CuppyTalk

Different worlds, same complaints: On social games and shallow design

World of Warcraft has had phenomenal success in the traditional MMO gaming space. The MMO industry and the players within it yell that WoW has dumbed down MMORPGs for the masses. They want it less casual, deeper, more open.

Zynga, Playdom, PopCap, RockYou, etc. have had phenomenal success in the social gaming space. The game industry and traditional players yell that social games have dumbed down gaming for the masses. They want it less casual, deeper, more open.

The takeaway – it’s a good thing that those in charge of businesses make their decisions based on their experience with what works and their intuition of what makes a good product.

The trend in the social gaming space is to say “Make it more social!” or “Make it deeper!” or “Make these games more like ‘real games’”. If Apple hadn’t made the iPhone so dead simple to use, so casual, so friendly to the masses – it wouldn’t be as huge as it is today. If Paypal didn’t make buying items online as simple are remembering an email address and password, it wouldn’t be the largest payment provider on the web. Simple is how you go mass market.

I’m tired of hearing people complain that social games aren’t deep enough. Sometimes, games don’t have to be deep. Some of the most popular games in history are as simple as Tic-Tac-Toe. They’re as silly as Diner Dash. They’re as shallow as Bejeweled. They’re as targeted to a specific audience as Magic the Gathering. I absolutely do not believe that the only good games are ones that are radically new concepts with entirely new mechanics. I believe there is a strong need and market out there for games that take evolutionary steps such as Ravenwood Faire, or It Girl, or FrontierVille. I don’t think these games should be discounted as simple clones, as mediocre piles of crap. There are players that love them, that pay for them, that spend hours in them.

There are social gaming companies that are going for a core gaming audience. KlickNation has had decent success with Superhero City and Age of Champions. Kabam (formerly Watercooler) also has a company strategy that focuses on the core gaming niche on Facebook. But they’re readily admitting that what they’re doing is niche. They’re going for a niche that produces less traffic and DAUs but monetizes at better than average. You might not have heard of these games, because they’re not the ones that are doing 1 million+ DAU right now. They’re out there though, and they have just as much legitimacy as social games as the extremely shallow fashion games and farming games.

The social gaming industry needs to stop hating on itself and the players within it, and instead start learning and evolving. That doesn’t mean the games will necessarily become deeper, but if they do I hope it’s because players are asking for it and not just disgruntled game designers who come from the traditional game space. My job is to manage a community of 800,000 daily active players per day and I can tell you that they don’t want complicated. They don’t care for deep experiences. They create meaningful gameplay moments simply by decorating their bakery and making recipes to sell in their bakeries. They aren’t looking for the next great experimental artistic expression via Facebook. They just want to enjoy a few simple games with their friends that allow them to express their creativity and occupy their time. These supposedly shallow and crappy games are monetizing quite well, satisfying a target demographic, and making their players happy. Just how WoW is doing for its players.

26 January 2011 ·