Brian Reynolds, Zynga's chief games designer, sure seems to have an opinion on everything, and Industry Gamers has been there to hear every bit of it. His most recent take on the social games industry offers up his opinions on triple-a game designers - like those responsible for Call of Duty, or other major console games - and why they fail when it comes to making social games.
According to Reynolds, console game developers that decide to jump into the Facebook arena do so in a backwards fashion.
"You can't just go write... Call of Duty and add Facebook functionality. You've got to make a game that's about socializing, make social the core of what you're inventing, and then build the game around that. Mostly where I see triple-A people or developers trying to get into social and then failing is where they say, 'We're just going to take game X and kind of give it a little bit of Facebook plumbing and that'll be great.'"
He goes on to explain that in order to be successful, game designers need to forget about the "triple-A" game factors, and build a social game, with core social mechanics, before they ever add in the elements that make for a great experience. He says that in order to succeed, developers need to "come in and really learn social qua social and bring their immense decades of experience to improve it from there."
It's true that many console developers have failed when it comes to creating games for the social sphere, but with games like Dragon Age: Legends, could we finally be turning a corner for good?
[Image Credit: IGN]
What do you think of Reynolds ideas? Should console developers, looking to get into the social space, work first on their games' social game mechanics before ever giving them a story?
Work at home & Earn Money
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Game of the Day: TextTwist 2
The Game of the Day has got your word games, right here! TextTwist2 : Twist again with 'TextTwist 2', the incredible sequel to one of the most popular word games of all time. Shuffle letters to form words in three all-new game modes and two of your favorites!
Click --> Play TextTwist2
Important side note: Just by playing The Game of the Day you will be entered into a monthly drawing to win a FlipCam HD. You don't need to do anything else, just play! The more you play, the more chances you have to win. For more information on the Game of Day check out the official Game of the Day hub.
Click --> Play TextTwist2
Important side note: Just by playing The Game of the Day you will be entered into a monthly drawing to win a FlipCam HD. You don't need to do anything else, just play! The more you play, the more chances you have to win. For more information on the Game of Day check out the official Game of the Day hub.
FarmVille Sneak Peek: Spring Basket blooms once again
It's time to ring in everyone's favorite season, Spring. FarmVille Feed has the first images of the upcoming Spring Basket event in FarmVille. We suspect that players will have to collect colored Eggs and Flowers for special rewards. (You know, like every collection event thus far?) Details such as the rewards in question are scarce, but FarmVille Feed guesses the Yellow Patch Cow and Flower Sheep will be making a return. Stay tuned for for the fragrant updates.
[Image Credit: FarmVille Feed]
Will you be completing this year's Spring Basket? What do you think of these collection events?
[Image Credit: FarmVille Feed]
Will you be completing this year's Spring Basket? What do you think of these collection events?
FrontierVille: Trouble with 37x37 Land Expansion Goals? Finish the Foundry first
Fox Cannon
Several disgruntled players have reported in to FrontierVille Info that they are stuck in one FrontierVille Goal: The Hideout. It's part of the 37x37 Land Expansion Goals, and players who happen to be stuck here coincidentally have yet to complete the Foundry Goals from months ago. The thing is, the Foundry Goal titled "Fox Hunt" is where players unlock and first use the Fox Cannon. While we think you can gather what must be done, we'll give a hint: In order to complete The Hideout, you must have completed the Fox Hunt from the Foundry missions. If this doesn't help, take it to the forums and hope that someone can hear you above the Canning Goal revolts.
Have you had trouble with the Fox Cannon Goals? If this didn't help, but something else did,
Several disgruntled players have reported in to FrontierVille Info that they are stuck in one FrontierVille Goal: The Hideout. It's part of the 37x37 Land Expansion Goals, and players who happen to be stuck here coincidentally have yet to complete the Foundry Goals from months ago. The thing is, the Foundry Goal titled "Fox Hunt" is where players unlock and first use the Fox Cannon. While we think you can gather what must be done, we'll give a hint: In order to complete The Hideout, you must have completed the Fox Hunt from the Foundry missions. If this doesn't help, take it to the forums and hope that someone can hear you above the Canning Goal revolts.
