A controversy is brewing over a popular Facebook application called PackRat, where users collect sets of illustrated cards for points and levels. The company behind the application, Alamofire, says that users generate up to 500 daily page views per day on the application trying to hunt down the right card to complete a collection.
A big part of the game is “stealing” cards from friends, and so a lot of users add other users as friends so that their cards can be obtained. The application’s popularity has also led some users to create Facebook accounts for the sole purpose of playing the game.
Some of those accounts are now being disabled by Facebook, according to this discussion forum on the application site.
What’s curious is the email sent from Facebook to one deleted user, which states that Facebook isn’t a social network (it’s a “social utility”) and isn’t meant to build large groups of new friends. Instead, Facebook is meant to reinforce “pre-existing” social connections:
Please note that Facebook accounts are meant for authentic usage only. This means that we expect accounts to reflect mainly “real-world” contacts (i.e. your family, schoolmates, co-workers, etc.), rather than mainly “internet-only” contacts. As stated on our home page, Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you, not a “social networking site”. It is meant to help reinforce pre-existing social connections, not build large groups of new ones. If this is in direct contrast to what you expected as legitimate Facebook usage, I apologize for any confusion. This is simply the intention behind the site.
Accounts that are used solely for the purpose of applications are in violation of our Terms of Use. Unfortunately, I will not be able to reactivate your account. Sorry for any inconvenience, but this decision is final.
Thanks for your understanding,
Lauren
User Operations
Facebook
It’s true that Facebook has stated clearly that their intention is to be a sort of mirror to the real world social graph. But it’s unavoidably true that new friendships are made on the site, too. Even friendships forged for the sole purpose of playing a game made by a third party developer.
Even former Facebook President Sean Parker (and current stockholder) said recently at TechCrunch50 that he had far more Facebook friends than real world friends.
Facebook’s real message here may be “please don’t make fake accounts just to play this game,” but that isn’t what they’re saying. Techcrunch emailed them for clarification.
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With 28 million Nintendo Wii consoles sold around the world it is no longer possible to declare its success a fad. But can Nintendo sustain its phenomenal momentum?
Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata is humble enough to admit that even he had been surprised by the epidemic-like success of the Wii console.
He told BBC News: “It was so fast. We knew the Wii was the right direction for the company. But the question was always how many years it would take to find success.”
The answer was two years. In that brief time Nintendo has dramatically altered its fortunes in the home console business, while at the same time maintaining, and even improving, its dominance in the handheld gaming space with the DS.
Play time
The change of fortunes began when Mr Iwata took over as president of Nintendo in 2002, only the fourth man to hold the position since the company was founded 109 years ago.
Speaking to BBC News at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) In Los Angeles, he said: “Five years ago when I was appointed I thought that if we didn’t do anything but took the same route there would be no bright future for the entire industry.
“So we decided we needed to increase the number of people gaming.
“We started thinking about people who weren’t playing games and asked ourselves why they were not interested. And why had some people stopped playing despite playing in their youth?”
The solution was not a rush towards a high definition games platform targeted at the hard core gamer but remembering the simple pleasures of playing with family and friends.
The Wii console introduced a mass market of gamers to motion-sensitive play, replacing the button-laden controller with a wand that could direct action with the flick of a wrist.
Within weeks of the Wii’s launch people were taking their new console around to the homes of friends and family, and word of mouth quickly spread.
“It was so fast because those who appreciated the new attractions of Wii must have been those who used to play video games. And these people were telling friends and family about the console.
“People who first started playing with the Wii were so excited that they had to spread the news.”
History lesson
The success came after the perceived disappointment of the GameCube, which finished its lifespan behind the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in terms of global sales, selling 22 million units over seven years.
Nintendo had tried to compete directly with Microsoft and Sony and failed.
Its resulting and ultimately successful move was to realise that the market of people who could play games but were not was much bigger than the market of those already playing games on a regular basis.
“It was somewhat out of the boundaries of common sense for the time,” said Mr Iwata.
“From the perspective of people from outside the industry it might have looked like a gamble. But I do not think it was a gamble at all.”
One of the original criticisms of the Wii at launch was that the underpowered machine would increasingly suffer in comparison to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as the machines went through their lifecycle.
But Mr Iwata dismissed talk of a console lifespan as nonsense and somewhat irrelevant.
“After all, the primary concern is not to let consumers purchase hardware but to enjoy software,” he said.
Future fun
But that did not mean Nintendo was not already thinking about life beyond the Wii.
“However hard our software developers try to create new and unprecedented titles with great ideas eventually there will be a day when devs will say they have no more means with that hardware.
