Too Human Dev Predicts Social Gaming Crash

WorldCritic

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Apr 13, 2009
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I don't really have an opinion of social gaming (except for the fact that I hate Farmville) but I stopped listening to anything Dyack says after he confirmed there would be a Too Human 2.
 

death525

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Aug 29, 2009
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Wow, not only can they not make good games (yes Eternal Darkness is an exception), but they cant make good predictions either.
 

darksakul

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Jun 14, 2008
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I so hope Social gaming takes a dive, then the rest of the world can continue Going about doing actual things. I hope when Farmville buys the farm, they take Facebook with it.
 

RJ Dalton

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Aug 13, 2009
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CpnChaos said:
Yeah, let's take the word from the man that thought Too Human was a good idea. That sounds legit enough!
D'oh, somebody beat me to the punch.
Guess I should have expected that, though.
 

Twilight_guy

Sight, Sound, and Mind
Nov 24, 2008
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Yeah and when they first introduced sound into movies that head producer asked why anyone would ever want to hear the actors. Just cause you say it will die with the popularity doesn't mean anything.
 

KiraTaureLor

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gundamrx101 said:
Social gaming claims the end of console gaming. Console gaming claims the end of social gaming. Can't we all just get along and make games for the people? And then piss eachother off in online multiplayer?

Damn Master Ninja!!!!!!
 

KiraTaureLor

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venn2011 said:
meganmeave said:
While I realize this guy has a big failure tied to his name, I also tend to agree with him on this point.

I remember the huge craze over anything with a .com at the end of it in the late 90's and early oughts. Anyone remember Pets.com?

Sometimes investors are so rabid to be in on the next big thing, their speculation is bigger than the pool of profit to be had. While some .coms remain profitable today, many others struggle. Even mighty ebay is having trouble, and it was considered the juggernaut of .coms.

I still say, there is a limited amount of money to be had in social gaming. People who might put a dollar or two down to buy a new Smurf hat aren't going to support a multimillion dollar production. These games are profitable because they are cheap to make. But if everyone gets in on the business, how do you compete against so many identical products? Companies will have to start making flashier and flashier games, and that's when they will begin to fail.

People who only play free to play games, for the most part, aren't interested in plunking down $60 for a game that uses a controller that has more than 10 buttons on it, and requires an hour long tutorial to learn how to play it. If they were, they'd have done it long ago. They want something simple, and cheap - something they can fiddle with while they fuck off at work, or stand in the grocery line. There is a limit to how much money people like this are willing to spend to screw around on their phone. The more expensive these free to play endeavors become, the less profit these companies will make.

Personally, I also see this as a bubble. There's money to be had there, for sure. It just isn't as much as all the investors hope for.
This. This, this, THIS.

Social Gaming will most likely won't fail catastrophically like the guy said in the article, but it is true that there probably isn't enough pie for everyone who makes one.

And I also like to add that if the fad/trend shifts and the attention of all those customers moves away from the social games... then what?

Not to mention most of these games are probably just repetitive or grindfest... how long can you grab a person's attention with that, unless that person is really, really hooked?
 

Realitycrash

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So, what is his problem with "social games"? That they don't cost anything to play, or that they market products in the game? I'm sorry, why are they more likely to crash than anything else?
 

Realitycrash

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KiraTaureLor said:
venn2011 said:
meganmeave said:
Not to mention most of these games are probably just repetitive or grindfest... how long can you grab a person's attention with that, unless that person is really, really hooked?
Ever played Tetris? The simplest games are often the most addictive. Grinding + online community + Achivements + No charge + Easy gameplay = Casual-gamer WIN.
It doesn't matter if it is about feeding birds, or training dogs, or rotating blocks. This formula tends to attract people.
 

FieryTrainwreck

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Apr 16, 2010
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Everyone wants to rag on the guy for his pedigree, but he's just applying basic business logic. A crash is very likely any time a new and unproven market grows too quickly. A lot of investors have sunk disgusting amounts of capital into social game publishers, and there's no guarantee any of them will duplicate the success of Farmville. In fact, like our Silicon Knights friend here, I'd bet a substantial amount of money against it.

Speculative investment is the absolute scourge of the modern world, by the by. We use to have laws that prevented it from going haywire, but most governments are firmly in the hands of big business at this point.

Wow, not only can they not make good games (yes Eternal Darkness is an exception), but they cant make good predictions either.
Actually, Too Human is the exception. And predicting the crash of an emerging industry that exploded before anyone has a solid grasp on the total profit pool isn't exactly rocket surgery.
 

Spud of Doom

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Feb 24, 2011
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I see where he's coming from this, but I don't think it will be a "death" as much as a decline. What does sadden me a bit is that people are dwelling on dull facebook games rather than moving into better free games. Try some free MMOs like Mabinogi or LOTRO or Vindictus or something. Or even browser games like Kingdom of Loathing, eRepublik or (dare I say it, for the kids) Neopets.

Heck, a lot of flash games on newgrounds, kongregate etc. do a much better job of delivering fun, casual content than those games on FB. I figure eventually as people through the "social games" come to enjoy gaming more they will perhaps move away to alternatives once they learn more.
 

Hydro14

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The problem that's being pointed at here isn't the quality of the product; it's market saturation. The market isn't growing anywhere near as fast as the industry that's catering to it. The collapse won't be catastrophic (except for the companies involved) but it's likely to be like the MMO scene, with one or two rising from the rubble of their shattered competitors. I say this because much like an MMO, most social games act as a timesink that have to have exclusive claim to the user's free time if the user wants to be competitive.

What a lot of people here don't seem to understand is the market that social games are aimed at: these are not aimed at gamers. I don't know if any of you have had the misfortune to try to get a parent or adult non-gamer into video games; but the time it takes for them to grasp basic movement of an avatar in 3D space is AGONIZING. For these people, much like learning to paint or play a musical instrument, getting into the hobby represents a sizable investment of time with, to build on the analogy of music, little to show for their time spent apart from some displeasing sounds. The very things that we see in a 'good' game: outcome determined by player skill, etc. is an obstacle to these people. For the target market, social games are ideal.
 

ahappycamper

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Jul 13, 2009
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Can we really expect the maker of Too Human to have any idea what makes a good game? He probably think that games like COD and Mass Effect are made by magical fairies. As long as he doesn't make any more games he won't get criticised, which is fine, but maybe he should bepaying attention to his genre of video games if he plans to ever live in the real world.
 

Mordereth

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Jun 19, 2009
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He's being bitter and negative because Too Human sucked balls.

Yes, we all hate the retarded applets and the dumb social media, but people need to get their first breaks somewhere in this industry, pal.