Have you had trouble with the Fox Cannon Goals? If this didn't help, but something else did,
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
FarmVille Mystery Game (04/24/2011): White animals make a comeback
The newest round of the FarmVille Mystery Game has just launched, and with it comes the fulfillment of our prediction - this week's theme is white animals. However, before you get incredibly excited, know that half of this week's game is full of re-releases of animals that we've seen given away previously. If you were hoping to score six all-new animals, you'll unfortunately have to wait for another week for that to happen.
The animals that are available, however, are the following:
Arctic Fox
White Kitten
White Shire Horse
White Squirrel
White Stork
White Wolf Cub
The White Squirrel was first released back in July, as part of the first Mystery Game ever, while the Arctic Fox was a prize in the Holiday Tree and the White Kitten was seen in a Mystery Game just last month. Again, the other three animals are new, so if you'd like to splurge and spend the 20 Farm Cash on a dart, hopefully you won't receive an animal that you already have on your farm. We'll wish you luck that you don't.
Either way, this Mystery Game theme will only be around for a week, at which point another theme will take over, so make sure to play now and play fast if you're at all interested.
The animals that are available, however, are the following:
Arctic Fox
White Kitten
White Shire Horse
White Squirrel
White Stork
White Wolf Cub
The White Squirrel was first released back in July, as part of the first Mystery Game ever, while the Arctic Fox was a prize in the Holiday Tree and the White Kitten was seen in a Mystery Game just last month. Again, the other three animals are new, so if you'd like to splurge and spend the 20 Farm Cash on a dart, hopefully you won't receive an animal that you already have on your farm. We'll wish you luck that you don't.
Either way, this Mystery Game theme will only be around for a week, at which point another theme will take over, so make sure to play now and play fast if you're at all interested.
GSN Digital gets smart with Jeopardy! for Facebook (sans Watson)
Alex Trebek is quite the busy man these days. First, he kept his contestants from lunging at Watson--that IBM supercomputer that defeated two Jeopardy! legends in February--in jealous rage of its immense computing ability and now, he's on Facebook. (Alright, that first part never happened, but they thought about it!) GSN Digital, the team responsible for Wheel of Fortune on the platform, has launched Jeopardy for Facebook. It's available for play now, and has been modified to cater to the short-burst gameplay most social gamers have time for during their lunch break.
Contestants play in three shortened rounds and can make wagers on Daily Doubles and the Final Jeopardy question--just like in the game that airs after dinner every night. However, the game offers several features tailored toward the Facebook audience like Jeopardy Boosts, which allow players to either double their score or pass on a clue. And if you don't know the answer to the Final Jeopardy question, you can ask a friend and make back half of your wager. Of course, micro-transactions are included to purchase Boosts or more Episodes, which are your allowed play sessions.
Gallery: JEOPARDY! beta
"Jeopardy! is considered a benchmark of ultimate knowledge. We're thrilled that GSN Digital has created an interactive game for Facebook that makes learning fun," Harry Friedman, executive producer of Jeopardy, said in a statement. You see that, folks? If that's the case, then this is the Facebook game of ultimate knowledge. Yeah, we knew that would pique your interest.
Contestants play in three shortened rounds and can make wagers on Daily Doubles and the Final Jeopardy question--just like in the game that airs after dinner every night. However, the game offers several features tailored toward the Facebook audience like Jeopardy Boosts, which allow players to either double their score or pass on a clue. And if you don't know the answer to the Final Jeopardy question, you can ask a friend and make back half of your wager. Of course, micro-transactions are included to purchase Boosts or more Episodes, which are your allowed play sessions.
Gallery: JEOPARDY! beta
"Jeopardy! is considered a benchmark of ultimate knowledge. We're thrilled that GSN Digital has created an interactive game for Facebook that makes learning fun," Harry Friedman, executive producer of Jeopardy, said in a statement. You see that, folks? If that's the case, then this is the Facebook game of ultimate knowledge. Yeah, we knew that would pique your interest.