“That’s exactly the time we need to introduce people to new hardware. We do want to be flexible about this,” he said.
“We just don’t want to decide upon a fixed lifecycle of any platform.”
Addressing another criticism of the Wii, Mr Iwata said it was a “misunderstanding and misconception” to say that the console was struggling to attract support from developers outside of Nintendo.
“The number of third-party titles for Wii is actually more than what is available for other platforms.
“And in the initial launch platform period for any platform, the third-party software titles for Wii are outselling any of the third-party titles for other platforms.”
Nintendo remains the home for some of gaming’s most enduring franchises and icons, from Mario to Zelda and the success of the Wii has ensured they will remain part of the landscape for some time to come.
But there were no details of any new Mario or Zelda titles given at the recent press conference held by Nintendo to highlight its plans for the months ahead.
“At this E3 we had to focus on software for the mass audience and software that will be sold in this year or next.
“This one of the rare opportunities to reach out to mass audiences around the world.
“In order for us to create a new Super Mario game or Legend of Zelda game that can cater to the strong demands of core gamers around the world it takes two to three years.”
While its competitors battle to become the multimedia hub for the digital living room Nintendo is determined to continue on its course of “putting smiles on people’s faces”.
He said: “All we have got to do is carry on. People are going to get tired of new proposals. We have to offer them new proposals before they do.
“We really want to keep surprising people,” he said, then added: “It’s not easy at all.”
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Posted in Gaming, Hardware | 1 Comment »
It’s no secret that Apple Inc. has been on a hardware tear. In the last year alone, there has been a flurry of developments: The company branched into the mobile phone arena with the iPhone. It reinvented the mp3 player with the introduction of the iPod Touch. It worked its way into living rooms with an updated Apple TV.
But Apple is now exploring another hardware technology that has the potential to realign a multibillion dollar industry.
Apple has once again got an itch for gaming.
This isn’t necessarily a new frontier. Fans of the Cupertino-based company may recall how a Steve Jobs-less Apple entered the console gaming fray in 1996 with the troubled Pippin. At best, the Pippin ended up being a costly lesson. At worst, it served as a stinging footnote to the company’s strained relationship with gamers.
Fast forward to the present — the company has enjoyed a string of hardware and software hits and has disrupted the music and mobile phone industries soon after entering them. Today’s Apple certainly has the means to release another console, but let’s face it — a rehashed Pippin would be a huge gamble, considering the established relationships and competition represented by Sony’s PlayStation3, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii.
This doesn’t mean that Apple has abandoned ways to break into the gaming market with its desktop hardware. A beefed-up iMac offers an interesting possibility. Adding horsepower to the iMac line isn’t exactly new for Cupertino, but with an overclocked Intel CPU and an nVIDIA 8800M GTS under the hood, the new iMac could easily pass for a leading gaming rig — at least, if there were more developers creating games designed to run on it and OS X.
It seems much more likely that Jobs and Co. may be following a different path to gaming success — domination of the mobile gaming market.
A trademark extension filed last February with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is one of the strategy’s biggest tells. The filing extends Apple’s trademark in regards to:
“Toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games.”
Skeptics could easily dismiss this as Apple casting a wide net for future expansion, but a swift call to action seems more likely. Not only are executives well aware of the strong interest in gaming among Mac users (and vendors), but also new conditions exist for gaming to be pushed to the forefront in the Apple hardware and software ecosystem. The faltering company behind the Pippin now dominates several hardware segments, which makes a huge difference in launching a new (and potentially related) product. The problems that the Pippin faced – such as the development and marketing costs associated with an unproven device – would be negated by a gaming platform tied into Apple’s market-dominating and innovative mobile devices.
And here’s the really sneaky part – the iPod Touch and the iPhone are already fully capable of playing games. Apple highlighted this home-court advantage with the recent release of the SDK for the iPhone/iPod Touch. By doing so, Apple let a community of eager third-party developers tackle designing games like “Spore” as well as casual games for its devices that utilize innovative features such as the multitouch screen and motion-sensing accelerometer. Along with all of the development tools necessary for building applications, developers will have the ability to upload and sell their creations through the iPhone App store (naturally, Apple will take a cut).
Consumers are already ga-ga over Apple’s mobile devices to begin with, so whether they should be re-imagined as gaming gadgets is more of a marketing issue. But with the developer community in a tizzy to create the next great Apple-friendly game, it’s only a matter of time before Cupertino announces that it’s ready to connect the dots. Don’t be too surprised if it ends up being Steve’s “one more thing” at next year’s Macworld.
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