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I'm a writer, designer, artist, publisher, etc. currently living in San Francisco.
My interests include online publishing and community, photography, fiction, gaming, music, mobile computing and design.
This could be pretty big. Related: the pets look really fun!
"Our goal is to push the bar higher, and provide a more compelling, more immersive experience. It’s delicate work, because there are unique parameters to consider: leveraging social connections, providing opportunities for fun self-expression, the right balance of competition (it has to build community, not divide it), being mindful of the time people have to spend during the day, etc. But I strongly believe that there are myriad opportunities to make games more compelling, more engaging, and with more long-term experiences"
A quote from Phil Sheck, co-founder and CEO of a new Social Gaming company, Gravity Bear.
Gravity Bear Dips into Social Gaming - Games.com News
Love to see a company wanting to raise the bar as far as experience goes, yet at the same time recognizing there is a balance to be struck.
I played this a bit last night and it really does seem like an amazing and noteworthy game. It’s got a very solid interface (love the switch between strategic and tactical), really nice graphics (the detail on the clothing and armor is amazing) and what looks to be a top-notch story. Huzzah for story!
Looks like achievements, gifting, special promo loot and content are the main factors keeping games sticky.
I need to look at this in a bit more detail, but there looks to be some great ideas and advice on creating and managing a virtual economy here.
Some very good insight and detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article. The bottom-line here; fix the user-experience when it comes to offers. This needs to be done in a few ways, most importantly, IMHO, would be to introduce more transparency into the process. There’s a lot of work to be done here. Related: http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/11/02/the-future-of-offer-monetization-in-social-games/ http://blog.getgambit.com/f-ck-your-offers-game-ending-user-complaints-3-developer-solutions/
This is interesting in that DeWolfe is looking to roll-up and partner with smaller developers. I can speak from experience that being small and not having the time/money/etc. can really hamper creativity and the ability to make your games fly. Will be interesting to see what comes of this.
Will be interesting to see what they do here, and to see how virtual currency/goods companies adjust because of it. Eliminating scams is important and if Zynga can lead the charge it’ll be much easier for other gaming companies as well as the virtual goods folks to follow suit. It’ll be an ongoing issue and I’m hopeful that it’ll lead to better monetization solutions that allow developers to ethically create better and better games.
I’d agree that Arrington has a point here; to a certain degree anyway. His example of the cell phone scam is certainly awful. However, I don’t think there is a problem with these kind of offers as a whole; some of them aren’t so bad and what would be helpful is to have is some kind of way to see what companies out there are offering legitimate offers, etc. I’m sure most of these companies have a mix, but if we could rate them on how scammy they are, etc. it’d help gaming companies find more legit ways to monetize. As well, something I think all game developers would love to see; better reporting, so we could determine if turning off the offers and just going for cash/credit payments for points would be a good idea. And what about some more options; let us have control over the offers that show up?
Looks like it’s geared to DMing roleplaying campaigns, but there is a wealth of good advice and ideas on worldbuilding here.
