“Social games” are crap. There, I’ve said it. Now everyone else can breathe a sigh of relief that the elephant in the room has been well and truly pointed out.
But why are they crap? Well, the main reason is that they just aren’t very fun to either play as games or use as a means of socialising. I’ve tried out Mafia Wars and We Rule in particular. And neither of them are very fun.
Both of them involve a lot of clicking and waiting. Click on a button to complete a task. Wait for something to happen… in real time. While you wait, why not spam your friends to “help” you by clicking on the same button that you did? You’ll both get XP! Yay XP! Of course your level means little more than how long you have bothered to waste your time playing what is basically an Access database, but that’s beside the point.
The social angle is flawed too. There’s no interaction. You can request “help” from other players but there’s no means of actually playing together concurrently. In some games you can’t even send messages to each other.
Then came Blur. Blur single-handedly shows the correct way to develop a good social game: by building a good game first, then a social network around it. Too many other titles do this the other way round, and that’s what causes them to be the shallow, meaningless garbage that they are.
Blur is different, though. Even without the social features it would be a great racer featuring the “why hasn’t anyone done this before?” combination of realistic racing and Mario Kart-style powerups. But add in the ability to taunt friends publicly via Facebook and Twitter, not to mention the incredibly solid “Friend Challenge” system, and you’ve got a winning experience on your hands.
Playing Blur is actually remarkably akin to logging into something like Facebook. Starting the game greets you with a “Previously on Blur” feature showing you the next milestones you might reach, a bit like Facebook’s News Feed shows you recent happenings. Then you might want to check your messages, so you look at the Friend Challenges screen. You see that three of your friends have challenged you to beat their times, so you while away a short while beating them senseless… or not. Then you take on some of the single-player, and achieve something you know none of your friends have, so you post it to Facebook. Then… the list goes on. All the while you’re having a good time playing a great game AND sharing the experience with friends.
So, social game developers? Please stop being satisfied with the derivative shit you’re coming out with. The shit you are deriving your new shit from wasn’t very good in the first place. So actually hire someone who has played a video game before to design your game, then build the social features around it.
Rant over. I’m off to play Blur.
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I told you it was good.
That’s an interesting opening statement, given that games were originally very social events by their own definition. I agree with the sentiment though. I’ve been playing omgpop lately. They’ve got some good ones once you get over the initial weirdness.
http://www.omgpop.com/?r=1vyqq
I know, ironic really isn’t it? Perhaps I should have said “social video games”.
Funnily enough, only last night I was thinking about quitting Mafia Wars and Band of Heroes on fB for pretty much the reasons you talk about. I was wanting something more genuinely interactive for my simple online gaming fun. Sounds like I’ve got a place to start should I decide to go through with this.
Why the hesitation? Investment. MW and BoH are repetitive point-and-click games with little else in their favour. But I’ve invested a lot of time in my games. This is a hook, make no mistake. As I think about stopping playing these games I find myself imagining what it’d be like never to return to my family and its turf, or to my platoon and its campaign. I know I’d miss them. Crazy? Maybe. But it’s true all the same.
I guess this would soon be overcome should Blur prove to live up to the billing it’s here been given. I guess I’ll suck it and see. 🙂
No, no, NO! Just taken a look at Blur and it’s entirely not a game which interests me. I want resource management, task allocation and conflict. Cutesy racing? Nah. It’s just not what I want to play. Strike 1! So it’s back to the drawing board I guess, and to MW and BoH in the meantime: they interest me thematically at least. 🙂
Hah! I must admit I didn’t have you pegged as a boy racer, John. “Cutesy”, though? Blur is many things but “cutesy” isn’t a word I’d use to describe it – in fact they did a whole advertising campaign distancing themselves from cutesy racers such as Mario Kart and the like.
There is scope for your ideal game, I think – most social “building” or “strategy” games are nothing more than placing stuff down with no need to consider any sort of reason for putting things where you do. We Rule (on iPhone) and Farmville are prime examples – putting stuff down is a way to get XP and money, nothing more. You don’t have to pay any attention to the “demands” of your town, because they don’t have any! That, to me, doesn’t hold any sort of long-term interest.
I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Civilization Network. Hopefully it will be a proper social strategy game rather than the watered-down, thought-free stuff that there is at the moment.
“I must admit I didn’t have you pegged as a boy racer, John. “Cutesy”, though?”
You got me there Pete! And as for “cutesy”? I was referring to the imagery. The playstyle I can’t comment on because the racing theme and the appearance were just instant turn-offs to me.
And my interest in MW and BoH has peaked as I said for the reasons you mention. You’ll have to keep us up to date about this Civilisation Network, although paying? Hmm. 🙂
You might be referring to the opening video at the website that shows Broc Lee stuck with all those cutesy characters. He climbs the fence and high tails it outta there, though.