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News Molyneux: Facebook is changing PC gaming

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 22 Mar 2010.

  1. Elton

    Elton Officially a Whisky Nerd

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    FB gaming isn't gaming at all..

    Now paradoxially if it had SimCity games on FB, I'd totally jump on it, I absolutely love SimCity/Tycoon games.
     
  2. LordPyrinc

    LordPyrinc Legomaniac

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    Casual gaming has its place for the bored mindless masses whose bosses don't closely monitor their employees' browsing habits.

    I'll stick to real games for now.
     
  3. Star*Dagger

    Star*Dagger What's a Dremel?

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    This made me laugh
     
  4. livesabitch

    livesabitch life is what you make it!

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    Have to say facebook is S**T i hate the site what a load of rubbish! why would i sit on my computer and talk to people when i can go down the pub and be social! is it realy that hard now days to have a life? but back to the point PC gaming doesn't involve a browser! FULL STOP. im into my COD and i love it! now thats gaming! wether im going via the story or online gaming! playing a pethetic game like spazvill is a waste of anyones time, that has no self pitty to play a real game! enough said!
     
  5. Marc5002

    Marc5002 What's a Dremel?

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    These game on pc Should be Second-hand Game For when you'r at work and as a pause or when you'r reading forum post and reply and help at same tiem it can be held very easly : but to all those people who are spending... 30-50$US PER Few month to get EXTRA play time energy Faster : and Imbalanced Item ! shame on you !!!
     
  6. asphinx

    asphinx What's a Dremel?

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    Say what you will about Facebook and Peter Molyneux but I for one thinks he makes a valid point. Something I'm apparently alone in thinking. If PC gaming is defined by the people using it, in other words, the people who play games on PC's? Which at least in my mind, should be the definition of PC gaming. With everyone moaning and complaining instead if waking up and realizing that the evolution of how we define gaming has already begun. Stay with, or stay behind. Don't embrace every new thing like it's "the cake" (already been doing that for years, check!) but don't shun it like it's got the plaque either.

    Saying "The real gaming is hardcore.", "it's just simple flash games" makes Peter's point all the more valid, it has changed and is still changing as everything else evolving and you just haven't kept up. A game is still a game even if your mother plays it. Or humor me this? What makes Crysis a game?

    Sometimes I think Peter Molyneux is full of **** (despite still liking both Fable games for what they were, as opposed to what he "promised"), and sometimes he makes valid arguments.
    Nonetheless he has probably realized that the games they made years ago (Dungeon Keeper for instance springs to mind) are now sell-able again. Changed the platform a bit, changed the demographics, target 400 million active users, where a big portion of them have never even seen the game, and for those who have. Nostalgia here I come.

    Facebook according to their own site, has more than 400 million active users
    Steam has according to multiple sources 25 million active users
    Assuming the numbers are somewhat biased, that is still quite a large gap.
     
  7. BentAnat

    BentAnat Software Dev

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    The bottom line is that money runs the industry.
    There's money to be had on Facebook and the likes.
    I for one wouldn't be surprised to see EA publishing FB games, for example. It might be a fad, but it's a fad that makes money.And FB gaming IS introducing a lot of people to gaming at present. They're similar people to those that bought PopCap games... with the delivery system being new and, evidently, working.
     
  8. Sifter3000

    Sifter3000 I used to be somebody

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    Asphinx gets it right when he says PC gaming is defined by the people playing the games. The whole point of PC gaming, why I always liked it, was that it was such a broad church - because there's no central authority (ie Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo) saying what can and can't be published, or selling expensive SDKs/dev kits, the PC is home to the greatest variety of games around. I never expected to like them all, but that's not a reason to say something is/is not deserving of being called a game.

    As BentAnat says, Facebook gaming is developing - EA will be on there, and Sid Meier is working on a version of Civ for it...
     
  9. [USRF]Obiwan

    [USRF]Obiwan What's a Dremel?

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    Does anybody knows how i get ride of all the junk (like: Eat a cake, drink a bear, and weird gifts) from my newsfeeds...

    ah found it. Click Hide button when hovering over (i hope this hides these ******** items for ever)
     
  10. OnyxLilninja

    OnyxLilninja What's a Dremel?

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    Peter Molyneux is no idiot, I think he makes a good point. Farmville and Mafia Wars are just the tip of the iceberg for what's possible. If **** 'games' like those are popular, what will happen when Sid Meier releases his Civilisation Network on Facebook... it should be a world conqueror.
     
