

Playdom CEO John Pleasants: Why social gaming will become the norm - evo_9
http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/07/23/playdom-ceo-john-pleasants-why-social-gaming-will-die/

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leelin
Shame on venturebeat for crafting one of the most misleading titles ever.

I wouldn't have even bothered reading or clicking, except to look for why JP
is predicting the death of social gaming. In reality the interview is a total
promotion of social gaming.

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sorbus
The title twists his meaning a bit by removing context; his next sentence
clarifies the statement: "That is, the term will become meaningless, as all
games will become social."

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gintas
The claim is actually that "all games will become social", and I doubt very
much that this will happen. I have an inkling that Solitaire and Minesweeper
are going to stay around for a while.

Moreover, historically new ideas with a high potential tend to expand their
influence very rapidly in the beginning and take a large share, but the legacy
tools still remain (sometimes still unparalleled in specific niches): hence
the telephone in the age of the internet, or mail order books in the age of
Amazon (see <http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm> ),
bicycles in the age of the automobile, etc.

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andrewljohnson
He likes to say small shops can't make it, and at the same time we know he
wants to buy small shops, at least one a month if he can.

He's being disingenuous so he can acquire small shops cheaper. It't total BS
that a small company can't make a living at Facebook games, way more than a
living. I know multiple 2-3 man shops that do just that.

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acgourley
Well there are ways in which a bigger collection of small shops can be
stronger than the sum of its parts.

* It's a hit driven business, and this distributes risk.

* Especially in social gaming, it seems important to have a userbase to market to. Playdom can do this across its properties in a very arbitrary and low friction way.

* Playdom can do promotions with big brands across multiple properties at once. Larger brands might not give the time of day to individual game studios.

Obviously there are disadvantages, too. The drive to make a great game just
isn't the same when you're part of a larger company. This might not be an
issue if you're developing the kind of games _you_ would want to play. But if
you're designing a game for children or one that cynically targets user
psychology, you may really lose your drive.

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tkrawlins
Meta-question: at what point does link-baiting go from being a fun way to
catch your attention, to being annoying and dishonest?

