By day, you're a suburban soccer mom who brings dinner to the table for her kids. By night, you're a secret agent working for an undercover organization that keeps the world safe. This is the general premise for Playdom's next game since Disney's GnomeTown, Secret Agent X. The game, set to launch this fall, pits you against the evil organization known as SCAM.
All Things Digital reports that the game is available in some international markets in a closed beta test. The Disney-owned developer released a teaser trailer that reveals next to nothing about its gameplay, but we can always image what it'll be like. Based on what Playdom has told ATD, the game will send players on adventures using high-tech gadgets only to have them return home to the normal duties of suburban life.
It's easy to envision "home" being the hub of the game in which you customize a house, while you explore large maps on missions as a secret agent. (Again, this is speculation.) Playdom tells ATD that, starting with Secret Agent X, the company will release a dozen games within the next year. Up to three of those games--coming in January, March and August 2012--will revolve around Disney brands, according to ATD.
Playdom has been under fire from analysts for dragging its feet into the social games race since Disney bought it for a whopping $563.2 million over a year ago. How does the developer plan to catch up to the likes of wooga, Playfish and possibly Zynga: Explore new concepts and leverage the bevy of Disney mega brands. "A year after the acquisition, we are successfully transitioning into an operating division within Disney," Playdom COO Brad Serwin told ATD. "We are 100 percent back to work."
Based on the teaser trailer, what do you expect from Secret Agent X? Which of Disney's brands do you hope becomes a Facebook game most?
Great Site to Earn From Home
Showing posts with label all things digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all things digital. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Playdom co-founder: Facebook farming games aren't social games
Rick Thompson, co-founder of Disney-owned social game studio Playdom, is not happy with the lot of social games. During an interview with All Things Digital (ATD), Thompson was asked if he finds many Facebook games enjoyable. "I think they are fairly scarce," Thompson told ATD. While he did shout out to games like Kixeye's Backyard Monsters and Gardens of Time by his own former company, Thompson said that the established powers in social games are having a hard time raising the bar.
"I tend to think that those will not be very interesting in another two years, and they aren't social games," Thompson said to ATD, referring specifically to the myriad of Facebook games that insist on farming mechanics. "They are single-player games with the possibility of visiting your friend's aquarium – that's not social." (And you should already know just where Thompson is pointing.)
Despite this, Thompson says that the maturity of Facebook games is leaps and bounds beyond what it was just three years ago, mostly because of how much it costs developers to acquire new users ever since Facebook changed things up. But Thompson--now a social gaming veteran that has invested in companies like Funzio of Crime City fame to Idle Games--still sees companies that focus primarily on increasing players numbers as, well, doing it wrong.
Thompson isn't alone here, either. A number of analysts and designers alike are calling the industry out. Most recently, Eedar analyst Jesse Divnich claimed that we're on the verge of the next generation of social games. Designers like Braid creator Jonathan Blow, however, simply see the current lot of Facebook games as exploitative and not much more. (And we all know how Ian Bogost feels about the games.) Sadly, it likely won't be until arguably forward-thinking games like IdleWorship become as profitable as, say, FarmVille that Facebook games begin to agree with Thompson's sentiments on a wide scale.
Do you agree that the current lot of top Facebook games lack real social gameplay? What do you think it will take until that becomes a reality in the top 10?
"I tend to think that those will not be very interesting in another two years, and they aren't social games," Thompson said to ATD, referring specifically to the myriad of Facebook games that insist on farming mechanics. "They are single-player games with the possibility of visiting your friend's aquarium – that's not social." (And you should already know just where Thompson is pointing.)
Despite this, Thompson says that the maturity of Facebook games is leaps and bounds beyond what it was just three years ago, mostly because of how much it costs developers to acquire new users ever since Facebook changed things up. But Thompson--now a social gaming veteran that has invested in companies like Funzio of Crime City fame to Idle Games--still sees companies that focus primarily on increasing players numbers as, well, doing it wrong.
Thompson isn't alone here, either. A number of analysts and designers alike are calling the industry out. Most recently, Eedar analyst Jesse Divnich claimed that we're on the verge of the next generation of social games. Designers like Braid creator Jonathan Blow, however, simply see the current lot of Facebook games as exploitative and not much more. (And we all know how Ian Bogost feels about the games.) Sadly, it likely won't be until arguably forward-thinking games like IdleWorship become as profitable as, say, FarmVille that Facebook games begin to agree with Thompson's sentiments on a wide scale.
Do you agree that the current lot of top Facebook games lack real social gameplay? What do you think it will take until that becomes a reality in the top 10?
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