MMO / Facebook Integration

[Noctrine]

@Pax I signed up when FB was still restricted and those words weren't in the Privacy Policy, and if you have no life how do you have friends? I guess you mean the people that do social sculpting and search for people to add. Dunno, for me and my friends on it its just a good way to keep in touch when everyone is in a different state.

@Fonoi: Changes to facebook are killing off that ability to make games that make money like that. Even Zynga is seeing a drop in its revenue stream.

[PaxBritannia]

But you can use email! or the phone! or write a letter!

FB is a corporate stalker.

Pax.

[Noctrine]

Thats when you have to make the convenience trade-off. I can make 50-60 calls depending on what the subject is, or post one note. Its easier to just not put any real information out.

But we are getting off topic.

[neronix17]

@Pax - The only way facebook is a stalker is if you give them the information in the first place, me and all my mates use fake names and info on it just so we all have a place to make plans for te weekend. As far as facebook is concerned they think im a 90 y/o woman called beatrice.

[hallsofvallhalla]

facebook just hit the news, people complaining about new security changes. Thousands of people are deleting their facebook.

[Noctrine]

Yeah, its amazing how they can ruin their service monthly. Myspace is using this as an opportunity to get back into the taking care of everyone but musicians market, so its primetime for me

[Jackolantern]

a) some (the most active) people on FB have no lives.

If you are running a commercial game, oddly enough, this is what you want.

b) you are relying on a social cascade for sign-up, if that cascade happens to be negative, then bad luck.

This is one of the bad parts about FB games. Negative attention can spread fast.

c) potentional player base.

Potential. The Internet has an even larger potential player base!

But they aren't connected. That is one of the largest positives in FB games. You can pay for advertising, but a good deal of it occurs naturally, and is easily facilitated by the social networking environment of FB. Sure there are more people on the internet than there are on FB, since every FB person is also on the internet but everyone on the internet is not on FB. But things are shared so much faster and easier on FB because you don't have to specifically set out to share it like on the internet (which most people won't share their views on games, movies and other media if they are left to initiate it).

d) Facebook can track and will track your player demographics

And a game owner should be tracking the demographics of their players as best as they can, too.

FB is definitely a powerful tool for web developers of all types, and it has more than proven its capabilities. While there is only a handful of games that have become wildly popular and make $100M+ a year, there are countless others that are successful thanks to FB and allow their developers to develop full-time.

[PaxBritannia]

My view summarised:

As a consumer, I don't like facebook due to its polity on selling your content.
Since I don't wont to advocate facebook or even be accociated with them, I am not putting my game on fb. Simple.

Also, FB is suffering an inverse perverse of Metcalfe's law, with every member, it becomes less valuable. FB has so much people, that they are not connected. It has for a long time passed the threshold which renders social networking sites invaluable. Small hobby/interest centric socail networking sites are the most effective and connected. And if you are going to market to these smaller sites, it is better to just use WOTM.

Pax.

[Noctrine]

Its up to the people to stay small. I'm still relatively isolated.

The best argument against integration is that the Market is over-saturated, limited chance of exposure as existing massive games have thoroughly irritated people with the applications platform. It's bad but I saw this coming since the dawn, it was only a matter of time.

The feed whoring actually got so bad that the structure has been changed repeatedly. They still can't keep those damn app notices out though.

[hallsofvallhalla]

hehe yeah

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