Fears that computer games are turning young people antisocial are being challenged by a new generation of "sociable" games which are played through the internet.
The rise of social networking websites such as Facebook has helped attract millions of people to games which they can play with their friends.
It could represent a major challenge to the makers of hugely popular video consoles such as the Nintendo Wii or the Xbox.
While the credit crisis has forced companies across the world to rein in spending, internet games developers have received a string of multi-million dollar investments in recent months allowing them to plan expansion at a time when other businesses are making cuts.
Playfish, a British company which provides mini-golf and bowling games among others on Facebook, has attracted 25 million registered users since it was set up a year ago.
Another game on the site, a social networking device called Kidnap!, attracted 2.5 million new players in the month of October alone.
Full post on The Telegraph here...
From Mercury news...
While the rest of us have been socializing on Facebook, Webs.com has been building a very interesting business. It has been creating free games on Facebook that have garnered a huge number of page views. WarBook, a role-playing game with no animated graphics, and other Webs.com games have generated a billion page views since the first game launched 90 days ago in August. The games are generating ad revenue with just about every view…
“We launched it and it’s exploding,” said Pishevar. “WarBook is getting 15 million page views a day.”…
… Street Race is a new SGN game that has no graphics. You simply sign up, get $1,000 in play money, buy a car, then race. In the race, you click on another user. Then nothing happens. Nothing. The next screen that comes up tells you if you won or lost, how much money you earned or lost, and the skill points you earned. As your skill points grow, you win more races and get more money to spend souping up your car. The social part comes in where you can get more money by inviting 20 friends to join…
It’s simple and easy. That’s why the game has gotten more than a million page views on its first day. You can play a round in about one second…
“We’re leveraging the social graph,” Pishevar said. “It’s gaming on tap. You use it as you need it. We are building the first social gaming network on top of the Facebook social operating system.”
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