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What Google+ Games Needs To Beat Facebook 75

Posted by Soulskill from the zero-update-spam dept.
donniebaseball23 writes "Google's new games offering on Google+ has only been around a few weeks, and it's been getting mixed reactions. According to veteran game designer Ed Del Castillo, the potential is there to beat Facebook at its own game, if Google improves in the right areas, which he outlines as evolved content, player discovery and a push for HTML5. 'Overall, the quality of Google+ gaming isn't bad. It's just another Facebook with fewer games and fewer friends. It's a baby step in a time where successful companies, like Apple, are taking huge strides. The good news is that they didn't blow it. They have a good base to build on,' he said."
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What Google+ Games Needs To Beat Facebook More

What Google+ Games Needs To Beat Facebook

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  • It's bene out for a few months now and nothing that interesting has come out of it. People aren't moving there from Facebook, nothing interesting is happening there (compared to Facebook), and like the article states they missed some really great opportunities. I mean, Google is pushing for HTML5 and all kinds of nice new technologies. They used to innovate. They did nothing this.

    I was actually interested to see what they have for offer. I saw Angry Birds and some mention about playing with your friends,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      You don't get it.

      The core innovation is how they are implementing circles.

      I'm not sure why some developers poor implementation of a feature is Google's fault.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ge7 ( 2194648 )
        Google actually worked with those developers to make those games to Google+. No one else can sign up as develop yet. I would say Google played their role in it.

        The circles won't do much if Google+ doesn't offer anything new or can't get people to move. Gaining popularity for new social networks is extremely hard because of the established user bases. Circles alone won't cut it. Besides, Facebook added those features too. Google+ succeeded in one thing - it made Facebook to improve their site a little bit.

      • The core innovation is how they are implementing circles.

        Yeah, from now on pi will be equal to three in Google.

      • circles would be innovative if they could overlap/intersect. As it is, Facebook offers quite the same feature.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by geekoid ( 135745 )

          They can, and facebooks implementation is pretty damn bad and hard to find. Most people aren't even aware they can do that.

        • You can add people to as many circles as you want, I do believe that is the definition of overlapping/intercepting.

          • I agree, and am a fan of Google Plus. What I personally would like to see is the ability to place a whole circle within another circle. I ALWAYS want to share EVERYTHING I do on there with my wife. Same with a few other people. I was hoping they would let me nest circles within circles. That said, I'm still pretty happy with it and haven't looked back since.

      • Circles isn't as innovative as it sounds. Sectioning information into the groups you want to know about it is fine except Google and anyone willing to pay them can bypass your circles so you still need to be careful what you say.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by bonch ( 38532 ) *

        You don't get it.

        The core innovation is how they are implementing circles.

        Nobody actually cares that much about circles except for tech journalists who think dragging things to a circle is the most amazing innovation ever.

    • It's bene out for a few months now and nothing that interesting has come out of it. People aren't moving there from Facebook, nothing interesting is happening there (compared to Facebook), and like the article states they missed some really great opportunities.

      It is interesting to see other people's perspective on this. Like many of us here, I'm a geek. I've seen more than one person I know post a countdown on Facebook with a link to their Google+ account and then, kill off their Facebook account entirely. I haven't gotten rid of my account, but I also got an e-mail from Facebook the other day reminding me I haven't logged in in more than 30 days. I did not plan that or anything, I've just been using it less and less. I've been using Google+ much more than I ever

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bonch ( 38532 ) *

        It is interesting to see other people's perspective on this. Like many of us here, I'm a geek. I've seen more than one person I know post a countdown on Facebook with a link to their Google+ account and then, kill off their Facebook account entirely.

        You acknowledge that you're a geek, which is exactly what the grandparent post said Google+ would appeal to--niche technical users who feel the need to abandon Facebook in favor of the a geekier product.

        • Google+ appeals to niche technical users who feel the need to abandon Facebook in favor of a social network where people actually have something interesting to say. A social network that isn't bogged down with layers of ads and games and a long history of privacy issues. Personally I feel that Google's implementation of Circles is brilliant; they took a feature that could be implemented in Facebook and made it both obvious and effortless to use. The "Nearby" Circle on Android is awesome as well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by yog ( 19073 ) *
      Featureless? I find Facebook cluttered and annoying, and I feel locked in by their decisions. Facebook keeps changing things around, as well; just when I've gotten used to things a certain way, it all shifts around. I don't like the one dimensional approach of Facebook wherein my friends are one giant group. I have several hundred "friends" and I can't remember most of them because I haven't put them into any subgroups. I am hearing that Facebook is implementing something like Google's circles, but fra

    • Isn't it funny how quickly everyone forgot that Eric Schmidt said Google+ is an identity service [slashdot.org] rather than a social network?

  • Google+ still exists?

  • I don't understand why an article like this should be interesting at all.

