My team's research paper is about Zynga, the leading company in social gaming.
Whereas in the paper, I had to maintain an objective tone, I am taking advantage of this blog to express my disgust of this emerging field.
First of all, there is very little imagination and creativity that goes into the development of these Facebook games. The competing companies all have the same games: a pet game, an aquarium game, a farm game and a vampire game (or werewolf game if they're extremely creative).
The games aren't even fun to play and the progression is totally pointless. Maybe I say that because I am hardcore gamer. As much as I understand and appreciate the dedication that goes into MMOs in order to acquire a cool piece of armor, I just can't understand spending a fraction of that time to get an ugly Flash-looking baseball cap for my virtual pet, let alone spending real money to buy it.
What I wonder is whether people just play these games because they're free or would still play them over next-gen games (even if these were to be free) due to their levels of complexity. I am afraid it might be the former and it frustrates me to see the level of mediocrity for which people would settle.
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