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Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

goplexian.com

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Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#11

Post by jfarmer »

patio11 wrote: post #9
pw0ncakes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain.

Zygna (of FarmVille fame) has one of the most sophisticated testing and metrics operations on the Internet today. From externally observable evidence they're probably better at it than WoW and WoW is large enough to be its own national economy. (Zynga is a lot like IMVU or for that matter Toyota: I don't care if you have no interest in their product, their processes are worthy of study.) They aren't just throwing dun…

"Ask somebody who builds for it to describe the specifics, but there are now throttles and some sort of system where you earn the right to use the viral channels."

All of that is going away in five days. No more requests, no more notifications, etc.

Nobody knows what will happen! Pandemonium! Haha.

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#12

Post by goplexian »

patio11 wrote: post #7

I want games with substance and style, richly textured and thickly layered, with real character development and breathtaking artwork. I want games which remind me of good books. I paid $70 for this game when it was called Final Fantasy 13 and had a development budget in the upper eight figures (in dollars, not yen). If you want this from a game with a development budget in the five or lower six figures which is only…

"substance and style, richly textured and thickly layered, with real character development and breathtaking artwork"

...in the context of indie games. Context is important.

Maybe take a look at Braid or Machinarium.

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#14

Post by benologist »

pw0ncakes wrote: post #6
cellis wrote: post #4

This guy obviously has no idea how hard it is to make one of those hit games.

Explain.

I can't really speak for social games but I can elaborate on the casual side of gaming .... when we upload to sites like Kongregate and Newgrounds we submit ourselves to the mercy of a very vast, very diverse, very easily unsatisfied and very unappreciative audience ... and we need about 8 out of 10 people to like our game, and there's no second chance.

Sometimes only a handful of games satisfy these requirements a month, out of 100+ a day.

Social games I imagine are much the same .... you have to get a lot of things right first time, and your list of things that were right yesterday aren't necessarily so right today.

Really a lot of things are the same ... the difference between making a product your friends like vs. your town vs. your city vs. your state vs. your country vs. the whole world .... probably far below 1% of 1% of 'stuff' makes it to the top.

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#16

Post by jacobolus »

patio11 wrote: post #9
pw0ncakes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain.

Zygna (of FarmVille fame) has one of the most sophisticated testing and metrics operations on the Internet today. From externally observable evidence they're probably better at it than WoW and WoW is large enough to be its own national economy. (Zynga is a lot like IMVU or for that matter Toyota: I don't care if you have no interest in their product, their processes are worthy of study.) They aren't just throwing dun…

Are there good explanations of their process, etc. online somewhere? Your paragraph description is tantalizing but a bit spare.

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#17

Post by patio11 »

jacobolus wrote: post #16
patio11 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zygna (of FarmVille fame) has one of the most sophisticated testing and metrics operations on the Internet today. From externally observable evidence they're probably better at it than WoW and WoW is large enough to be its own national economy. (Zynga is a lot like IMVU or for that matter Toyota: I don't care if you have no interest in their product, their processes are worthy of study.) They aren't just throwing dun…

Are there good explanations of their process, etc. online somewhere? Your paragraph description is tantalizing but a bit spare.

I don't have a good one-stop "Here's everything people outside the company know about Zynga" resource in mind, but my two secrets for keeping a finger on the pulse of social gaming are a) andrewchenblog.com (though he doesn't blog much anymore, which saddens me because it frustrates my hunger for testing/metrics inspiration) and b) Slideshare (It is amazing what goodies people give away at conference presentations and a huge portion of them eventually migrate to Slideshare.)

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#18

Post by patio11 »

jfarmer wrote: post #11
patio11 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zygna (of FarmVille fame) has one of the most sophisticated testing and metrics operations on the Internet today. From externally observable evidence they're probably better at it than WoW and WoW is large enough to be its own national economy. (Zynga is a lot like IMVU or for that matter Toyota: I don't care if you have no interest in their product, their processes are worthy of study.) They aren't just throwing dun…

"Ask somebody who builds for it to describe the specifics, but there are now throttles and some sort of system where you earn the right to use the viral channels." All of that is going away in five days. No more requests, no more notifications, etc. Nobody knows what will happen! Pandemonium! Haha.

Memo to self: add "Do not build for platforms which could pull the rug from under you" to list of tips for founders with day jobs. That sort of thing would crunch my business like a tin can if it happened to me in the wrong week. (Actually, I think all weeks are the wrong week for something that big.)

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#19

Post by cellis »

patio11 wrote: post #18
jfarmer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ask somebody who builds for it to describe the specifics, but there are now throttles and some sort of system where you earn the right to use the viral channels." All of that is going away in five days. No more requests, no more notifications, etc. Nobody knows what will happen! Pandemonium! Haha.

Memo to self: add "Do not build for platforms which could pull the rug from under you" to list of tips for founders with day jobs. That sort of thing would crunch my business like a tin can if it happened to me in the wrong week. (Actually, I think all weeks are the wrong week for something that big.)

This is why the game I'm currently working on is built using facebook iframe/connect, and not fbml; the thinking being that this product should be able to stand on it's own merit regardless of which API i mash into it.

Re: Facebook will set indie gaming back 5 years

#20

Post by teej »

benologist wrote: post #14
pw0ncakes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain.

I can't really speak for social games but I can elaborate on the casual side of gaming .... when we upload to sites like Kongregate and Newgrounds we submit ourselves to the mercy of a very vast, very diverse, very easily unsatisfied and very unappreciative audience ... and we need about 8 out of 10 people to like our game, and there's no second chance. Sometimes only a handful of games satisfy these requirements a m…

As someone on who has been on the side of social games for a long time, it's absolutely not about getting it right the first time.

It has always been about two things - getting lucky, and moving fast.

Playfish tried to do a lot of games "right the first time" but weren't set up to quickly fix their mistakes and have ended up performing terribly.

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