TMCnet Feature

Remember the last time you logged on Facebook (News - Alert) and your curious little sight bulbs wandered to the side of the page? “BE A GANSTA!” The advert loudly suggests you download its game and protect your turf. “Slay dragons and get epic loot!” Back in my day, advertising any sort of gaming culture usually warranted unfriendly responses. But with “social games” currently on the rise, it looks like we're going to have more business man dragon slayers and soccer mom mob bosses than ever!

What are social games? That term refers to any of those little apps or toys you can download on fancy phones, or via social networks such as Facebook, to play alongside other users, creating an online social experience. Most important however, these games are so easily accessible that they are predicted to grow from an already booming $2 billion dollar industry (2011) to $5.5 billion in 2015. Nerd power for sure, but how are the developers doing it?

For starters, video games are no longer just a child's hobby. Especially when everyone and their moms (literally) have a smart phone, these games can be accessed by just about anyone—all it takes is the proper nudge from advertising or a dear friend. Furthermore, many of these games offer a 'free-to-play' model that initially attract otherwise penny-pinching customers and in turn hook them into paying money using micro-transactions. Ye old bait and switch.

For those unfamiliar, the micro-transaction system is as brilliant as it is grubby. Essentially, you hook users into a game by showing them little, pretty, shiny things. Give them enough little shiny things until they want bigger shiny things. Of course, here is where you charge them only a few dollars to enjoy those big shiny things. The user didn't pay any money from the get go, so they may very well oblige, being that they have the taste for things shiny. Compound that process thousands upon thousands of times over, and you've got yourself some hefty profit from a free game. Then, go ahead and spend that profit on more adverts and better games. The system is simple, grimy, and darn effective.

According to Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry of businessinsider.com, “We believe that more users will pay, and that average users will pay more. We also believe advertising will improve.” Furthermore, Gobry predicts that, “the user base for social gaming will dramatically broaden from about half of social network users today to 75 percent of social network users as new genres and new types of games come online to reach new audiences.”