Big Games Scratch Heads Over Lost Users
In their recent Top 25 Facebook Games update, (see complete article here) Inside Social Games rightly noted the declines in players being felt by most of the major games over the last few months. But do they, or do any of the “Big” game developers for that matter, really understand why users are losing interest? If game developers are singing the same tune as Inside Social Games, then I’d have to say they don’t have a clue.
Game developers who are still blaming Facebook’s recent changes for our declining interest in their games, are ignoring one seriously huge pink and yellow polka dot elephant in the room. Their game probably sucks.
Trends show users are losing interest in the big games.
The so called “Big” games, the ones that have been on top for the last year and a half, (ancient history in FB years) are still relying on game formats that were top of their capabilities in yester-year. They have added layer upon layer to their games to the point that they are slow and clunky and every new feature they introduce has the effect of just adding to the weight of the anchor that is slowly pulling them to the bottom of Facebook Sea.
Way back in the olden days there was no way to effectively interact in real-time between players, (at least I presume that since they didn’t do it) so games would have an imaginary fight that happened as if some computer yoda just found a use for his D&D dice collection. That’s no longer the case when we have games coming available that let users interact and effect the outcome of events in real-time, (eg. Horse Academy).
The old fashioned games, lacking any true interaction with friends, caused users to create this themselves around the sending and collecting of gifts and bonuses. Lately, however, Zynga for one has been on a holy terror to destroy every good thing there was about this last fun aspect of their games. Other big developers seem to be as blindly ignorant of this vacuum as we wait for one to truly take advantage of it.
Cries about Facebook’s changes to protect users from being bombarded by spammy apps ignore the fact that the system developers were left with still works great for sharing, if you have something worthy. New games are leaner, meaner and more interactive. And they are adapting to the newer ways to get shared. It’s hard not to see older games as aging dinosaurs when the rivals they inspired run like such well oiled machines.
Now that should be any big game developers greatest concern if they really want to figure out why users are not playing.
So which of the newer games are you playing instead of your old favorite?
From the community...
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FRONTIERVILLE / PIONEER TRAIL
posted in forum Suggestions by Terri Surles Achtemeier on August 19, 2011
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YoVille
posted in forum Game Scrubber Issues/Bugs by Lindsey Sorrell on December 30, 2010
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Used scrubs
posted in forum Suggestions by Morgan J. Paul on December 29, 2010
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Why Occasional Blank Screens
posted in forum Game Scrubber Issues/Bugs by Michael Davis on December 21, 2010
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Blank Screen
posted in forum Game Scrubber Issues/Bugs by Irene Hataway on December 11, 2010
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Email Preferences
sending...
Donna, above, is right on all points. I get so frustrated with how bogged down most games (and ALL Zynga games) get, how my computer also shuts itself off from the heat, etc. My niece had the motherboard on her laptop FAIL from all the excessive heat and power/memory suckage! Who needs THAT???
What annoys me the most is that most have their own forums but those are so restrictive in what you can and cannot post, or the forum users get their collective undies in a bundle if you ask something that is in some other thread buried 37 pages back that the virtual tongue lashings only exacerbate the anger I have when something doesn’t work (which happens constantly).
I get so sick of “well it is only beta” or “you don’t pay anything to play, so shut up.” The fact is that in most case, yes, indeed, I have paid for their virtual stuff with cold hard cash, so it is insult to injury to be told that by people who are supposedly there to support each other. Snarky comments or mocking one-liners are NOT SUPPORT. They are rude and only make one more annoyed with the non-functioning games.
Support tickets are a joke inasmuch as, if you are even able to get acknowledgment for your request–usually a bot generated pat statement–there is NO FOLLOW UP by anyone working for the developer. Being told “we’re working on issues” is simply too vague to be of any use. But that is better than the experience I have had with EVERY game developer I’ve dealt with: total silence to personal email, forum posts, whatever.
So why on earth would someone keep playing something that does nothing but create so much frustration? I for one play these things to relax and reduce stress. So, the buggier they get, and the lack of support when I do have an issue, leave me to pursue other interests.
So many games are doomed to fail because of past experience with these badly programmed games. I’ve given up on so many and expect I will continue to find new games that–shocker of shocks–actually work and are “leaner and meaner.”
I only have time and patience for one Zynga game and farmville is it, but it us slow and all of the steps it takes to do anything, accept gifts, tend crops etc. is taking too long. There must be better ways to do all of these things. I won’t go into the coins vs cash problem because that has been done already, but I am almost a former Farmville farmer!
There’s a few reasons why I’ve quit ALL Zynga games:
-Buggy, glitchy games they do not fix.
-Heaping more junk on top of already buggy, glitchy games.
-GREED. The blatant money grubbing wherein almost anything new could only be had with cash. Cafe World is a prime example. I had over 6 million coins that I could not spend because nothing could be had with them. It was all cash. Apparently nobody clued them in on this recession thing and you know, the rising unemployment rate.
-Dirty tricks to make cash. FrontierVille, for example, raised the cost of food and reduced the amount you received…and that was in the first week of play. They did that on a game that constantly “lost the connection, Pardner.” Oh but you could get more if you bought “horseshoes.”
-Gifting (receiving) became impossible once they forced you to let the games load for each and every gift. See below.
-EVERY SINGLE ONE of Zyngas games max CPU and hog memory. Got so I couldn’t play them on my killer laptop without overheating and shutting down. I can run Sims 3 and surf the web and get email, run powerpoint and watch a video all at the same time without it overheating but bring up one of their games and watch the temperature rise.
They’ve cut their own throats with all of that and more but they don’t get it. It stops being fun when it becomes work. It stops being fun when the frustration level continues to rise. And then I remember that I have a Wii and bunches of computer games that cost me $50 ONCE and those are fun! and they run! and I don’t have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of credits to wallpaper my cafe or buy a barn or….
They don’t get it. They see all the complaints and think “gamers are such entitled jerks” but those entitled jerks who paid them money are leaving in droves. And they just can’t figure out why.