GDC Social & Online Games Summit
Here are my take-aways from the 2-day summit:
1. We are ahead of the curve for creating a FB game app to promote a brand. Hasn’t been done so far that I’ve seen. I even asked the FB guy who was the Tues. keynote and he couldn’t think of any. This fact makes me very excited and a bit nervous.
2. We need to plan for server load. We cannot predict how much traffic will hit the server, and we need to come up with a plan should it blow up.
3. We’ve come up with another game title idea and JK has about 30 paper-based game titles that his dad created that already create revenue. We could be busy for a while.
4. I need reliable Flash developers who know what they are doing. Not to say that Mike isn’t doing a great job, but I need more help.
5. My client should exploit the hell out of the fact that this is pretty innovative for them to have a FB game app. They need to be ready to advertise.
6. Social game companies totally copy off of each other and they don’t seem to care.
7. The gaming industry has been dragging their feet. At the first GDC I attended back in 2007, I felt like a total outsider. When I told people I met that I work with Flash, they looked at me like I was nuts. Now all of these social games are Flash-based. I actually attended a session on what game developers (for traditional platforms) can learn from Flash portal games today. Really?? These games have been around FOREVER!
8. I feel very confident that the 3 social game ideas we have can be built and used for social media. Two of them would be geared toward males (more mature content), while the third would be directed more toward females.
9. EA acquired Playfish. In 2007 I hung out with those guys from Playfish because they were doing Flash. They were really small… cool people… doing portal games. EA acquiring them is a huge deal.
10. Facebook dominating social media is not going away anytime soon – until someone comes out with something better. Myspace just isn’t in the big mix. I’m not even sure where hi5 fits in.
I’ll be back to my user reviews of Cafe World, Mafia Wars, and the newest one I am playing, Social City. I will also have an update on Farmville.
I CANNOT wait for our game to launch!!!!
PS – Dear Facebook – please bring back Newsfeeds just for games. It makes things a lot more tolerable to have all of the Farmville feeds in one place, all of the Cafe World feeds in another, etc.