Social games are an industry I follow pretty closely; I currently work for a social game company while I’m attending school, and I’ve always been a fan of videos games and interested in startups, which collide in the realm of social games.
The industry is young, but already the first phase is coming to a close in a sense. Facebook was the first dominant platform, and Zynga the first dominant developer on that platform. The iPhone became the next truly conquerable territory, and Rovio probably captured that market better than anybody else. There’s a few things that I think will shape the next phase of social game development:
The result of the Lodsys patent suits
Lodsys is currently suing a bunch of mobile companies (including Electronic Arts and Rovio) for patent infringement. Lodsys is a “patent troll” – a term used to describe an entity that doesn’t make a product and acquires a patent solely to license it, or sue if companies decline to license. Lodsys is hardly the first company to take this approach, but it is one of the first to actively go after mobile developers on ios and Android. If Lodsys succeeds in gaining licenses, or if nobody steps up to pay to challenge the patent in court, the chilling effect on app developers could be big – and it could potentially slow growth of social games on ios and Android if the developers fear that success will lead to an inevitable patent suit.
Google+’s success, and their games platform
Google+ is definitely a product that many game developers are cheering for. Game developers would love another platform to publish on aside from Facebook – Facebook is a wonderful platform, but ever since Facebook cut down on the ability of new games to access virality channels, it has been hard for new developers to gain a big following on the platform. Facebook is actually saying that they will start integrating some new virality that social games can access, specifically reopening the possibility of game activity posts being displayed on the new feeds of Friends who are interested in games, but a new platform would have all sorts of other benefits. For one, Google+ may start out by offering developers an open platform for payments, whereas developers are now forced to utilize Facebook Credits for monetization on Facebook. Additionally, Google+ might push down the industry standard 30% cut that both Apple and Facebook take for their game platforms, mobile and web-based, respectively. There have already been rumors that Google+ will launch their platform asking for only 20% of gross revenue as compared to the 30% that Facebook takes, which could both help developers monetize by increasing their portion, and expanding the potential audience by letting more users play for less while still making a profit.
The contents of the Zynga/Facebook deal
Zynga and Facebook cut a deal back in 2010, and the details of the deal are only rumors, but it could have a huge impact on the future of the industry. The main issue is if Facebook got some sort of commitment from Zynga to stay on Facebook exclusively for a period of time, and if Google+ launches their games platform within that period, then Zynga may not launch titles for Google+. While that would obviously be a huge win for Facebook, it isn’t necessarily a huge win for Zynga, Google, or even other developers. Zynga brings a gigantic user base with it wherever it goes, and without a Zynga title available at launch, the Google+ platform may not take off. While it might be interesting to see what would happen on a social game network free from Zynga for a period of time, developers as a group might lose out by having fewer total users interested in the platform.
Those are the big issues as far as I see them in terms of what will shape the future of social games and the platforms they appear on, or, at least, it’s three of them. 🙂
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