People love diversity; it is almost as if we crave it like a much-deserved chocolate bar. We have incorporated diversity into every aspect of our live. And gaming is no different.
When it comes to gaming, players can choose from a variety of opportunities. Without a doubt, the oldest and most popular form of gaming is online gaming. Then, near the end of the 20th century, people started to prefer to game from the comfort of their own home– that is how online games gained their popularity. After the period of asking yourself the question “are there any safe roulette sites?”, now, a different trend emerges.
Today, everyone seems hooked on social gaming. For those unfamiliar with the term, social gaming means gaming on social media. Most famous names in the social gaming industry always feature media presence. There are some brands which stick to using one platform, with Facebook being the most common of them and other brands which advertise their product on every social platform.
Interestingly enough, money rains all over the social game industry – the industry is thought to be worth roughly $2.7 billion. However, you should keep in mind that most of the games on the social game platforms are not only completely free to download and install, but also completely free to play, too. And that is the reason why social games attract thousands of new players every day.
What is more, similarly to online gaming, social gaming provides various entertainment opportunities from the comfort of your own home. Still, it also has something in common with land-based gaming as well. For example, social games provide the opportunity to play along with friends, just like at local-based games where you would ask your friends to join you for a game or two.
Furthermore, the availability and easy access seem to be other key features of social games. Social games are played in a browser or they have their own apps, implying that the games can be played anytime anyplace, and players also have a great chance to score big wins, too. Again, availability and easy access make players fall for the games.
In the end, it is the social aspect of social gaming that wins our hearts hands down. The reason? We love playing against our friends and boasting on social media about our wins. It is part of our nature to want to be seen as superior over those who surround us, and social gaming developers have surely thought about this when they created their initial gaming model.
Zynga was one of the first game developers on the social gaming platforms and it featured games which provided people with the “invite friends” button. In essence, this provided players with the opportunity to invite their Facebook friends to play the game, too. By the way, this is a great advertising trick. But this was not all, for there were also the so-called leaderboards on which players could see their performance compared to that of their mates. So, there is also a competitive element that drives players towards social games.
Since so many people play social games, those have transformed and now have a huge marketing potential for brands. We are all familiar with online and television advertising, but when it comes to social gaming, marketing campaigners needed to get really creative so that they could sell their products. Apparently, advertisers got it right – most advertising campaigns on social games have proved to be not only bearable for players, but actually profitable for the brands as well.
And now you have the full picture and you can see why social gaming is currently on the rise.
Social games on fb can be fun but it can be annoying seeing your friends notifications all the time
All those Farmville notifications and invites do get irritating after a while.
Damn FarmVille I remember those old times !
I feel kind of the opposite about social games today. In the 90s, social games used to be about meeting with people in real life and using game cables to play with friends, even talking with each other face-to-face; it was probably “more social” than it is now. But nowadays, people just hop online (with real life friends) and play games together, barely communicating with each other; at least that’s how it felt for me playing Facebook games in the early 2010s. Even smartphones haven’t captured the social aspects of the 90s. Social games today might be an evolution for those inconvenienced with trying to meet up with people in real life, but I see social games going downhill from what it used to be.