Today is Defriend Day: Do Facebook game friends count too?

If you were to ask author and political activist Mark Dice, yes, your fellow FarmVille friends probably count. In promotion of his new book, "Big Brother: The Orwellian Nightmare Come True," Dice has called for everyone on Facebook to prune their friends list of people they don't even know. (If you remember, Jimmy Kimmel called for something similar recently.) And Facebook gamers are arguably the largest culprit of adding otherwise anonymous people to their friends list. Not to mention, what if that is your personal account as well? Have you considered these things before aimlessly accepting friend quests for yet another "neighbor?"

Sure, some social gamers play on designated accounts that are essentially on privacy lock down for this very reason, but I'm willing to bet a majority of you game on your personal account. There's no need to put on your tin-foil hats--Dice does enough of that in his new novel. However, the guy has a brilliant point. It's interesting how social gamers are willing to welcome complete strangers into their digital lives.

Think about it: How many of those miscellaneous friends have you come to know on a personal level? Probably little to none, but they might know everything about you. Of course, this depends on how much you share, but considering the amount of data Facebook processes daily I'd imagine you share just as much as I do: a lot. You never know who is looking at your profile. (We're all guilty of Facebook stalking, regardless of how harmless.)

When you think of the amount of estranged Facebook friends you game with, which for some is likely in the hundreds, how does it feel to know they're part of the digital audience of your life? Now, don't freak out and go defriend every unknown person attached to your account. Just think about these things the next time you add a friend to game with or share something on your profile. There are many things in the digital age that are permanent, but gaming buddies don't necessarily have to be. Especially those you don't even know.

[Image Credit: Intermediate 2]

Have you ever considered the friends you add to game with on Facebook? Would you ever prune your friends of those you didn't know?

Is rejection in FarmVille, Facebook games like getting dumped?

FarmVille rejection
Well, it's close enough. According to a recent study by Edward Smith, a cognitive neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York, being rejected in an online computer game could elicit "tepid feelings of rejection," Fox News reports. Though, the findings did help Smith find a link between romantic rejection and actual physical pain. Smith conducted a follow-up study using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. But did it trigger a similar response?

This technology visualized the pain receptors in the brains of 40 volunteers when looking at photographs of partners they had broke it off with. As a result, the fMRI lit up like Christmas tree when folks looked at photos of old flames. So when a FarmVille friend removes you, it might not sting as badly--or just stir some Internet rage. Regardless, the brain could still respond the same way as when rejected by a lover, though to a lesser degree. The next time you remove a friend from CityVille, try letting them down easy, eh?

[Via Kotaku]

[Image Credit: Game Casa]

Have you ever been rejected in a social game by another player?

Google engineer rant suggests Google+ Games was an afterthought

Believe it or not, some people aren't very happy with Google+. Take Steve Yegge, a Google engineer who accidentally posted what was meant to be an internal rant to fellow Google employees to his over 2,000 followers on the new social network. Reposted by many of his followers, the 5,000 plus-word diatribe hits every gory to explain Yegge's beef with Google+.

And that includes Google+ Games. Frankly, Yegge seems to think that the games portion of Google's second attempt at a social network is, well, uninspired. "Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: 'Gosh, it looks like we need some games. Let's go contract someone to, um, write some games for us,'" Yegge wrote. "Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now? The problem is that we are trying to predict what people want and deliver it for them."

While that last quip seems to contradict his previous comment on Google+ Games, his message is clear. Yegge thinks Games were an afterthought for Google, which he seems to think is why the search giant enlisted the help of major social game developers like Zynga, PopCap and Kabam to release their existing games on the platform. Yegge has since publicly apologized for accidentally posting the essay rant.

Most recently, Zynga launched its brand new Mafia Wars 2 on Google+ Games. And before that, Google updated the platform with features that, while impressive, have been considered fundamental to Facebook games for some time. Recent estimates put the number of Google+ users at around 43 million, but how many of those are playing games is still unknown. And with sentiments such as this flying around, we imagine much work needs to be done for Google+ Games to be considered a viable alternative to Facebook gaming. If you have about 30 minutes, you can read Yegge's rant in full right here.

Facebook game lets you solve anagrams to save Canada's forests

If you've become a fan of Zynga's newest Facebook game Adventure World (now Adventure World - An Indiana Jones Game), and are ready to lay down some real-world money in the game, you now have some extra incentive to do so. For every Game Card redeemed in the game, you'll receive 15 Energy Packs.

Unfortunately, we're not sure exactly what that means. We'd love for it to mean 15 full energy refills, but if you look inside the game, a 30 Energy pot of coffee costs a whopping 30 Adventure Cash. Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like something Zynga would just give away for free, especially in bulk. This leaves us with another option, the single cup of coffee, which gives you just five energy points. This would be a decent boost, since we're talking about a "free" prize after all, but even then, it still likely won't take you long to burn through all of those bonus energy points.

