

The demographics of social gamers are closer to gambling than gaming - kurtable
http://altdevblogaday.com/2012/01/11/social-gamers-are-gamblers/

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justinhj
I'm surprised the article states "Before social gaming, older women were an
entirely untapped gaming market, and one that had both time and money to spend
on games that could capture their interest." This is patently false. Anyone
familiar with the casual gaming industry would know that. For example Big Fish
Games and Popcap both had mostly women players. I say had, because social
gaming has greatly reduced that market.

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davidtyleryork
Ah, well I definitely missed that when doing my research, but I did build my
assumptions into my language (ie using the word "untapped" versus "untouched",
implying that it existed but wasn't fully utilized). That said, I think the
word "entirely" is misplaced. I'm going to take it out and use "mostly"
instead, if that helps :)

Also, if you can shoot me an article about the demographics of those games
that you mentioned, I will include it in my article. Thanks for pointing that
out.

~~~
justinhj
Some anecdotal references to it in this article from 2006
[http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2006/05/26/interview-paul-
thele...](http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2006/05/26/interview-paul-thelen-big-
fish-games) I'll let you know if I come up with more.

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davidwparker
Not surprising.

Also, if you haven't read the article/story/blog "Who killed videogames: a
ghost story", then you should check it out:
[http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-
a-g...](http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-
story/)

It talks a lot about the behavior mindsets of social video games.

~~~
lusr
This article makes me want to become a psychomatheconometrician mastermind
developer.

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forrestthewoods
The article is written by someone in marketing for a company that provides
real-money gambling services to video game companies. That their conclusion is
"This is why real-money play is such a great fit for social games." is hardly
a surprise.

~~~
davidtyleryork
Right you are ;)

We believe that social games are a natural fit for real-money play.

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nik_0_0
Interesting, I always saw the uprise of social games as quite confusing, since
myself as a gamer saw no need for these games. It makes sense that these
Farmville/Social City/Zynga games then be targeted towards this new, untapped
group. I find the Zynga numbers to be interesting, but the correlation
confuses me. Is it completely out of left field to follow the 81% gambling
figure to correlate that that number of women are visiting casinos/e-casinos
and gambling? That seems like a HUGE number.

~~~
davidtyleryork
Hey nik, thanks for the comment. So you know, the number is that 81% of women
prefer to play slots when they go to casinos. This doesn't mean that they are
81% of slot machine players (the actual ratio is closer to 52% male, 48%
female).

~~~
nik_0_0
That makes far more sense :) Thanks for the clarification, I didn't read the
data closely enough.

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gojomo
A casino or other social-gaming company is often A/B testing variants to
'increase engagement'. However, such engagement is arguably _against_ the
mental/physical health interests of the test subjects.

Is A/B optimization in such a case thus an illegal/unethical experiment on
human subjects without their informed consent? (Can Zynga 'Whales', that
minority of their users contributing most of their revenues via payments of
hundreds of dollars a month, actually give _informed consent_? Or are they on
a binge?)

Tobacco companies lost giant class-action lawsuits because they (A) hid known
harmful effects of their products; and (B) engineered their products to be
more addictive. Could companies pushing gamification no matter the cost become
the tobacco-company-pariahs of the mid-21st-century?

~~~
tomjen3
That seems unlikely. It is kinda hard to know what people have put in your
cigarets. It is easy to know what they show you on a screen.

~~~
gojomo
I don't think the secrecy of the manufacturing formula was a big factor in the
tobacco judgements. Everyone knew cigarettes had tobacco, flavorings, and
preservatives, and delivered a bunch of nicotine/tar/smoke to the lungs.

You can see what's on the screen in Farmville, but do the players understand
the effects of periodicity and random reinforcement on the dopaminergic
motivational system? The power of well-crafted images and sounds or
emotionally manipulative language? Viral loops?

We in the industry know these things; for a layperson it's as obscure as the
chemistry of physical addiction.

~~~
mattmanser
But where do you draw the line?

Arguably Diablo, WoW, etc. are all about pointless clicking for pointless
reward.

Some people call it fun, some people call it manipulation. One has little
farms and the other Sword of Wonder +101.

~~~
davidtyleryork
^ This. I don't think government intervention is the answer. In respect to
tobacco companies, the government only intervened when public outcry became
deafening, but the public interest in the abuse was what drove their
involvement.

Also, cigarrettes contribute to lung cancer, which kills thousands of people
per year. Social games do not directly cause any significant social issues,
and even if they may indirectly cause some problems, it won't be as serious as
death.

~~~
intended
We stepped in to stop misleading advertising, and several other non lethal
behaviors because of their derogatory effect on the lives of others.

We don't have to have games kill people to recognize that they are designed to
manipulate and addict/engage its audience in a manner inimical to the
interests of people.

Unfortunately, once we agree on the above points, we reach the real defense of
social gaming, the slippery slope argument.

I believe that in due course of time, people will leave social games, after
getting bored of them. The gaming market is not static.

At the same time that doesn't mean we stand back and let evolution go on its
merry way. At the very least, we should be able to agree that there are some
metrics we can analyze, perhaps the risk reward schedules and payout schemes,
and compare them to their ability to create repeat behaviors/addiction in a
percentage of the population.

(Heck even if we did wait for games to kill, we would have to work through the
defence which will say: "well those people couldn't control themselves, so its
just an outlier, or a freak case." )

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toadi
Still looks a sleasy way to make money. Don't make it feel like gambling and
before you know it your broke.

Also They fly under regulation radar. Most casino's online/real life have to
give back a fixed percentage in winnings. Just looks to me it's a hidden form
of gambling and because it's a game they don't have to follow regulations...

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wisty
I wonder if social gaming will kill casinos and slot machines? If so, I might
think it's a little less evil.

~~~
hello_moto
Wouldn't that just change the form factor of gambling? just... with cuter
animals to prey on younger targets?

~~~
davidtyleryork
Yes but it will also pull gambling out of the "Sin City" mentality, which is a
good thing for both the industry and players

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hello_moto
I'm a little bit confused.

Gambling, no matter what the form factor is, is still gambling.

Sin City or not, I doubt it'll change the attitude of people within the
gambling industry. They are still the same kind/type of people.

~~~
davidtyleryork
But what is gambling compared to a virtual currency social game? They both
employ same mechanics, and with gambling you can win real money, and with
virtual currency you can only sink money in. There are differences in the
amount of money, but the underlying system is largely the same.

Also, the American gambling industry is stereotyped to be that "Sin City" type
of person, but I would argue that this stereotype isn't the case here or
worldwide. Look at the blog post by Josh Hannah, former founder of Betfair and
VC at Matrix Partner) on the recent US gambling DOJ ruling:
<http://www.joshhannah.com/2012/01/us-gambling-goes-online/>

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username3
There's a page not found for your link in the article to Exposing Social
Gaming's Hidden Lever. The link under You may also like works.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3165365>

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davidtyleryork
ACK! Fixed it, thanks for the heads up

