Mar
17
Facebook – Not the future of gaming
It’s interesting to me to see the big push towards Facebook gaming…and quite honestly, it’s becoming the “new Web 2.0 flashword” that game designers and gamers alike are throwing around. They are also claiming that it is the future….it’s where games are going…it’s social gaming!! Poppycock. Yes…Poppycock I say! Facebook, and by extension, Facebook gaming is nothing more than a blip…a fad…in the gaming world and we probably won’t be talking about it in 5 years time (…I’ll explain why in a sec…). We’ve all been to this BBQ before. Someone latches onto the latest buzzword and thinks…wheee…this is it. Suddenly, every other type of game…be it the Mass Effects, or the Rise Of Prussias, or the Eve Onlines…are all going the way of the dinosaur. Even entire platforms…PC…consoles…are all going away because Facebook is making more money that you can shake a stick at. Developers are…once again…blinded by dollar signs.
Here’s what really matters when it comes to multimedia entertainment that is not being talked about as much as it should: convergence. Convergence is really what it sounds like, and it’s been around for quite some time. It’s the bringing together of technologies into one. More specifically, it’s the bringing together of electronics, telecom and TV/Radio(…or broadcasting…) into a single device and it’s been talked about since the 40′s. I have no clue why some seem to think that the web…a mere delivery service…is the key to the future.
In walks the iPhone or even, the Nexus One. The iPhone and Nexus represent a start to this trend towards real convergence…and you wanna know what…it’s making old telecom nervous and old gamers blind. So nervous that some, like RIM’s Mike Lazaridis is starting to raise some concerns of the coming crunch on data services:
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has launched a call for economy in smartphone application design.
With Apple’s thousands of developers clearly in the company’s sights, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis warned that the iPhone is a prophet of the bandwidth-challenged future.
He points out that carriers in US urban areas already face problems maintaining their network in the face of the deep data greed of the new data-centric smartphone generation.
In a slap of the wrist to Apple, he says, “Manufacturers had better start building more efficient applications and more efficient services. There is no real way to get around this,”
“If we don’t start conserving that bandwidth, in the next few years we are going to run into a capacity crunch. You are already experiencing the capacity crunch in the United States.”
This is not to say there is no money in Facebook development, cause clearly there is…but the web is only a very small piece of what is a very large picture and the people trying to sell us all social gaming are missing that bigger picture.
Answer this….where will social gaming be if there is no mobile gaming platform? Smartphones…mobile gaming…are both sitting there waiting to be developed on and we’re all talking about Farmville? Seriously? There is a huge discussion that the gaming industry could be having with guys like Mike Lazaridis and they are all just….to borrow the phrase from a good friend…shooting the alligator closest to the boat.
That’s all this Facebook fad is right now. Sure…it’s showing some impressive numbers, but I really don’t think that it is where things will be going…especially as more and more people adopt the smartphone as a mobile device. Want some impressive numbers to light those dollar sign eyes up? OK then…there are close to 4.6 BILLION (…with a B…) cell phones users on this planet. That’s close to 60% of the world’s population. 276 Million of those are in the US…50 million of those are using smartphones. The iPhone alone represents 50% of all smartphone traffic…it’s growing…and somehow we’re all swooning over a “social gaming market” that is peanuts and short term at best.
The discussion the gaming should be having is not how much money can we make out of Facebook. The discussion should be how can we work with mobile carriers and smartphone providers in order to enabe, encourage and grow the mobile gaming market. Have that discussion and the Farmvilles of the future will follow.
D out.