What's worse, there's yet another option for energy refills: a Bolt that gives you just one energy point. Surely this isn't the "Energy Packs" Zynga is talking about, but it's something to keep in mind all the same. We're working on discovering just which kind of "Energy Pack" you'll receive when redeeming a Zynga Game Card, but for now, why not take a look at our tools upgrade guide, so you'll be able to upgrade your tools to do more work for less energy to make all of your points go that much further.

Will you redeem a Zynga Game Card to earn 15 free Energy Packs? If you have, which specific kind of pack did you receive? Sound off in the comments.

More Like 'Team FarmVille 2': Portal creator sets Steam Trading loose

Steam Trading
If you hadn't noticed, Portal creator Valve's Steam service and store is slowly becoming more and more like ... FarmVille. I know, it sounds strange, but true. The maker of some of the most hardcore, intense shooter games of all time like Half Life and Team Fortress has released the final version of Steam Trading. This new feature was released in a beta test last month, but now is ready for everyone. Better yet, the feature is available for two more games, at that: Portal 2 and Sega's Spiral Knights.

This feature allows Steam users to trade and gift items to their friends regardless of whether they're logged into their game of choice. Now, players can trade items or (new, never-played) games with friends for whatever they feel is an equal exchange. For instance, a Team Fortress 2 player can trade the hat she found while playing with a friend who has a nifty shield that she wants for her Spiral Knight.

However, players must be friends over Steam (or be in a Group Chat) to trade or give items to one another. Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar, no? From offering free-to-play multiplayer games earlier this year like Spiral Knights to now allowing players to give each other items through a friends list, Steam has slowly become more and more like Facebook as a games platform. While its far from Facebook and its games, and likely always will be, the influence is undeniable. All we're waiting for is the day it takes Energy to fire bullets in Team Fortress 2. (Fat chance ... we hope.)

[Via Kotaku]

Are you excited to be able to trade with friends in some of your Steam games? Do you think Steam is showing its affinity for the Facebook style of gaming? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

Study: In the year 2013, we'll have over 73 million U.S. social gamers

Every time one of these studies comes in, it feels like we're all at the World's Fair, doesn't it? (And we'll play them while being driven in our hover cars!) A study by eMarketer released today reveals the projection that, by 2013, there will be 73.6 million social gamers in the U.S. of A. This number will explode from today's estimated 61.9 million Facebook gamers in the country, which already sounds a bit low to us. And because of these growing numbers, eMarketer thinks it's thanks to shifting demographics.

"Gone are the days when only males ages 18 to 34 were hardcore gamers or only moms were pelting their Facebook friends with requests for hens or heifers in social games like FarmVille," eMarketer senior analyst Lisa E. Phillips--and author of this very report, "Online Gaming Audience: Lines Blur as the Market Grows--said. "Today's core gamers are also playing casual games. More women are using game consoles beyond the Nintendo Wii, and their game choices include many genres."

And, you know what, she might be right. Just recently, it was estimated that by the same time, 2013, hardcore social games will grow five-fold. Not to mention that there already are nearly 80 million strategy gamers on the platform. While the casual, FarmVille-loving sector will certainly continue to grow, this is hardly the last we've heard from the "hardcore" gaming crowd on Facebook. Check out even more about these rapid yet expected demographic shifts right here.

Do you think Facebook gaming is going to change the general games landscape this drastically? Do you think all forms of gaming would be better or worse if they took onto the general language of Facebook games? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment

Kontagent's Josh Williams on why analytics matter in Facebook games [Interview]

Analyta-what? Is that even a real word? Well, not according to the New Oxford Dictionary, but it's nevertheless become terribly important to how the games hundreds of millions of us play daily are made and distributed. Noticing the increasing trend in analytics, or the use of measurable data to crowd source design decisions, we sat down and talked with Josh Williams (pictured below) to learn more.

Josh is President of Kontagent, a San Francisco-based firm that provides analytics tracking services to major social and mobile app companies, namely game makers. The service has been officially tracking 150 million monthly players worldwide across a variety of social games, so we figured Josh would know a bit about what analytics has uncovered regarding our social gaming habits. We also learned that, frankly, this stuff is pretty darn important to how our favorite games are made.

For the uninformed, can you explain what analytics is, exactly?

Analytics help developers look at what players are doing in their games, and then figure out what's working and what's not. The best analytics are sort of a mechanism for players to vote on what they like and don't like inside of a game.

Now that Kontagent tracks about 150 million monthly players worldwide, what would you say are the most interesting numbers relating to how social gamers play?

On the mobile side, there was a bunch of change in the last three to six months. Freemium games have just taken over on mobile over the last several months. So that's changed the way--developers are used to putting out one-time payment games [on the Apple App Store]--developers structure their apps to better track what players are doing.

Generally, people are spending more and more time, but there are more gamers on Facebook than in mobile. But the time is increasing per player a lot, too. From six months ago, [people are playing] 20 percent more time per person between mobile games and social games. It's really changing quickly.

For how long do social gamers play their games? And what are players buying most frequently while playing?

There's a huge range, but on average--the average gamer that plays mobile and social games--is about 20 minutes a day or more now playing. But the range is huge. Of course, you have people who average just a minute per day but for some it's in the hours now. It's really become a major method of consumption for games.

