14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has recently emerged as being on the most important video game platforms in the last few years and companies like Zynga have managed to make fortunes delivering experiences to gamers who are also interested in social interaction.
And now one executive at the company says that in many ways Facebook is like television during the '80s, ignoring the needs to niche groups and delivering a number of very similar experiences on all of its “channels.”
Sean Ryan, who is the director of games partnerships at Facebook, has told Gamasutra in a wide ranging interview that, “We have the farming channel, we have the city building channel, and we have the pet nurturing channel.”
He added, “Clearly there is room in every other media category to have lot of successful players” and believes that “we're starting to see a broadening out of the types of games that are available, as people understand that we have every type of audience.”
Ryan believes that in the coming years Facebook will continue to grow as a gaming platform and the developers will find new ways of delivering titles that appeal to more users while exploring new genres.
The executive mentioned romance as possible niche that could perform well on Facebook, especially when taking into account that the average player on the social platform is over 40 years old and a woman.
It will be interesting to see whether the growth in Facebook gaming will come at the expense of social interaction between users and whether the platform will have to offer more facilities for those who create games for it in order to keep users coming back for more.
At the moment Zynga is the biggest video game developer working on Facebook and the company is preparing for s successful IPO later in the fall.
Electronic Arts, via Playfish and now PopCap, is also an important force in the medium.