The State of Social Gaming On the iPhone 33
This article at CNet takes a detailed look at the growth of social gaming through Apple's iPhone, a market many developers — and Apple themselves — are still struggling to figure out. The piece also speculates on how such games and networks will continue to evolve. Quoting:
"While competition has spawned better features among these services, the future brings a growing need for a more unified network. Even if all these networks begin to become impossible to differentiate, users are eventually going to want a less-disjointed platform when jumping from game to game, and app to app. Thus far Facebook, and even Twitter to some degree have provided that constant, just by giving users a way to log in to these platforms. The unification can shake out in a number of ways though, the most likely of which is consolidation. Open Feint can continue to grow until it's snatched up by a larger company (like Apple). Or it can begin absorbing, or muscling out the other, less popular networks. As mentioned before, Apple plays a big part in this: not only in how it changes the hardware, but also how it continues to evolve the business of the App Store and information sharing between applications."
Deck chairs on the Titanic (Score:2, Interesting)
If you look at the arc of any modern technology, you'll find that gaming typically makes up a very brief interlude between initial takeup and the final settling on a backbone of business usage. So arguing over how gaming will proceed on these new social networks seems futile in the long run.
At this point, if you aren't already making money from social gaming (in whatever capacity), you won't be able to get on board now and make any money from it at all. The gaming stage of technology is short, and it has already passed by for the cellular phone network.
It isn't gaming that people love about their cells, it's the communication aspect. As we pass through the gaming stage of this technology, we're seeing more and more "service-based" features that will make money for service providers and allow users to enhance their money-making abilities through the usage of these new services. The future of every technology is in how it makes business more profitable.
Gaming (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Deck chairs on the Titanic (Score:1, Interesting)
The future of every technology is in how it makes business more profitable.
It doesn't work like that. Any given technology will eventually reach a maturity-decline phase of its life-cycle.
I can't wait for that! Do Walmart do mobile phone contracts and PAYG sims? Tesco and Asda certainly do.
This whole smartphone "phone as a platform" thing is SO MUCH BULLSHIT. I just want to use my VOIP and instant messaging for pretty cheap rates, and on a not at all locked down platform.
Re:Social Gaming (Score:2, Interesting)
Not in terms of apps. App buyers for the iPod Touch/iPhone are notoriously price-sensitive, where apps that sell for $20 or more on other phone platforms will be sold for $4.99 on the App store. A few players are toying around with $9.99 price points, but that's still less than half what they'd get elsewhere.
(OT: To top it off, Apple's App store is so painfully bad that it makes sales after the two weeks much tougher to get. I don't understand why Apple is so incompetent in this realm -- even if they don't give a shit about growing discontent from developers (not to mention users) or lost app sales, it's still a huge embarrassment as an Apple-branded portal.)