  11. cjmUK

    cjmUK Old git.

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    So if I'm not on MyFace, and never will be on it, does this mean that I'm no longer a gamer? :(
     
  12. supermonkey

    supermonkey Deal with it

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    Personally, I think a lot of people commenting here have completely missed his point. Either that, or their PC-as-gaming egos are threatened by the idea that their casual-as-gaming acquaintances are encroaching on their turf.

    I would consider myself middle-of-the-road in this debate: On Saturday nights I meet online with a group of close friends for some gaming. We play anything from Quake 2 (with maps we created ourselves), Warcraft 3 (again - with maps we created ourselves), or Left 4 Dead (1 and 2, sometimes with user-created maps we've discovered online). I'm not particularly into Starcraft, but my friends are big fans. Add to that the fact that we're developing a small turn-based strategy game of our own, and you could say that we're gamers, if not totally hard core - if anyone can actually come up with a reasonable definition for "hard core gamer."

    On the other hand, I also get a lot of enjoyment out of social games like Rockband. My wife, who joins our gaming sessions in all of the games listed above, also plays quite a few Facebook games (she's played through Mousehunt, Mafia Wars, Farmville, and Cafe World, to name a few). I don't play Facebook games, but that's more due to the fact that I don't have a Facebook account.

    In some respect, I'm confused as to how a group of self-professed geeks who supposedly know so much more about technology than the common folks could be so short-sighted when it comes to PC gaming in whatever form it's presented. On the other hand, given the attitudes displayed in just about every other arena of the techno-world, I'm not at all surprised. This is gaming's answer to the whole iPad-Netbook debate. Or it could be the Linux-Windows-OSX debate. Or it could be the Nintendo-Xbox-PS3 debate. HD-DVD vs Blu-ray, anyone?

    So the casual Facebook games aren't as in-depth as Crysis. Then again, how in-depth is Crysis, anyway? I'll give you the backstory - casual games rarely have much story behind them, while the so-called "hard core" games are often driven by some kind of narrative. But to suggest that there is much more involved game play is a bit far-fetched. I could just as easily boil most FPS games down to: run around, point, click, repeat. Not terribly in-depth, when you think about it. After a few years playing Warcraft 3, even it becomes a bit monotonous at times: create peons, harvest materials, start the pre-determined build order. From my experience, many RTS games follow a similar pattern.

    More to the point, though, is that it doesn't really matter in the long run which game is harder, or more in-depth, or has flashier graphics, or more lines of code, or (insert arbitrary criteria here). Games are games. Some are meant to be casual fun, some are by design meant to be more challenging. That alone does not make any one game better, nor more hard-core than the next. It just makes it different.

    You all can continue to dig in your heels and insist that playing Crysis makes you hard core, and that "pwning noobs" in Starcraft separates the men from the boys. In the meantime, the Wii and Plants vs Zombies will continue to be outrageously popular because people in the real world actually understand concepts like "fun" and "entertainment." You know, things "games" are supposed to be.
     
  13. cjmUK

    cjmUK Old git.

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    I think you have missed the point Supermonkey.

    Facebook games are incredibly simple and thus are easy to produce, but they have a short shelf-life and are harder to monetise. So while an incredibly large number of people play *some* of the games, they don't give much of a return - they only get income through advertising and micropayments.

    This market will only ever be a fraction the size of the traditional PC games market (in terms of revenue) and that is only a small part of gaming as a whole. Sure, the number of registered players will often be *huge* but the casual gaming market is extremely shallow.

    In my circle, a host of people are signed up for farmville, but only a small minority actively play (though in some cases these guys manage other peoples farms for them as well) - but not one of them has ever made any payment (or for any other games either). Nor are they ever going to. Farmville (and other facebook games) are minor distraction... it's a laugh for some (a chore for others), but if it came to paying for it, they'll walk away in the blink of an eye.

    Molyneux purports to believe that facebook casual games are the future of PC gaming. It's not, and I don't think he believes it either - he simply likes the sound of his own voice and will state something eye-catching to hype up a game he's about to launch, or as in this case, to fill the gap until a future game is ready to be hyped (Fable III).

    If Zynga are still in existence in 5 years time, I'll eat my words. IMHO, the best they can hope for is to be swallowed up by a larger publisher, but more likely they will have faded back into obscurity.
     
  14. asphinx

    asphinx What's a Dremel?

