Gamezebo says... "FrontierVille appears to be Zynga’s best and most original game to date. Oh, that’s not to say every single thing in the game is completely original. That is rarely the case with any game. FrontierVille instead combines a lot of the best gameplay mechanics from a lot of the best Zynga games into something that does not feel particularly like any single Facebook title this author has ever played before."
Kotaku:
During my first 25 years playing video games I had no theory about what makes a video game good. I knew the good ones when I played them. I just felt it.
Based on what was coming out of GDC it sounds like more and more developers are going away from developing console games to creating games that belong on Facebook or an App store. They cost less, and are mostly likely going to have a higher profit margin. It seems for the smaller developer trying to compete with Activision and Call of Duty may be a thing of the past. Goozernation wants to know, in the future, could console games be in trouble?
I went to an amazing panel at GDC that was full of great game designers who said, basically - look, there are crap games on EVERY generation of hardware, and social games are just another platform. There are crap games, and there are great games, and they allow great game developers to make a living at doing what we want them to do - make great games. I don't think social games mean the doom of consoles, any more than the Wii meant the doom of PC gaming. There's plenty of room and space for great games whatever the platform.
It's stated in the article that the very definition of gamer has changed because more and more people have found this casual games that they can play for mere minutes at a time. If the "gamer" base is expanding because of these casual games it doesn't necessarily mean that consoles are in trouble:
For the sake of argument there is only one console manufacturer in this example.
If we have a gamer base made up of 20 people and they all consider themselves "hardcore" gamers, the console manufacturer depends on them to buy their console and games and can reach 100% of their audience.
If casual games turn 80 more people into "gamers" then the gamer base has grown to 100 though the console manufacturer can't guarantee that all 100 will buy their console and games, though they do know that 20% of the gamer audience will buy the console.
In this example the expansion of the gamer base suddenly made the numbers look bad for the console manufacturer who went from hitting 100% of the market (20/20) to a mere 20% (20/100) but the amount of consumers they're providing for hasn't changed.
My point is that the social games will not destroy console gaming because, though they're all "gamers", they're catering to different demographics.
Social games are filling a niche; they're providing entertainment for people who find entertainment in that sort of thing. Video games didn't kill board games; WoW didn't kill D&D, etc.
Following Electronic Theatre’s earlier report on Sports Interactive and SEGA’s relief effort, Zynga Inc. has announced a fundraising initiative across more than seven games in partnership with Save the Children to support relief efforts following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Zynga is giving its 250 million players a chance to donate 100 percent of the purchase price of newly created virtual items to the Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children Emergency Fund, created by Save the Children to support the children of Japan’s ongoing and urgent needs.