It really depends on the game, but overall we're seeing a shift. Early on, micro-transactions were a lot about the cosmetic items. That has definitely shifted now to items that have use in the game. There are two classifications for those: durable goods, or things that you buy and last forever, and the consumable stuff. The consumable goods are taking a larger and larger portion of micro-transactions spent both in social and mobile games. Right now, it's roughly split between [the two]. Mobile games are a little bit behind, but they're rapidly evolving.

More specifically, what are the numbers showing about how "social" social gamers are (i.e. how and what are they sharing through updates)?

These games are designed to be that way, but there are a few different numbers to look at, one being the number of users coming in via social channels--the virality of the app. Another is how many social messages get sent, and then also how many responses happen to those. Or, when you see a friend posting about [a social game] how often do you respond to those posts. All three of those numbers for social games are high, but for mobile it's actually really, really low.

When it comes to new users entering a game when their friends post a message about it, you can get as much as 15 percent--some games do a lot better, but that's a typical number--from the messages being sent out. [It's huge,] but that number actually used to be a little higher back in the days when Facebook used to just spam everybody. Facebook has toned that down a lot, which is a good thing for gamers, I think.

Kontagent
Recently, Kontagent CEO Jeff Tseng said that social games are more like casinos than we think. Could you speak to that, and how are social gamers' habits supporting that ideology?

There's a lot of the same psychology at play in a lot of the social games. In the social games now, you have a lot of them designed around simple mechanics that's kind of the gambling psychology and structure. But I'd say there is a lot more quality wrapped around [them].

What would you say is most useful about analytics to a game designer?

I'd say analytics are pretty vital to mobile and social game development. Think about it: This is the first time in the last few years that you could have a direct connection with players. Back in the days of retail games, you were basically building in the dark. Maybe you did some play testing and even had a beta. But after shipment they're hoping they did a good job, waiting until the reviews and sales numbers to come in.

Now, designers really change reviews--a lot of times they'll shift something within the first patch. And a lot of times that works, so from there the numbers that are most important to a designer are engagement metrics. So, you're looking at how much time people are spending in the game, how frequently are they coming back. If you have a sharing mechanism, how often are they sharing. You're looking for the numbers that tell how much they like the game.

Josh WilliamsWould you say that monetization becomes more of a priority later down the line for developers?

Yeah, that's right, so monetization becomes a priority later. It's not like you don't think about it up until that point. It's partly retrofitted, but the real optimization doesn't come until later.

Many traditional game developers have gotten into using analytics to inform their game's creation (take Bioware with Mass Effect 2, for instance). Why do you think analytics is slowly becoming a norm in game design across the board?

It's so powerful to have that insight. Analytics are kind of a voting mechanism for the players, so if you can get that feedback on what players really like, why wouldn't you want it? And I think traditional game developers are seeing how well it works in social games and mobile. I think it's going to be more and more [prevalent].

Thanks for taking the time to school us in this pseudo-real, but terribly important word, Josh.

Based on Joshs' words, do you think analytics could become the way all games are made? How do you feel about you voting toward a game's future without even knowing it? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment

BringIt puts games in your Facebook games, so you can ... gamble?

If you're the type who enjoys wasting their money gambling, have we got some news for you. In select Facebook games by CrowdStar, East Side Games, Sometrics and Mall World, you can wager your hard-earned, paid game currency with your friends in custom mini games by BringIt. A real-time transactional platform for social games, BringIt announced that its head-to-head competitions for virtual currency are now available in games from these developers.

According to BringIt, 8 million players have participated in these mini games within their favorite social games, and the asynchronous, head-to-head competitions will increase their number of daily players to 2.1 million. Players can wager any amount of virtual currency they choose, and post challenges to multiple friends at once. These challenges are sent to players who then can respond with their own wagers and post their scores in said games--the winner takes all.

For instance, Happy Aquarium fans can now challenge each other in a game of match-three, Aqua Blast, which is strikingly similar to Bejeweled. Using speed and various power ups, players must score as many points as possible in 60 seconds after wagering so many Pearls (the game's paid currency). Then, players can post that score to whomever's News Feed that they challenged.

If a friend responds with a wager of Pearls and a score that beats the challenger's score, they win whatever the challenger wagered. If the friend happens to score less than what the challenger did, then whoever posted the challenge wins whatever amount of Pearls that the loser wagered.

Payments are said to be posted automatically, but as of Sept. 11, there have been issues with the speed of payment, though BringIt is cataloging all payments to ensure that all winnings are met with payments. (At least this applies to Happy Aquarium.) Other BringIt partners like East Side Games, have different BringIt-powered mini games such as Gold Rush in Pot Farm.

Developers like East Side Games hope to make lots of dough from this form of in-game gambling. BringIt claims that the novelty of wagering paid currency could turn more freeloading social gamers into ones that pay up to play. And we guess it's all kosher, because the money at stake isn't "real" money. Though, if you paid for it with real cash originally, it kind of is, no?

Would you ever gamble wager your hard-earned Pearls or other paid currency in these mini games by BringIt? What are your thoughts on online wagering, generally speaking? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.