Dragon Age Legends producer Ethan Levy: This game 'was a gamble' [Interview]
Deemed the first real game on Facebook when it was released, Dragon Age Legends launched in advance of its console counterpart, Dragon Age 2, in March. It's been over a month since EA2D threw you into the world of Thedas through Facebook, and now it's time to see whether the team feels that it lived up to its lofty expectations. To do just that, we had the chance recently to chat with Ethan Levy, producer of Dragon Age Legends, and get his reflections on the game. Of course, we also learned quite a lot about what's in store for the game, and how Levy and his team plan to keep your adventures going for a very, very long time.
Now that Dragon Age Legends (DAL) has been out in the wild for a month, how do you feel about it? What do you like most about the finished product? What, in your opinion, still needs work?
It was a gamble whether a hardcore gamer audience would show up for a Facebook game and enjoy it. And I think we did a very good job of staying true to the vision of Dragon Age and the world that Bioware has created, and players responded. One of the best moments is whenever people comment on the game on Facebook or review it, they refer to us as Bioware. On one hand, I've spent the past two and a half years at this point helping to build EA2D, and I wish we stood on our own right. But on the other hand, Bioware is one of the most acclaimed game developers in the world. So, if people look at what we've done and say, 'Hey Bioware. Great job, but you really need to improve this and this,' it's kind of a badge of honor that they hold it to the same level of quality.
As for what needs improvement, the team is working in a software-as-service model, and we update the game every week with new quests, new features and bug fixes. Just yesterday we released a major new feature called 'Guilds,' and we plan on operating this game for a long time. So, I have a really deep road map of different features and improvements that the team is excited about. We have a year-long narrative outline that we worked with Bioware on. We just started teasing that, now that we have Guilds, we're going to do a Guild versus Guild arena system. So, there are really hundreds of ways that we want to improve to the game.
Why did you decide to go with not only a decidedly more hardcore play style, but such graphic animation?
That was the gamble, I guess: That gamers would-and not to disparage my fellow EA employees at Playfish or any other company-show up for a real game. And not an activity where there's no real meaningful choices; games that just reward you for showing up. So, we wanted to do a game that any hardcore gamer or Bioware fan would show up for.
By tapping into a mature theme and audience like that, we would never hit the 25 million daily players of a FarmVille, for instance. But the players that we did cater to would stay around longer and would pay more on average for micro-transactions, because when you buy a really cool sword or armor it's more meaningful and long lasting in its effects.
Dragon Age Legends Concept
During the development process, what was most difficult and why did it give you so much trouble?
The most difficult obstacle for us was the technology base. DAL might look like a Flash game, but it's actually built a lot more like an MMO, and we built all that tech from scratch. So, the game that you see is just the tip of the iceberg of a really impressive piece of technology that our systems and platform team here has built. And that platform was built with long-term investment for EA2D. I think there are a lot of hard lessons learned along the way as we built our team and technology. Now that it's in place, we're able to create some pretty incredible things like the mobile extension of DAL, which we're really proud of.
So, you mentioned a year-long road map--
(Laughs.) At least! That's the features we can think of now.
And that's impressive. You seem to want this game to stand on its own, so how do you plan to differentiate DAL from companion game to just Facebook game?
Part of our theory is that this will serve as a bridge game, or a game that bridges gamers from the release of the console product to downloadable packages. People can be playing this for weeks and weeks or potentially years and years in between releases of the core game from Bioware. It'll differentiate itself over time.
Better yet, is there any desire to link the two games in more meaningful ways like crossing plot lines or introducing characters from one game to the other?
We have hopes to do some deeper integration points than we have so far. I was very privileged to work with Dragon Age's lead designer when I crafted the story for DAL. And the two games were in development at the same time, so something that was important to me was to avoid any dependency.