    Really. Why is this anything?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You realize that Google and Facebook are two of the biggest players in Internet technology today, right? Slashdot isn't just for articles about recreating things in Lego. Well, it didn't used to be.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Elbereth ( 58257 )

        There's always going to be a "who cares?" post in every story, regardless of the content. At this point, however, I think Slashdot is just trolling us by putting up dozens of articles on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.

  • G+ users like the games just the way they are... (Score:5, Informative)

    by AngryDeuce ( 2205124 ) on Friday September 02, 2011 @05:43PM (#37292212)
    The only complaints I've seen about the game implementation on Google+ has been game developers bitching about the fact that they're separated into their own tab and not splashed all over the main stream like on Facebook. As long as they're separated, I could care less what they do, but if they start caving into developer demands and splashing game bullshit all over the main stream they're going to lose a lot of people and they really can't afford to lose people.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cshake ( 736412 )

      I agree completely.

      As a G+ user I'd be perfectly content with games being not even included in the first place, because that's not at all what I want to use it for. If I were a developer already invested in trying to make money off G+ games, then I'd have made a bad business decision. A huge share of users are there because it's not covered with games and bloat, it's only a simple way of connecting with people and sharing links and posts. I hope Google also realizes that and sticks to just making a little m

    • I have not played any. Every single one pops up a privacy notice asking if I will let it look at my personal information and list of people in my circles. I say no so it won't let me play. I have enough spam without saying yes to every popup that appears.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rpetre ( 818018 )

        Same here. I am apalled that this criticism doesn't feature more frequently in G+ games reviews. Having 3rd party developers have full information about my account and contacts was the main reason I ditched my FB account. I'd be okay if some features required extra permissions (like friends leaderoboard and so on), I'd even be willing to show the game a particular circle of friends, but not like this.

        This and the "identity service, not social networking" thing are the two major letdowns from this service. A

  • Comon now, let's think for a second here. Google owns Google+. Google also "owns" Android, which is the single largest Mobile OS. Google should leverage (I hate that frigging market-speak word) its Android market to increase Google+ adoption. That means making full, unadulterated, high-performance (IE NOT HTML5 or Flash) versions of Google+ games that natively support Android - full blown apps. If they REALLY want to make an impact then they should target iOS too. Now THAT would rake in some serious u

    • Google also "owns" Android, which is the single largest Mobile OS

      Gasoline is by far the most popular fuel for automobiles in America. Yet a Pinto is not in the same category as a Corvette, is it?

      Targeting umpteen devices just to get the popular ones makes Androids popularity practically irrelevant.

    • leverage (I hate that frigging market-speak word)

      There's always a way to elegantly express yourself whilst avoiding the mangled nouveau-English spoken in offices. Try "exploit" or even "use".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rolgar ( 556636 )

      Leverage is a physics word. Use of it in business is an allusion to it's physics meaning.

  • Nethack (Score:3)

    by mrflash818 ( 226638 ) on Friday September 02, 2011 @05:48PM (#37292258) Homepage Journal

    Google+ Nethack, of course! ;) ...Or a multi-player version of Nethack ?! ;D

    • Regular Nethack, with some announcements of unusual/awesome things you do on it, could be pretty awesome, as Nethack is already so. I suspect Multiplayer Nethack, whether it's on Google+ or not, will require either legendary patience by people waiting for their turn to move, a high speed of computation/button mashing while you move your character before the fact that other characters are moving allows the monsters to jump up to you and kill you, or some kind of time limit, turn-based system...Which falls b

  • http://xkcd.com/918/ [xkcd.com]

    I really can't say more... other than I'm not a fan of Facebook.

    • I'm sick of it. From now on I'm going to tune out every link to that damned website.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) *

      This is exactly the audience Google+ will attract--people who just want to be different and not use Facebook. Google+ traffic has already begun to drop off.

  • Good luck with that we have a hard enough time getting enough performance out of flash. It would be a great thing but the performance just is not there for most gaming needs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Yes it is. You might want to look around, there are some pretty well done games in HTML 5.

      • There may be, but Flash gaming is still streets ahead in just about every respect.

        And with the gpu powered 3d that the next version of the Flash plugin offers, and the swf export in the latest unity IDE (complete with physics, paths etc) it would be silly to bet against it.

        There are reasons for the massive growth of flash games compared to other parts of the industry, which are mostly in decline, and these reasons are not going to go away.

      • You must be looking at a different list than I am, I have yet to find any that perform well. You may be able to get away with rather simple click based games but anything with any intensity is just not going to happen.

