Whether you are a fan of social games or not, there is no ignoring the fact that it helped the rise of online gaming. While these games may have been more casual in nature, they are small, social and don’t make many demands on your time. They also make plenty of money for the developers, which always helps with development.
As phones have become more powerful so have the games that have been built for them. Just looking at the titles such as Paddy Power mobile poker, you’ll have seen them advertised online. More importantly, these games are still connected to a wider platform to make them a more sociable experience.
If you want something to be a success, then you give it away from free. This is exactly the concept that works with free-to-play games. They offer gameplay that have optional in-game payment and if you want to pay some money into it, then you can. Through advertising and profit from these payments then bigger and better games come.
The fact that Facebook sits underneath all this as a gateway for these games to get to the population is a good example of how we learn out about new games. While bigger Triple A titles need advertising on television, and through the games media to get your attention, many of these casual games simply use Facebook to get noticed.
All it takes is a few friends to become a fan of the game, and then suddenly the growth in new users catches hold. This is the strength of social gaming, and a new version of “word of mouth”. While some of us may not like the invitations and notifications we see from games on Facebook, there are plenty of others who take a look at the games and get hooked.
Online gaming, especially through mobile devices is a profitable sector of the industry, and one that is the key to the growth of the market. The fact that we get so much fun out of these games is important too. Seeing Facebook as a catalyst for the growth of mobile gaming is interesting, but it also shows the