There are two things I really wouldn't want to happen while we were both in development. One would be that [Bioware] changed something at the last minute story wise and all of a sudden a piece of our game doesn't make sense. What a harder case would be is that I never want to get a call from the Dragon Age team saying, 'Why would you invent this city?' (Laughs.) No Dragon Age product is non-canon, so making DAL parallel to Dragon Age 2 was very intentional and we hope to intersect those paths more meaningfully in the future.
Gallery: Dragon Age Legends on Facebook
More importantly, where do you see the future of companion games going on Facebook? How do you see the links between console games and their Facebook counterparts growing?
I imagine we'll see two different flavors of games. It's very clear when there's a Facebook game launch that really is a marketing ploy and not really a deep and meaningful game in any sense. I could point out examples of, but that would be kind of rude. Facebook advergames-I think those will continue to exist. I hope DAL paves the way for more meaningful companion games that live on their own, because there are other games I'd love to get little bite-sized pieces of everyday. I'm hopeful that the idea of a quick advergame will be marginalized.
You and me both, honestly. Now, some developers, like Naughty Dog, are integrating Facebook and YouTube right into their games like Uncharted 3. Is this the next point of collision for the two genres?
If it's built in a way that enhances the experience for players, that will be phenomenal. But if it's just functionality to post to your Facebook wall from within the game, that really only applies to a certain type of gamer who has a lot of gamer friends, frankly. I know how difficult it would be to do that level of deep integration between a console product and Facebook or anywhere on the web. A team really has to step up and not just pay lip service.
Dragon Age Legends Cinematic
Now, EA2D has created original social games before like, most recently, AWOL. Does DAL mark a move away from that or will we see more original games from the studio?
I would say it's not EA2D's mission to create companion games. It's our mission to make social games for gamers. There's equal passion around here to do both. We're not a marketing arm; we're a game developer in our own right, and I hope both more original games and companion games are in store for us in the future.
Now, I can't help myself but ask, 'Will EA2D ever make a 3D game on Facebook?'
(Laughs.) I was actually part of the conversation when we chose to call ourselves EA2D, and I was the one who put the name forward. Calling ourselves EA2D is not about the dimensions of the art in the games we're making. It's really about the frame of mind. [EA2D is] trying to hearken back to a golden era of EA when there was some really classic games we made, when it wasn't possible to amaze people with visuals and gameplay came first.
What do you think of Dragon Age Legends and its development process on Facebook? Do you see a future for more games like this on the platform?
Now that Dragon Age Legends (DAL) has been out in the wild for a month, how do you feel about it? What do you like most about the finished product? What, in your opinion, still needs work?
It was a gamble whether a hardcore gamer audience would show up for a Facebook game and enjoy it. And I think we did a very good job of staying true to the vision of Dragon Age and the world that Bioware has created, and players responded. One of the best moments is whenever people comment on the game on Facebook or review it, they refer to us as Bioware. On one hand, I've spent the past two and a half years at this point helping to build EA2D, and I wish we stood on our own right. But on the other hand, Bioware is one of the most acclaimed game developers in the world. So, if people look at what we've done and say, 'Hey Bioware. Great job, but you really need to improve this and this,' it's kind of a badge of honor that they hold it to the same level of quality.
As for what needs improvement, the team is working in a software-as-service model, and we update the game every week with new quests, new features and bug fixes. Just yesterday we released a major new feature called 'Guilds,' and we plan on operating this game for a long time. So, I have a really deep road map of different features and improvements that the team is excited about. We have a year-long narrative outline that we worked with Bioware on. We just started teasing that, now that we have Guilds, we're going to do a Guild versus Guild arena system. So, there are really hundreds of ways that we want to improve to the game.
Why did you decide to go with not only a decidedly more hardcore play style, but such graphic animation?
That was the gamble, I guess: That gamers would-and not to disparage my fellow EA employees at Playfish or any other company-show up for a real game. And not an activity where there's no real meaningful choices; games that just reward you for showing up. So, we wanted to do a game that any hardcore gamer or Bioware fan would show up for.
