"Massive" Social Gaming Layoffs Predicted For 2012

[Andy Chalk]

"Massive" Social Gaming Layoffs Predicted For 2012

An executive at games-on-demand provider Exent says the online social gaming industry is overcrowded and will face "massive layoffs" in 2012.

The social gaming scene has always been kind of a mess. On one hand, you had Square Enix proclaiming that social gaming is the predicted [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101635-Square-Enix-Social-Gaming-Is-the-Future] that once all the hubbub died down and people actually started looking at the non-existent bottom lines, funding would dry up and the social gaming development scene would be brought back down to Earth with a resounding thud.

It's a bit late to count as "joining the chorus" but Rick Marazzani, the head of content programming at games-on-demand provider Exent [http://www.exent.com/], recently echoed the sentiment with his own statement warning of deep cuts looming at all but the most deep-pocketed studios.

"With multiple hit games and big marketing budgets needed to stay afloat at the top of the Facebook game charts, many social publishers simply weathered 2011 waiting to see what Zynga's IPO would foretell for their own futures," he told Develop [http://www.develop-online.net/news/39333/Massive-layoffs-expected-for-social-devs-in-2012?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+developmag%2Fifbh+%28Develop%29]. "Faced with the reality that there are too many people working on too many games for the market to bear, social developers will be forced to place smarter and fewer bets as user acquisition cost and competition grows."

Marzzani pointed out that Zoo World developer RockYou laid off 55 employees in November - 40 percent of its staff - and was also recently forced to sell the Playdemic studio, which it only acquired in January, back to its founders after profits took a sharp drop.


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[Saerain]

I'm torn between my general empathy and my dislike of Facebook.

I'm torn between the former plus my liking of Facebook and my dislike of Facebook's games.

 

[Soviet Steve]

I'm happy that this fad has passed.

 

[isometry]

This is great news, I've been waiting for this crash ever since Zynga, and also the Wii, took off since I'm hoping the end of this casual gaming fad sets us up for a situation similar to what Nintendo did in 1985. With consumers skittish about games in general due to the flood of crapware in previous years, Nintendo had to win them back by emphasizing high standards of quality and banning shovelware.

 

[tjoris9]

Considering the business model is reliant largely on emotionally and mentally unstable people, we should all be at least a little surprised that social gaming hasn't gone down the tubes big time until now.

 

[vrbtny]

So can all these game producers now start making proper games?

 

[Zen Toombs]

Well, layoffs are not so good, but I feel like Farmville and the like are a bit bloated. Also not the biggest fan of Facebook.

 

[TheDooD]

Can we just say ZYGNA are overcrowded and they need to lay people off. They knew good and well they shot themselves in the ass with all their facebook games.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Sucks for the layoffs, but I look forward to the day when social gaming stops exploding with all the useless content they keep pumping out. The bubble needed to pop years ago.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I'm torn between my general empathy and my dislike of Facebook.

I'm torn between apathy and schadenfreude.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

The signs have been around for awhile that the market is overstaruated. Falling Farmville users, the creation of seven new "villes" a week, Zynga making a desepration claim it can "double" it's shrinking user base.

The bubble is bursting.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Well the entire Escapist community collectivly fucking called it. We don't need analyists to see the fucking blindingly obvious.

Alow me to quote myself from quite a few months back;

All it takes is a small shift in usership or advertising confidence and a million dollar prized cow can turn out to be a dog-turd. This isn't even going into mismanagement, small companies that make it big quick have a nasty habit on not being able to deal with it or making terrible decisions. Recently Zynga has decided to hoover up a sum total of 15 companies with its new found (if ethically and creatively dubious) wealth. Fast, forward to today and profits have fallen 90%, news with has been delayed since June due to the "Tough market conditions" leaving me with the tentative feeling that the news has been released over a more favorable range to their original numbers.

Take the dot.com boom for example, a lot of clueless investors throw their money behind Internet companies because they seem to be magic money makers. Many of the paper millionaires we saw were just that and the value of most of these companies, and consequently their shares, dropped to a big fat sum of zero. Social and in a slightly different way mobile games have also done this; massive investment in something that is seen as a new, bottomless money spinner.

The shit will only really hit the fan when said investors get a whiff that their particular horse in this race might be horribly overvalued. When investor pull out (like so many panicing boyfriends) in the sector starts i have a feeling it may not stop, speculators (especially when it comes to the fast world of tech) are ruthlessly fickle and jumpy as coked-up Meerkats. Here's hoping that a lot of good people don't get squeezed out of the industry all together as the workforces of these new factory-famed games become suddenly and jarringly jobless, especially considering that a social company may have provided a lot of 1st time gaming jobs.

Well done me. I do have some forsight. Social gaming will come crashing to earth as quickly as it rose and 99% of those lauding it will have no idea why it failed or even why it even rose in the first place. The pundits and culeless 'experts' can go eat a dick; they have consistantly been shown to not know shit over the bildingly obvious in the short term. Socail gaming is already failing, it is in a death spiral.

O_O

Wow, that is right on the nail, and HOW long ago was that posted?

Tell us more of your future knowledge!

I want to win the lottery!

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Well, it's about time.

<< Biased to hell ("elite" and "hardcore").

 

[Weaver]

Zynga is also doing their initial public offering this Thursday (ie, offering shares to the public). I was tempted to buy but unless they can single handled say social gaming, it's probably a bad bet.

 

[Woodsey]

I feel bad for the people who have lost their jobs of course, but... Yay.

 

[Lightslei]

The only Zynga game I TOLERATE is Words With Friends, the rest of the Facebook Games I actually play because they aren't a headache are from Kabam. The rest I added, and then installed an addon that automatically accepts game requests so I can stop seeing them all the time :/.

The problem with social games aren't that they are all bad (although the vast majority of them I wouldn't hesitate to throw in a volcano), but that they try to force interaction between friends. It automatically assumes that because you're friends with someone, that you all want to play the same type of games. I like J/RPG's primarily, and various strategy games, I do not give a god damn rat's ass about Castleville which I tried for maybe 12 minutes before feeling like it was something out of the concept of "make people so stupid that you can control the masses" conspiracy books, although I probably get close to 20+ requests from it a day.

If social games actually focused on gameplay and making it enjoyable without feeling like a giant forced ad, then I would think it would have a slightly stronger backbone in the market.

 

[Darth_Dude]

I've probablybeen ninja'd but,

And nothing of value was lost.