
Google+ loses key partners as PopCap, Wooga pull games  - uzero
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/172408/Google_loses_key_partners_as_PopCap_Wooga_pull_games.php
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jyap
It's strange to read the comments here on Hacker News that people are glad and
"relieved" that games in Google+ are gone.

Put it this way, if Google+ remains a nerdvana, then it has lost. Google wants
Google+ to be a household name. Not a niche product. It may well die a slow
and painful death if it doesn't gain widespread use and adoption. Either way a
nerdvana or equivalent means Google+ will never have reached its potential or
what it set out to be. That's a huge failure in the scheme of things.
Remember, Google changed EVERYTHING to center around Google+.

Google wants to remain one of the biggest and most relevant brands in
technology to EVERYONE. Not just people interested in Linus Torvalds post
comments.

March at GDC 2012, Punit Soni, lead product manager for Google+ games and
mobile: "Games are key to the success of Google+"

Hacker News comments can be so out of touch with what's at stake, what is
reality and what they view as "great" for their own skewed opinions. Hacker
News readers are meant to understand intended audiences and project goals. Not
feel relieved that games are gone.

Link Quote:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/168726/Nine_months_later_...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/168726/Nine_months_later_Google_game_devs_are_reluctant_to_share_success_stories.php)

~~~
jellicle
Google has made G+ intentionally unattractive to most people, and has
encouraged the 40-50-ish white male technology self-promoters to be the focus
of the network. They could have made other choices. This isn't our problem and
can't be fixed by us.

Games, as currently implemented on social networks, are a terrible and useless
waste of human time. (Imagine a true social networking game. We haven't seen
it yet, but it's out there somewhere. But trying to figure out how to make
people come back to your app every two hours to "harvest crops" is dumb.)

~~~
Angostura
>Google has made G+ intentionally unattractive to most people, and has
encouraged the 40-50-ish white male technology self-promoters to be the focus
of the network.

Could you explain your reasoning? I'm not sure why you believe this to be the
case. Introducing games was just one sign that they wanted to attract a wider
demographic.

~~~
loudmax
Google limited the appeal of G+ early on when they started enforcing their
real name policy. Throwing out users when you're trying to expand the user
base turned out to be counterproductive. But the policy seems more misguided
than intentionally unattractive.

~~~
nl
And we see the same problem again. The number of people who care about the
real-name policy is so vanishingly small that it just doesn't matter. It's the
37 Signals cat.jpg[1] issue problem.

Look at Facebook. Everyone[2] uses their real names, and it seems to have done
ok.

[1] Apparently some people thought it was outrageous that 37 Signals posted
that the 100 billionth (or whatever) file uploaded was called cat.jpg.

[2] I expect some pedantic comments here about how their friend's boyfriend
uses a fake name to avoid an ex-gf. If you think that is important then may I
suggest you are missing the point.

~~~
Kylekramer
It is funny, cause the no pseudonym policy was brought up as the reason why
Google+ is an older male technologist wasteland, and vast majority of the
vanishingly small number of people who care about the no pseudonym policy are
older male technologists.

~~~
nl
Very nicely put.

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zmmmmm
Doesn't surprise me a lot.

When the games launched I went to try a few and they all demanded to know my
personal information - name, birth date, etc. I was pretty offended by that
and never bothered going further. I'm generally OK with targeted advertising
but there is zero reason for a game to need to know my full name and birth
date.

~~~
HalibetLector
From a legal standpoint, there absolutely is a need to know your full name and
birth date. It's called the FTC Coppa rule, where it's illegal to collect and
disclosing personal information of children under age 13 without their
parents’ prior consent. Acclaim got dinged by that last year and as a result,
some games no longer allow underage players at all.

~~~
Firehed
Uh, if you don't collect any personal information, COPPA isn't an issue. So if
you don't ask for name and birthdate, you have no need to ask for their
birthdate. To my knowledge, playing a game requires no personal information.

~~~
chii
...unless they plan to monetize your information, hence first requiring your
concent to it...

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w1ntermute
Well, that's one bullet dodged. I think the last thing anyone wants to see on
G+ is games. I recall the Facebook UX being significantly (negatively)
affected by the addition of so-called "apps".

~~~
spullara
It is one of the first things that Google+ launched in August of last year. It
may be why they built their network in the first place. Page views, signups
and monetization on Facebook are heavily correlated to people playing games on
the platform.

~~~
mtgx
I think Google did it more for the users than for themselves. They thought
people like games like Farmville and such, and it's a big reason why they
spend so much time on Facebook. This is also why they left full control to the
user so he can't get spammed by the games, like you get on Facebook.

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bcl
G+ has attracted a different audience than FB so I'm not surprised that games
aren't catching on.

