Playdom CEO John Pleasants: Why social gaming will become the norm
games.venturebeat.com
games.venturebeat.com
I wouldn't have even bothered reading or clicking, except to look for why JP is predicting the death of social gaming. In reality the interview is a total promotion of social gaming.
Moreover, historically new ideas with a high potential tend to expand their influence very rapidly in the beginning and take a large share, but the legacy tools still remain (sometimes still unparalleled in specific niches): hence the telephone in the age of the internet, or mail order books in the age of Amazon (see http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm ), bicycles in the age of the automobile, etc.
He's being disingenuous so he can acquire small shops cheaper. It't total BS that a small company can't make a living at Facebook games, way more than a living. I know multiple 2-3 man shops that do just that.
* It's a hit driven business, and this distributes risk.
* Especially in social gaming, it seems important to have a userbase to market to. Playdom can do this across its properties in a very arbitrary and low friction way.
* Playdom can do promotions with big brands across multiple properties at once. Larger brands might not give the time of day to individual game studios.
Obviously there are disadvantages, too. The drive to make a great game just isn't the same when you're part of a larger company. This might not be an issue if you're developing the kind of games you would want to play. But if you're designing a game for children or one that cynically targets user psychology, you may really lose your drive.