Newsletter 11/2009
Social media increases playing
 |
“The social media has become very popular as a game base. Facebook is extremely interesting because, as a constantly developing media, it is creating new possibilities all the time,” says Janne Paavilainen from the Department of Information Studies and Interactive Media at Tampere University.
Paavilainen heads So-Play, a project that is funded by Tekes-Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation and Finnish game companies and does research into games that function in the social-media services. Both older and the more recent social-media services from email to IRC and YouTube to Facebook are under examination.
The best-known and most used of the social networking services is Facebook, but information about games spreads along several routes. “You will constantly find new information about games on Wikipedia, and promo videos are loaded quickly onto YouTube. The rumours on Twitter relating to new games find a large audience easily.”
From MoiPali to Kamu World
The social media offers almost limitless scope for reaching new players. “Facebook’s 300 million users form an extremely heterogeneous population that is growing rapidly and particularly in the direction where it has not been customary to see players,” Paavilainen says.
The Finnish Kamu World has a rapidly growing number of players on Facebook.
The most popular game on Facebook is FarmVille, which was brought out in June 2009 and which has more than 60 million active players a month. “The games played on Facebook are usually played for a few minutes at a time. The types of games vary a lot but the one thing they have in common is how easy it is to play them.”
Of the Finnish games, Paavilainen holds up the Moi-Pal game of the company Ironstar Helsinki Oy, for example, as good and highly advanced. “MoiPal provides familiar and light virtual-world entertainment. Everyplay Oy’s Kamu World, on the other hand, is a fairly recent and interesting newcomer that is constantly being developed.”
Facebook to win web games?
Paavilainen points out that games on the social media are in the first stage of development. “The social media has been used as a game base and marketing channel for only two to three years. The playing field for the entire social media is growing and developing so quickly that it is difficult to make predictions.”
It is certain, however, that playing on the social media will increase all the time, which may take users away from the traditional web game services. There has even been talk that a complete full-blooded multiplayer game, chargeable monthly, could replace World of Warcraft, which has more than 10 million paying players. Of the social-media games-revenue models Paavilainen considers the most interesting to be the micro payments, with which players can buy additional content for a game for a few euros. “The micro-payment model has enormous growth potential because at this moment only a couple of per cent of those playing on the social media pay to do so.”