By tapping into a mature theme and audience like that, we would never hit the 25 million daily players of a FarmVille, for instance. But the players that we did cater to would stay around longer and would pay more on average for micro-transactions, because when you buy a really cool sword or armor it's more meaningful and long lasting in its effects.
Dragon Age Legends Concept
During the development process, what was most difficult and why did it give you so much trouble?
The most difficult obstacle for us was the technology base. DAL might look like a Flash game, but it's actually built a lot more like an MMO, and we built all that tech from scratch. So, the game that you see is just the tip of the iceberg of a really impressive piece of technology that our systems and platform team here has built. And that platform was built with long-term investment for EA2D. I think there are a lot of hard lessons learned along the way as we built our team and technology. Now that it's in place, we're able to create some pretty incredible things like the mobile extension of DAL, which we're really proud of.
So, you mentioned a year-long road map--
(Laughs.) At least! That's the features we can think of now.
And that's impressive. You seem to want this game to stand on its own, so how do you plan to differentiate DAL from companion game to just Facebook game?
Part of our theory is that this will serve as a bridge game, or a game that bridges gamers from the release of the console product to downloadable packages. People can be playing this for weeks and weeks or potentially years and years in between releases of the core game from Bioware. It'll differentiate itself over time.
Better yet, is there any desire to link the two games in more meaningful ways like crossing plot lines or introducing characters from one game to the other?
We have hopes to do some deeper integration points than we have so far. I was very privileged to work with Dragon Age's lead designer when I crafted the story for DAL. And the two games were in development at the same time, so something that was important to me was to avoid any dependency.
There are two things I really wouldn't want to happen while we were both in development. One would be that [Bioware] changed something at the last minute story wise and all of a sudden a piece of our game doesn't make sense. What a harder case would be is that I never want to get a call from the Dragon Age team saying, 'Why would you invent this city?' (Laughs.) No Dragon Age product is non-canon, so making DAL parallel to Dragon Age 2 was very intentional and we hope to intersect those paths more meaningfully in the future.
Gallery: Dragon Age Legends on Facebook
More importantly, where do you see the future of companion games going on Facebook? How do you see the links between console games and their Facebook counterparts growing?
I imagine we'll see two different flavors of games. It's very clear when there's a Facebook game launch that really is a marketing ploy and not really a deep and meaningful game in any sense. I could point out examples of, but that would be kind of rude. Facebook advergames-I think those will continue to exist. I hope DAL paves the way for more meaningful companion games that live on their own, because there are other games I'd love to get little bite-sized pieces of everyday. I'm hopeful that the idea of a quick advergame will be marginalized.
You and me both, honestly. Now, some developers, like Naughty Dog, are integrating Facebook and YouTube right into their games like Uncharted 3. Is this the next point of collision for the two genres?
If it's built in a way that enhances the experience for players, that will be phenomenal. But if it's just functionality to post to your Facebook wall from within the game, that really only applies to a certain type of gamer who has a lot of gamer friends, frankly. I know how difficult it would be to do that level of deep integration between a console product and Facebook or anywhere on the web. A team really has to step up and not just pay lip service.
Dragon Age Legends Cinematic
Now, EA2D has created original social games before like, most recently, AWOL. Does DAL mark a move away from that or will we see more original games from the studio?
I would say it's not EA2D's mission to create companion games. It's our mission to make social games for gamers. There's equal passion around here to do both. We're not a marketing arm; we're a game developer in our own right, and I hope both more original games and companion games are in store for us in the future.
Now, I can't help myself but ask, 'Will EA2D ever make a 3D game on Facebook?'
(Laughs.) I was actually part of the conversation when we chose to call ourselves EA2D, and I was the one who put the name forward. Calling ourselves EA2D is not about the dimensions of the art in the games we're making. It's really about the frame of mind. [EA2D is] trying to hearken back to a golden era of EA when there was some really classic games we made, when it wasn't possible to amaze people with visuals and gameplay came first.
What do you think of Dragon Age Legends and its development process on Facebook? Do you see a future for more games like this on the platform?
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