Talk:Social network game

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

So we need history and broad scope here. I added some of the early successes in the lead. A time line of introduction of various important games, enhancements and records set of users per month and such would be part of the encyclopedia. There were many lawsuits over copyright infringement, look and feel theft and so many take overs. 97.85.163.245 (talk) 08:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

clarification about "social"

99,9% of Zynga Facebook games depends on click begging and wall posts. In my opinion "Social" means:"Do something toghter", "Interact with other players" or whatever. Doom in Multiplayer mode or Hearts on Windows XP have more "Social" aspects than this "Social games" from Zynga on Facebook. (I must admit, I not tested other games on FB). I have no idea who used the term "Social network game" the first time, but why this games are called "Social network games", only because they run on a social network? --Lastwebpage (talk) 20:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Article comment

"Johan Huizinga defines play "

— Link to article revision

Not clear to me that Huizinga's definition of play is a consensus view. Although Huizinga is highly cited (>8000 in Google Scholar), it is by no means the only view. See also Sutton-Smith, Piaget, and Peter Smith for complementary view.

Posted on behalf of robertekraut by InstructorCommentBot (talk) 15:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

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Misnomer

I think it is needed to be included in the article; It's also important to understand something about 'social games': Most of them are not social. They tend to be single or multi-player games that use social networks (mostly Facebook) as an easy way to drive player adoption. What the industry is calling 'social games' are more accurately described as 'viral games'. To further the point, virality is embedded in the game's mechanics "they are embedded in SNS, where people usually connect to real-life friends and family members with real-life identities. SNG are often casual, easy-to-pick-up, multiplayer experiences that allow interactions between players even when they are not online at the same time. Some game tasks cannot be accomplished by the player without interacting with one’s “neighbors” (in-game friends who are from one’s SNS network); and the more “neighbors” one has, the more likely for one’s success in the game. Players extensively add or invite friends from their SNS network into the game play, enabling the game to spread fast and creating active communication (framed in game play) between SNS contacts." Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 20:06, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Social bar

Important sytem for these types of games: all of the main developers have a “social bar”, which is the technical term for a set of links displayed above or beside each game to cross-promote players into other games. All the major developers have such a system in place, Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Platform notifications system exploitation

Primarily on facebook, it was the major factor of boom and success (virality) of these games and some companies like Zynga. It should be noted in the article. Exploit Facebook’s virality features as much as possible. Zynga’s games are very aggressive in this regard. They push notifications, invites, reminders and requests more than any other game developers. Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Gold rush period and Facebook

I think that deserves a section. There is a number of references (some can be found in Zynga article) but this sums it up. While FarmVille is a game that's been around for a while, part of its declining fortune is from the changes Facebook has made to the platform, no longer allowing Zynga and others to access the 'viral' user acquisition channels they once had. This has had an effect on the entire social games ecosystem on Facebook. "I think the gold rush is pretty much over now, the days of easy money are gone," Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 23:42, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Data analytics

It plays important role in success of this types of games. IMO important enough to include in the article When FrontierVille launched, it saw a lot of user traction right away, but then usage flattened out. The problem was that the team didn’t have an analyst focused on looking at user data, so there were basically a bunch of designers flying blind. Then, when Zynga finally put a full-time analyst on FrontierVille, usage started taking off again. Then it soared past 30 million users, making it one of the company’s biggest games.
"New features and content were added several times a week to keep players engaged, but the real magic happened behind the scenes with Zynga’s in-house data analytics tool ZTrack. Capable of monitoring the most granular player actions – from what features they used, to how long they spent using them, and right down to where they clicked on the screen – it was intended to build a total, ever-evolving, data-driven picture of player interests.“We had hundreds if not thousands of dashboards and experiments running at any given time,” says Tien. “We could see any core metric on five-minute slices. We could see if new feature releases were impactful effectively immediately after release.”.... Metric-based design is standard today across social media platforms, apps, online retailers and digital services. ...Zynga’s approach to analytics for their games inspired the entire digital analytics industry...Features would be tested, analysed, and optimised repeatedly, with the results determining what would be rolled out, their monetisation options, and how they’d be integrated to maximise player retention."
Quality of internal metrics...Use metrics in as Darwinian a fashion as possible to root out what works and what doesn’t as fast as possible. Zynga, unlike many developers, actively kills applications or change them quickly depending on what the market is telling them.
would be metric-driven, combining intuition and data. The would enable the business to rapidly iterate and drive reach, retention and revenue. ...it learned what users wanted and modified its games quickly, sometimes overnight, to better provide what the users wanted. Zynga started testing every idea. Web 2.0 companies behaved in this fashion, but game companies for the most part didn’t. Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 00:11, 14 January 2026 (UTC)