Social Gaming Beyond Flash?

Question

Flash is the dominant engine to develop social games. While I don't think this will change in the near future, what technologies do you see most transformative in this space and do you believe games that require a proprietary plugin can reach the scale of a game like Farmville or is the acquisition friction simply too high?

Answer 1

HTML5/javascript may be the future of social gaming. Flash has a few issues right now that could conceivably get worse. Namely, it has security issues and does not work on apple mobile devices. In theory there is no reason you could not implement a game such as FarmVille ENTIRELY within the browser as opposed to using a flash plugin, but the market penetration for HTML5 browsers is not quite high enough.

3 years from now it is very possible that people will be moving away from flash, the way people eventually moved away from Shockwave and other such technologies. Entirely native browser experiences will eventually beat out plugins, but it may take a more time than expected.

Answer 2

As already answered, for "classical" social games (in the same way that the current FarmVille and Zynga games), the future is probably something between Flash and HTML5/JS. For example, another popular title from Zynga, Mafia Wars, is designed in HTML and JavaScript. Also, the web-based version of HOMM, Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms (by Ubisoft) is mixed Flash and HTML/JS. Technically, this is pretty much awesome.

But as the social games market is growing, more and more "big" entertainment companies will invest in this area. The main issue for them is regarding workflows and pipelines. Most of those companies are used to 3D games, which means they are employing peoples who design 3D stuff, and program 3D stuff. And those peoples are usually not the same that creates 2D graphics, animations and engines used in "classical" social games.

Also, those companies are tooled for what they do - 3D "AAA" games. They have pipelines regarding those tools. They have proprietary engines to fasten development. They have knowledge and expertise in those fields. But not in the totally different environment of "classical" social games, centered around Flash and web programming.

There is two approaches for them, and I think it is a good guess to expect them to go in both. The first one is to hire talented 2D-graphic, programming and designers peoples, and open up new teams, built for this kind of challenge. The other one is to change the way social gaming is designed.

This is the main reason for the success of Unity, which is a (quite powerful) 3D engine and game development platform for both in-browser applications, Apple devices and PC/Mac. It allows those companies to reuse their people, workflows and tools in this new environment, as well as create "new generation" social games, that may look more appealing to their customers.

I think that in the mid-term future, classical games and social games are going to meet, and there will be "hardcore" social games, as well as "casual" classical games. And technology between the two are going to be close.

Answer 3

Possibly HTML5.

It will work on new web browsers (current web browsers are still work-in-progress) and it'll make it simple to work on mobile phone (where Flash isn't embedded).

Answer 4

Boring old DHTML (HTML4, JavaScript and CSS) combined with a server language like PHP have powered hundreds of very successful multi-user casual games - all those pre-Zynga-era games where you manage a kingdom / space fleet from static menus. Kingdom of Loathing doesn't use any plug-ins, I don't think. In fact, the Flash elements of Farmville are really a very thin skin on top of essentially server-driven game: all the game logic is server-side.