Facebook Games: Bright new Direction or Evil Abyss?

There has been a lot of talk recently by both developers and consumers about Facebook games an their viability as a new direction for legitimate PC gaming. Many long time developers have been gravitating towards Facebook games in order to expand revenue and their audience. We all know about the millions of players and dollars Zygna has with their "ville" games, and all of the moms who are now being called the new "hardcore" gamers.

The question I have been struggling with is "Is this really a bad thing?" My jury is still out on that because I really don't think anyone has really tapped in on what would make a good Facebook game.

I recently started playing 5 Facebook games to really give them a shot; Oregon Trail, Cityville, Evil Genius, Pawn Stars, and Dragon Age Legends. I have, in the past, also played Mafia Wars (like many, many people). Mafia Wars I really grew to loathe because every single game play mechanic was designed with a skinner box mentality even more than say World of Warcraft, but I really wanted to see inventiveness, creativity, and really the extents developers could really push the freemium model (also they are mostly free).

The real common theme in every single game is waiting. You need to wait for energy to recharge, or crops to grow, or stamina to refill before you can continue. This can take hours through days. Want to skip it? Spend some in game currency that costs real life cash. You can spend as much as $99.99 in most of these games simply for the ability to play them unhampered for a little while (GASP! That would buy you both Fallout 3 and New Vegas on Steam and a heck of a lot more quality game play hours)!

We all (well most of us) knew that though. I think my biggest beef with Facebook games in general is the same beef I have with MMO's; everyone is trying to out Zygna Zygna the same way everyone is trying to out WoW Wow and you can't do it. Zygna started with Mafia Wars and since has just dominated to casual social scene with no one ever really able to do anything but copy their models. Every single game on Facebook has copied their payment and microtransaction model. There is no single Facebook game you can really get lost in without forking over $99.99.

What would really bring this genre forward is a standard profitability model that aped what most developers do for iOs and Android games. Release a "light" version that has tons of adds and a few missing features and also have a premium version for $5. Let gamers, be them house wives or "core" gamers like me have the opportunity to really get lost in a vision, not jump through hoops and pay $99 for the privilege of mechanics that, in my opinion just don't have the value.

Long story short I like the idea of Facebook games. Facebook has allowed millions upon millions of people to introduce themselves to the idea of gaming as part of your lifestyle in a safe and fun atmosphere. You can't take someone who has never really played games and let them play Portal, but they can figure out Farmville. That is really great, but many of them aren't really figuring out what true immersion is in a game, and that is really what we are missing.

The last thing I want to touch on is this rant posted from GDC this year. All I can say to the ranters is prove it. So far Facebook gaming is devoid of any real innovation outside of profitability models (well the one evil one). There is no one trying to earn our money, but rather trying to enslave us and our friends. Show us how it can be done, or become another Zygna wannabe.