to better enhance your game play, by allowing you to view your game achievements and other special events using some of Facebook's new channels. We will be slowly rolling out these features over the next several weeks, so please stay tuned for new enhancements!
What do you think these FarmVille Upgrades really stand for? Did you receive the pop-up on your farm? Did you allow or refuse Zynga's latest request for your information?
This ticker will show your friends when you've logged into a specific app, such as FarmVille, or can simply be used as a way to prove that you're online (and are capable of accepting their requests or messages) without you needing to be signed into Facebook Chat. Either way, the details about this FarmVille Upgrade were incredibly shaky when it comes to privacy, as are most other things when it comes to Facebook.
As usual, the general rule of thumb is to never store or publish information on Facebook that you wouldn't be comfortable with the entire world seeing, regardless of how locked down your profile may be to "strangers." For these specific options, though, you can see exactly what Zynga is asking for below. It all looks pretty straightforward, and looks like permissions we've given the developer before.
Since things are so cryptic, this also could be a precursor to the upcoming ability to add FarmVille neighbors that aren't your Facebook friends. Either way, your gameplay experience shouldn't change when allowing these "upgrades" to occur, so if you're confident about what you're sharing online, feel free to do just that.
UPDATE: Zynga has commented officially on the pop-up, since it caused confusion. Here's their statement:
Hey Farmers! You may have seen our latest message 'FarmVille Upgrade', and we'd like to assure you it is not spam, nor will clicking "OK" affect what is posted on your Newsfeed. We're simply only collecting permissions to better enhance your game play, by allowing you to view your game achievements and other special events using some of Facebook's new channels. We will be slowly rolling out these features over the next several weeks, so please stay tuned for new enhancements!
What do you think these FarmVille Upgrades really stand for? Did you receive the pop-up on your farm? Did you allow or refuse Zynga's latest request for your information?
Thứ Sáu, 14 tháng 10, 2011
Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says
Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
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