part one in a two part series about Social Games
[Author's note, if a bit of harsh language by a few irate game developers is likely to bother you than read no further - this article will get blunt]
When is a cow evil? In two cases of which I know. The first is a vampire cow movie (there really was one in the making at one point, and that is one cow I wouldn’t want to come home). The second is when they are representative of something far more insidious (at least to some) and that is social games. Those of you who haven’t already abandoned Facebook (I have) will find a new application called Cow Clicker. If you go out to the application you will find this in the header:
However would I live with myself if I didn’t get all of the cows? Seem silly? What if that “cow” was the Celestial Steed offered by Blizzard for World of Warcraft that many thought was only available for a limited time? If the game seems like poignant satire that’s because it is. Ian Bogost, designer, and Kotaku guest editor at one point designed the game. For those one or two of you out there who haven’t heard of it, here is how Cow Clicker creator Blogost describes it:
“You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom “premium” cows through micropayments (the Cow Clicker currency is called “mooney”), and you can buy your way out of the time delay by spending it. You can publish feed stories about clicking your cow, and you can click friends’ cow clicks in their feed stories. Cow Clicker is Facebook games distilled to their essence.” – Ian Bogost
It is pure coincidence that Cow Clicker currency shares the same name as Zynga’s vice president, Bill Mooney. In a recent interview over at GameSetWatch designer Bogost told readers “Cow Clicker is a satire that asks players and developers alike to examine the explosive popularity of Facebook Games.” He goes on to tell readers “It’s particularly easy to be a negative critic, to talk down about something from on high, by making a game to deliver that message, I hoped it would be taken more seriously.”
If you, dear readers and listeners, think our end of the industry is both divided and contentious over the issue of Facebook games, it turns out the production end of the industry is just as divided. In GameSetWatch, Bogost describes an increasingly wide schism between social game developers and those that produce more traditional games (if there is such a thing anymore) such as console games. It is a schism that appears to have been made even wider at the last Game Developer’s Conference by Bill Mooney’s speech on behalf of Zynga [full text here] Particularly infamous, it turns out, was the end of the speech:
And in particular I wanted to call out one last thing. I want to thank our People Ops group, and I want people to know that, whether you go into the space [social games] alone, or whether you want to join us [Zynga] — there’s something like 200 openings at Zynga, and many more opportunities across other places — seriously, think of Facebook and the social games space as the last big realm for indies. If you’re interested in making your own mark, please come join us [social games developers]. – Bill Mooney, Vice President Zynga, 2010 Game Developers Conference.
For a first hand reaction I had to look no further than the blog of Josh Sutphin, lead designer for Lightbox Interactive (via CNET.com) (bear with the long quote – I didn’t want to quote it out of context)
There was an odd moment in the show, and that was when FarmVille won Best New Social/Online Game. FarmVille winning the award wasn’t strange — it was, in fact, depressingly predictable — it was the acceptance speech that followed that kind of set the room on edge. The Zynga guy (whose name I’ve completely forgotten) opened with a blatant shot against the indie community, asserting that games like FarmVille are “just as indie”, and that indies should jump into the social games space and put their money where their mouth is. Apparently Zynga guy has no fucking idea what the indie community is all about, i.e. precisely the opposite of commercialized Skinnerian time- and money-sinks driven by business and user metrics instead of love of the art. It was frankly insulting to the half of the room that had just concluded an hour-long awards show celebrating its prolific creative output. And then, just to make things even more awkward, he started pitching Zynga as a great place to work, going so far as to directly ask for people to send in their resumes. Hey, Zynga guy: There’s a time and a place for that, and your acceptance speech at the Game Developers’ Choice Awards is neither. Learn some fucking tact.- Josh Sutphin, Lightbox Interactive.
W.C. Fields once said “there’s a sucker born every minute.” Either there are an awful lot of suckers out there (a definite possibility) or a lot amount of social game publishers with a seriously cavalier attitude toward their market. Gamasutra’s David Hayward seems to feel the later is the case, at least where Zynga is concerned:
“Secondly, Zynga have a ‘fuck the users’ approach to game development. Their games extract revenue and multiply users in every way possible. Mark Pincus himself is on record saying ‘I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away’. They ran offer scams, and, while it was misreported as far more scandalous than it actually was, they nonetheless piggy-backed some very lucrative business on people’s charity.” – David Hayward’s Blog at Gamasutra
Is the controversy simply a reaction to Zynga? Perhaps the most telling are the words Ian Bogost relates to GameSetWatch
“I think a great many social game developers are mistaking the success of their games for positive contributions to humanity,” – Ian Bogost
But why such ire? Why the seemingly vile hatred of social games from some corners of the industry? Well for a discussion on THAT my friends you will have to come back tomorrow.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
[posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster]