Zynga Beijing manager says social games are a craft, not an art

Social games are not an art, according to Zynga Beijing general manager Andy Tian. And there it is straight from the omnipotent horse's mouth, folks. In an extensive interview with Gamasutra, Tian goes in detail explaining what drives games like FarmVille and CityVille and the relationship between metrics and creativity when creating these games. In short, metrics-based games work best on Facebook because, quite frankly, their audience is not gamers.

Artist Cow"A lot of people in the game industry, like they want to build games because they're gamers, right? They like games, they play a lot of games," Tian said. "Our audience is actually in fact not gamers. The 200 million users out there who maybe play just a very, very basic kind of game, and that's it." In between very conservative comments on Zynga's goals--it's only focused on Facebook and its mobile extensions right now--Tian said that developing single-player games for Facebook is difficult, according to Gamasutra.

In fact, Zynga was working on a Diablo-like RPG game called Guild of Heroes before adopting its current model, which has proved far more successful. In the end, it seems that Zynga's metrics and feedback-driven method of game design isn't going anywhere. Not to mention the asynchronous style of games like FarmVille. That's no longer just a limitation of Facebook; it's what works on Facebook, according to Tian. When asked about creativity's place in Zynga's game design, Tian said:

    I think we are metrics-driven. It depends on what you mean by "creative". Like, what is creative? People's definition of creative is very, very different. We ask different people... What is creative to us? [If] people like it. Many times, to a game designer, what is "creative" is what is new. "What I think is creative." I think we want to leave that judgment to the end users more. The end users will tell us what they like, what's creative. In fact, they'll give us a ton of ideas, too. So, I think that's where we differ. We want to drive as many things as possible through metrics and achieve, in the very beginning, not a balance, but a really, really integrated effort between metrics and creative. I think they can exist both in the same time. Very much so.

However, one commenter named Carlo Delallana made an interesting point in a reply that reads, "Unfortunately it's a numerical relationship that will be good at delivering what people want but (if powers that be push it as the end-all solution) may prevent creative people from giving people something they didn't expect."

So, are social games creative? In their own way of manipulating metrics and player feedback into relatively new features and gameplay, sure. But in the way that some video games evoke a response you didn't expect? We have yet to see. And if the direction in which this industry moves is up to Zynga, we probably won't.

Ultima's Richard Garriott: FarmVille's interface is 'pretty @#$% clunky'

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Zing! In an interview with Gamasutra, Richard Garriott, also known as Lord British of Ultima Online (and Portalarium co-founder), had some choice words for Zynga's most popular social games: FarmVille, FrontierVille and CityVille. While Garriott had nothing but praise for FrontierVille, led by industry veteran Brian Reynolds, he told Gamasutra:

    So when I looked at FarmVille. It's super popular. You go play it and you go, 'Wow, this UI is actually pretty damn clunky.' It's actually hard to use, it's confusing to use, so if I was a beginning user, a light user I'm going like, 'Wow, it's just not that elegant.'

    CityVille has surpassed FarmVille, even in popularity -- which was the most popular game in the world. But I look at it and go, 'It's actually too much for me.' Literally, there is so much going on the screen concurrently; I can't keep up. I mean there are stars bouncing around and things to click on and, literally, I find the game overwhelming.

Garriott went on to conclude that, because a majority of social gamers interact with interfaces similar to FarmVille and CityVille (and more than likely those exact games), Facebook gamers will eventually converge with the hardcore crowd.

Garriott also revealed in the interview that his first major social game, Ultimate Collector, will release sometime this summer across several platforms including Facebook, Hi5, iPhone and even iPad. Then, Garriott will focus on Lord British's debut on Facebook in Lord British's New Britannia (a working title), which he has yet to reveal a release date for. Portalarium recently released it's first game to test the waters, Port Casino Poker.

[Image Credit: Slide to Play]

Do you agree with what Garriott had to say about Zynga's games? Do you think he'll succeed where he thinks some social games have failed?

No More Heroes Royal maker starts social games company with DeNA

Will No More Heroes bring the blood and gore to mobile phones for good? That much we doubt. The Japanese creator of what is said to be "the social game with the most blood," Grasshopper Manufacture, has inked a deal with social game giant DeNA. The partnership has created a new company called Grasshopper Social Network Service, and company CEO Goichi Suda--aka Suda 51--sounds psyched.

"Our new venture with DeNA will allow us to explore creative ways to bring Grasshopper Manufacture's universe to a new world of players," Suda said, according to Gamasutra. "Mobage's world-class entertainment network and the power of social mobile games will unlock new types of experiences for our fans."

The deal will result in a number of mobile social games created (in addition to the three already in the making) solely for DeNA and now ngmoco's Mobage platform for smartphones. Grasshopper Social Network Service will begin operations in Japan this November, and will bring a number of new mobile social games to Japanese mobile smartphones and abroad.

No More Heroes Royal, Frog Minutes, Humans vs Zombies and Alien Busters--Grasshopper Manufacture's existing projects for Mobage--will all shift to this new joint venture once set up. DeNA has some big names on its side in this battle for mobile social dominance. Just last week, the company announced the first Final Fantasy social game with Square Enix. Look, if this means we get to see the social action fest that much sooner, then go at it, Suda.

Do you think Grasshopper Manufacture is making a good move getting this deep into mobile social games? Which of the companies announced social games are you most psyched for?