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    I apparently stand corrected in thinking I was alone in my opinions. Especially, but not exclusively, supermonkey continues and further explores some of the things I expressed. I also think cjmUK raises an interesting question, ironic or not.

    If you aren't keeping up with current "platforms" of gaming, are you then also not a gamer? I personally don't think that's the case. I think for most people, simply by defining yourself as a gamer, you are indeed a gamer. Even if you only play games on NES for instance. But to me that makes the people who don't define themselves as gamers more interesting, even when they play Farmville on a daily basis. Has Facebook blurred the line between gamer and non-gamer, when both parties play games?
     
  15. cjmUK

    cjmUK Old git.

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    Can I consider myself a 'petrolhead' simply because I own a car? Am I a golfer because I play pitch & put in the summer with my mates? My brother-in-law owns a number of games for his PC including Microsoft Train Simulator and Crysis; is he a gamer?

    I'd say the answer to all 3 questions is 'No'.

    While people who (solely) play a limited amount of casual games can technically call themselves gamers, I don't think they really are gamers. Clearly there is no universally accepted definition of 'gamer', but I think the majority of people can agree on the extremes.

    Some of the people playing facebook games would be considered gamers in my eyes, but most would not. Many people who regularly play PC games would be considered gamers in my eyes, but some would not. But to generalisel, we might regard PC gamers as 'Gamers' and facebook gamers as not - I the majority of cases of each, we would be right.
     
  16. Woodspoon

    Woodspoon What's a Dremel?

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    Mafia wars, Farmville etc. are not games but elaborate chain letters.
    The design of the so called games is based around sharing with as many people as possible "congrats you've killed boss A share this with your friends to give bonus" "to get bonus A get x number of people to join your gang" or something along those lines to maximize advertising and the revenue that goes with it.
    The gaming is an incidental hook to an advertising string.
     
  17. asphinx

    asphinx What's a Dremel?

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    Then by your own definition you are not a petrolhead and not a golfer. And your brother-in-law is by your definition not a gamer, which is somewhat presumptuous of you. Are you entitled to define whether he is a gamer or not?
    Where I think you misunderstand me, is when you confuse subjective opinions with objective opinions. I stated that if anyone considers themselves to be a gamer, then they are a gamer. Other people might disagree with them and they are entitled to do so, but to label someone as being "not a gamer" simply because they don't constrain to your personal opinions and/or beliefs is just wrong.
    Take your brother-in-law as an example, does he consider himself to be a gamer? If he doesn't, then fine, both of your opinions match and there's probably no issues regarding "what a gamer is". But let's say that he does consider himself to be gamer, then who are you to take that definition from him? Maybe he's less of a gamer than you, or maybe he's a different kind of gamer. But in this example, he is still (in his subjective opinion) a gamer, whether you agree with him or not (in your subjective opinion).
     
  18. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    My mom is addicted to Farmville




    :sigh:
     
  19. Fizzban

    Fizzban Man of Many Typos

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    I think certain people are missing the point that while Mafia Wars and Farmville ect ARE games, they are NOT PC games. You play them in your browser and you don't even install them. Hell you don't even need a PC to play them.

    So to suggest that these are some how affecting PC gaming is just daft. You might as well ask how Facebook is affecting console gaming.
     
    Last edited: 23 Mar 2010
  20. cjmUK

    cjmUK Old git.

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    The point is that, as there is no definition of gamer, do we all make up our own definitions (as you prefer) or do we reach a general consensus (as I prefer)?

    Perhaps you would care to define what you understand to qualify someone as a gamer?

    For me, to be a gamer, you need to have more than a superficial, passing experience with computer games - you need a sustained interest and passion. A simplistic test would be that, when asked what hobbies they have, a gamer would say gaming!

    Would a casual farmville or mafia wars person list gaming as a hobby? No, it's generally just a passing interest.

    It's very egalitarian to wish people to define their inclusion as gamers, but beyond that it isn't very practical.

    In more practical terms, I regard myself as a software developer - and there is nothing legally to stop me using that term. Am I a software developer? Following the consensus, the whether I am a software developer or not would depend on whether I could demonstrate skills and experience that are synonymous with software development.

    If I've merely written a few macros (or something equally trivial) then, perhaps technically I could be regarded as such - but the software development world wouldn't agree, and I'd be unlikely to gain work in the field.

    So while anyone can call themselves a gamer, I disagree that it makes them so.
     
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