~~~
jawr
although i'm not a fan of facebook or g+, the idea that games are a key factor
to their success is an alien idea to me.

~~~
dspillett
>* the idea that games are a key factor to their success is an alien idea to
me*

Games are an extra reason for people to visit the site regularly, perhaps many
times per day. That increases the users exposure to your advertising and
creates more opportunity for them to add some information to your database
(people are more likely to post an arbitrary thought if they are already
logged in to check on their farm than if they'd have to open a new browser
window specifically to do so) which both helps you target your advertising and
(if you are lucky enough to have people who care about what you say) may
provide more reason for other people to visit regularly.

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uvTwitch
No games on Google+? Colour me relieved - and this is coming from a game
designer!

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crag
I'm relieved about games not being on Google + too.

But I also know that's not what Google wants. Google wants the herd. They
don't want to be 2nd (or 3rd). And if you want the "herd" you cater to the
herd.

~~~
wazoox
Yep, so far Google+ hasn't reach its eternal september yet, and that's a darn
good thing IMO.

~~~
Goronmon
Not that good when Google declares it a failure and lets it stagnate like
Orkut.

~~~
wazoox
I'm happy with my Linux desktop, though Linux desktop penetration stagnated
for the last decade. I'm not sure I have that much to gain from being
mainstream.

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Niksko
I'm disappointed by this, but I have a feeling that Google is going to make a
big gaming play. My money is on a 'game center' type app for Android at IO and
that this will have some sort of tie in with Google+.

On a different note, I think that Google is basically implementing games
perfectly on Google+. The reason people hate games on Facebook (and
consequently, without thinking, want them gone on Google+) is because Facebook
is constantly pestering you to "play Foo Game 2000 with such and such a
friend", or "such and such a friend go 10000 points in Foo Game 2000". I've
never once seen this on Google+. Gaming on Google+ is completely separate from
its other functions (which are in turn just ways to tie Google's multitude of
services together).

Google+ does social gaming perfectly, and if there's a tie in with Android
gaming I think it could really take off. Imagine games that save your progress
between the browser and your phone, and allow you to do all the social things
that OpenFeint tries to do (but fails at).

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brianfryer
There are games on Google+?

~~~
petitmiam
They did the right then and kept them hidden in the corner. I guess that did
mean no one saw them at all.

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dsirijus
Given that Zynga was the biggest reason for Facebook growth second to nothing
other than the Facebook itself, I can see how this could hurt the numbers.

Then again, we all remember Farmville. We can live without that on G+.

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mzr90s
While I am not a big fan of games, I don't mind G+ putting games on it's
network to cater to the current internet generation.

Just keep that crap out of my news feed ( _cough_ Facebook _cough_ ) and all
is well.

I don't give two craps that you opened a fortune cookie and now you want me to
open one.

Facebook will be a thing of the past. I logged in after a long time and the UI
is still cluttered with game requests, fortune cookie requests, kiss requests
all other garbage I am not fond of.

Yes I can ignore these apps, but I'd rather not waste my life click ignoring
on each of these stupid apps. G+ has a good signal to noise ratio on content I
SUBSCRIBE to and that is why I let them use my data.

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rjuyal
One big reason I don't like FB is, it is having games. Even though I don't
play games on FB, but my friends do. And every day I see lots of notification
saying, your friend is playing that awesome game, score of your friend is xxx
can you beat that, your friend needs your help for abc game.

I wished g+ don't have such craps at all.

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coryl
Not gonna brag, but this was very easy to see coming. Here's a blog post I
wrote last year:

[http://coryliu.com/post/8637665056/google-plus-sucks-for-
soc...](http://coryliu.com/post/8637665056/google-plus-sucks-for-social-game-
developers)

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r00fus
I've heard from multiple sources that online social gaming is tapering off as
a market, to be overtaken by mobile gaming apps.

Perhaps G+ was skating where the puck was, instead of where the puck should
be?

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DigitalSea
Meh, life goes on. It was only a matter of time, Google+ just hasn't caught on
with the masses and I don't think that it ever will. The only people that use
Google+ are Robert Scoble and well I'd hardly call that a successful website
if Robert Scoble is your only user, hahaha.

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MisterMerkin
I can tell you I don't use G+ to play games.

