The Future of Social Games: How Facebook is Connecting Players, Developers, & Dollars

This article is written from the game developer point of view but marketers should take notice.  Now, there is a platform for distribution that makes the development of branded games an option.  Brand managers are no longer relegated to advertising space near a game — there is a cost effective way to drive engagement through a game.

MySpace Moves Into Social Gaming

MySpace recently announced that it would begin to use online gaming as a way to grow the social network.  Since being passed in overall users last year by Facebook, the company has looked for ways to re-invigorate its brand.  Let’s think about its strategy in some depth.

MySpace had a head start on Facebook, having launched a year earlier, and immediately seized upon music and video sharing as its core content following the demise of Napster.  The demographic of MySpace users has always been young, and probably skewed even younger when Facebook began gathering momentum.  MySpace allows far more customization of its user pages, which may have backfired somewhat, because many user pages are crowded, with many clashing colors and hard-to-read text.  Not to mention that it can take about 45 seconds to find the bottom of some MySpace pages.

The bigger problem is that there isn’t nearly as much to do on MySpace.  Facebook decided early on that outside applications should become the centerpiece of its site, and allowed its users to do the heavy lifting by creating applications such as games, polls, quizzes, even virtual worlds.  This strategy has been highly successful, as there are some individual apps that have 250,000 concurrent users during peak traffic hours.  All of these applications show where one user stands in relation to his friends (leader boards, quiz results, money accumulated) and all allow comments, which further encourages usage.

It is not too late for MySpace to jump into social gaming.  For starters, most of the applications on Facebook can be syndicated over to MySpace fairly easily.  Also, MySpace users tend to be younger, and therefore more likely to occupy their time playing games and taking quizzes.   There is a huge built-in audience that is currently untapped, and introducing this new content could easily spur rapid new growth.  Of course, the youth factor could be a small negative in social gaming, as 14 year olds are less likely to create interactive games than adults, but unlikely to derail the train.  Most importantly, Facebook has so far failed to monetize its advantage in user eyeballs.  Facebook is still 100% supported by advertising, and there are more opportunities for “Facebook support” companies like Zynga to make money than for Facebook itself.  If MySpace can figure out a way to generate a significant percentage of its revenue from social gaming, it could propel the site back into the lead.

MySpace is likely to succeed with its social gaming strategy regardless of the exact direction it goes.  The audience is too big and they are hungry for more to do when they are on the site.  The eyeballs are there and will grow in number; the real trick will be to structure deals designed to bring in maximum revenue.