  • Honmestly, the fact that Google+ is aiming for HTML5 games is by and large the reason it'll end up getting and keeping mindshare in the long run. Flash is reliant on Adobe's good graces to get fixes et al, but putting it into the HTML standard means that the FOSS mantra "all bugs are shallow to many eyes" starts having meaning. Basically, it may mean that google+ might have to make some small sacrifices to allow for firefox32767 (or whatever inflated versioning they use this week) compatibility, but it'll

    • Honmestly[sic], the fact that Google+ is aiming for HTML5 games is by and large the reason it'll end up getting and keeping mindshare in the long run. Flash is reliant on Adobe's good graces to get fixes et al, but putting it into the HTML standard means that the FOSS mantra "all bugs are shallow to many eyes" starts having meaning.

      I agree to some extend, although the argument is a bit amusing in light of Google only supporting Flash for movies uploaded through the Google+ Web interface.

      (you need all sorts of development tools to make a flash game, you need a text editor to make HTML)

      Well, realistically to make a viable game you will be using fancy development tools 99% of the time targeting either platform, conceivably the same dev tool targeting both. The difference is if you're developing for Flash you don't have a choice as to who is supplying that dev tool, and Adobe is not the most responsive company in the world. More import

    • you need all sorts of development tools to make a flash game, you need a text editor to make HTML

      Actually I think nowadays you can write a Flash game using nothing more than a text editor and the Flex SDK, which is free and open source.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • No it needs to fix Picasa Web Albums. I tried to load my entire photo collection in to Picasa Web Albums and came across 2 problems. Firstly local tags don't aways get put online, when they don't appear online the application detags them locally. Secondly it creates duplicate people I have a person called bob, I upload 2 photo's of bob to web albums on my local machine that is one person but on Picasa Web Albums bob now has two person albums. This problem is compounded by the fact you can't merge or delete

  • Google launched a service that only a few were allowed to use. People who were curious about it were told to get lost. People who were allowed to sign up got bored because nothing is happening, so they left. The miracle behind Facebook is the ability of people to find friends and relatives they haven't seen in years, even decades, because EVERYONE is welcome to sign up.

    • Google+ is still in beta I thought. Anyone can join Google+ just by being invited by someone there, and there are many who are there. People can't find me on facebook because I'm not there and I don't care if they don't find me. If I haven't seen someone in decades I'm not going to add them to my friends list anyway. If I am interested them I can follow them on Google+ without getting them to add me as a friend, and they can see what I have without some stupid email asking me to include them.

      Facebook se

  • But it's not a social network (Score:4, Interesting)

    by owlnation ( 858981 ) on Friday September 02, 2011 @08:00PM (#37293184)
    Ok, I'm not really understanding the article, nor the comments. This being in light of the fact that -- as was already submitted here a week or so ago -- Google+ is NOT a social Network according to Google. It's an identity service.

    Admittedly, I'm not sure I entirely believe that, as there's clearly some social network aspects to Google+. But it certainly is clear that, at the moment, that is not what they are promoting it as.

    Thus, more games etc, seems kind of redundant. Other than for purely speculative reasons, should Google decide they want it as a social network.

    Regardless, personally I have no need of an identity service. I will not ever sign up to any social network that requires me to use my real name. So Google+ is an useless product for me, regardless of what games or features it may ever have.

    Which is kind of a shame, I actually was excited about Google+ being a much better tool than Facebook when I first heard about it. However, the ID thing is a deal-breaker.

    Though, at least it scared Facebook into making a very small step towards fixing its many, and massive, privacy issues.

  • I do NOT want to sign up to a service which (apparently?) changes my name on other google sites, like youtube for example.
    You can't use an alias and your account ends up 'tying' your other google services closer. While I see the advantage in some ways, I am personally not interested.

    I've already been dumb enough to post too much stupid shit on the internet under different accounts which could easily be tied together, I don't need to be made even easier to identify.

    Also, to my knowledge, I don't believe it

  • My complaint about Google+ Games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bill Dimm ( 463823 ) on Friday September 02, 2011 @10:52PM (#37293988) Homepage

    Every game I tried to play greeted me with a pop-up saying:

    [Game] is requesting permission to ... View a list of people from your circles, ordered based on your interactions with them across Google

    What are the implications of that (if I click the "More info" link it just gives me an email address for the developer)? Does that give the game developer a way to spam the people in my circles? Admittedly, they do provide a link to a privacy policy (which is different for each game), but if they think I'm going to read all of that to figure out what they plan to do with my list of contacts, well, they're wrong. I just ended up playing none of them.

    • And it wants permission to pillage your personal data before it even tells you anything about the game.

      An app has at least got to give me a plausible motive to surrender my privacy to it.

    • Exactly what, how, and why I did the same.

  • How about we focus on getting Google+ working with Apps first, before we worry about games.

    You know, Apps. Us paying folks. Who have been told fake deadlines a number of times, and now can't even get a commitment on the timeline ( no, "soon" does not constitute a "timeline". Not when the other deadlines turned out to be lies ).

  • Games are not going to drive people to the service. Facebook was popular before it got apps/games

    Google should spend time fixing broken stuff like their "personlized news searches" that defy all logic, instead of this crap.

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