Comments on: Don’t Facebook In Anger: Gaming Scams?

By: Mobile Messenger

Mobile Messenger — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:23:37 +0000

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By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:05:32 +0000

“Brian Reynolds works for Zynga now.”

Really? God that’s depressing.

By: Ayekay

Ayekay — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:55:29 +0000

So, I run a tiny wee indie social games startup. We agree with some of the things people said above, roughly, to this extent:

1. A lot of the text-based social network RPGs treat their players with open contempt. Peck the space bar nine hundred times and get a different gun graphic.
2. A lot of them have no gameplay to speak of.
3. A lot of them are like giant spam machines of spam.

We wanted to build a game with really interesting content, basic but noticeable gameplay, and an opt-in spam policy. We think it’s doable. I’m not here to shill, well technically I suppose I am, but the beta’s basically full at the moment so it’s pretty ineffective shilling. I lost my thread, it’s very late. Ah yes.

If the experience is *minimally* interactive and has a halfway decent narrative, it’s no worse than working through the kiddy-level puzzles in Dreamfall. Which was a great, satisfying experience. The difference is that you play a casual SNG for a few mins a day, come back tomorrow, have a sense of the passage of time, see the nice new content. Like a webcomic with more clicking. Or if you’re one of the 3% who want to rush through it, get your card out. It’s no different from paying from extra content on the web.

The offers scams are nasty, but it’s basically Michael Arrington getting exciteable for link-bait, as he does. It’s a problem, it’s not a massive problem, the big players will sort it out because they can’t afford not to. Roll on a nice friendly iTunes-like micropayment platform which will allow us to charge people 5p painlessly for a peek under our content’s skirts.

Don’t judge the SNGs of tomorrow by what you’re seeing right now. Brian Reynolds works for Zynga now. Brian Reynolds! Soren Johnson is working on a casual web game. These are real game designers, people.

By: Chris Smutny

Chris Smutny — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:26:08 +0000

Kieron,

I appreciate the attention you are bringing to this.

I think this conversation will help improve our young industry. We’re listening intently to feedback from users, publishers, advertisers, and our platform partners. Please check out what we’re doing to continue to improve our performance at http://www.srpoints.com/blog/?p=1541. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve further.

Chris Smutny
Super Rewards

By: Railick

Railick — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:36:08 +0000

I have to ask strangers for their SSN all day long, I've gotten very good at it actaully. trying to convince old people to give up their SSN is like trying to convince a rabid dog to give your leg back.

By: Rook

Rook — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:07:53 +0000

Here’s the other side to this argument by someone involved in the advertising, and how they think that once the real industry catches up to the potential of targeting ads in facebook, they’ll muscle out the scammers. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/01/how-to-spam-facebook-like-a-pro-an-insiders-confession/

By: rnx

rnx — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:45:59 +0000

don’t really mind the virtual good thing … some people seem to prefer it.
but the constant pressure to harass your friends … pure evil.

By: Kommissar Nicko

Kommissar Nicko — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:26:55 +0000

There’s something insidious about the text-message angle. On the one hand, I shun the telephone as one should the mutant, the heretic, and the unclean, so it’s not an issue for me. On the other hand, I’m a discerning fellow who knows what kind of information will lead to disaster, what kind will lead to spam, and what kind will lead to me getting what I want; text-messaging some nonsense never really registered in my mind as a potential way to get screwed. At least, it’s a little less obvious than “fork over your credit information!” or “give us your Social Security Number!” (I dunno what you Brits do, what with your face-recognizing closed-circuit cameras and Fingermen, but in America, the SSN is essentially your super-secret personal dentification code that everyone mysteriously wants to know but shouldn’t ask for.)

Good thing I don’t do social networking. I hate everyone I know.

By: cliffski

cliffski — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:20:12 +0000

well said!

By: EER

EER — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:02:40 +0000

I played farmville for a while, was annoyed by the constant nagging of the game having me tell my friends “I planted a tree, come see it now!”. After a day or two I found myself asking ‘why the hell am I playing this anyway?’, and quit.

As for the scams, I don’t know. Whoever fills in their phone number to get an IQ test result … probably failed the test.

By: Flimgoblin

Flimgoblin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:28:56 +0000

Such hate for the social gaming.
The companies running, or associating themselves with these scams are pretty reprehensible. They either need to sort themselves out, Facebook does, or some regulation needs to be put in place to sort them out.
But that doesn't mean social gaming is bad. These sorts of surveys exist for other rewards – people fill in surveys for amazon vouchers or whatever. SMS scams have been around for as long as SMS billing – less so these days (in the UK anyway) because they have been regulated. Too many kids getting themselves signed up to reverse charging SMS subscriptions without realising it.
A good Facebook game (at least to me) seems to combine some sort of sim city/sims vibe with either indirect or direct competition with your friends (e.g. "my restaurant/farm/whatever looks better than yours") or cooperatively ("my mafia family can trounce that punk who put a hit out on us"). It's not twitch-reflex-gunning things down (hmm, quakelive on facebook, that'd be nifty ;)) and it's not 20 hours of intensely scripted and voice acted story but it's still a game… more so than just a fruit machine or a roll of a dice (which, technically, are games too :P but of little appeal to many without a bit of money behind it)

By: heartlessgamer

heartlessgamer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:28:39 +0000

The point should be that games don’t need to scam us. Make a good game and ask players to pay for it honestly. Making a free game that can’t be supported without tricking players into scams is NOT a business model, its borderline fraud.

Making a free game that spurs players to spend money legitimately is a business model.

Thus, I don’t play any Facebook games. Some are very well thought out, but they have grown beyond their developers ability to support them and that leads to where they are now.