The continued march of social gaming is happening despite world events – even with the crumbling financial system people are somehow finding both the time and money to keep the industry growing. For newcomers to the market, the days of massive growth (looking at Zynga, again) are gone, but there is no reason why a talented studio can’t eke out a decent living in this maturing market.

So why is Facebook’s list a big deal? For starters, it ignores monthly active user (MAU) counts in favour of “user recommendation”, whatever that means. It seems like veiled criticism of the way some publishers focus on viral interactions (and spam!) between players rather than an immersion gaming experience.

The list of games are:

1. Gardens of Time
2. The Sims Social
3. Cityville
4. DoubleDown Casino
5. Indiana Jones Adventure World
6. Words With Friends
7. Bingo Blitz
8. Empires & Allies
9. Slotomania-Slot Machines
10. Diamond Dash

What do you think? Should the MAUs be the key component in determining which games are the most popular? Or are user reviews the way to go?

The road to video game development is fascinating; we will never tire of hearing stories of hurdles faced by developers and the incredible solutions developers came up with to create the titles that shaped our youth. Nintendo in particular has an incredibly rich early history. Mario’s development is incredible, as is the supporting titles that made the company into a powerhouse in the early 1980′s.

Since Nintendo’s in-house development group is well known today as the driving force behind world class titles that drive the company’s hardware to its limits and push their systems’ technical boundaries, it’s interesting to know that their earliest hit titles were not developed by Nintendo at all, but by the programming equivalent of ‘ghost writers’ – developers who wrote software for customers without receiving credit for their work. Those early arrangements threatened Nintendo’s early success in a shroud of lawsuits and content battles.

Read about Donkey Kong’s History at Gamasutra

Earth is under attack in Mass Effect 3.   Check it out.  I am very excited for this one.

Gameplay is as tight as its been the last few years, and the simulation eakes closer to replicating a Saturday night broadcast of a hockey game.  New for this year is a revamped physics engine and the results are great.  The puck bounces, hops, and strange things happen – just like in real hockey.   The crisp and perfect passes are gone, replaced with a choppier game that more closely resembles the back and forth play of NHL hockey.

As usual it’s the little tweeks that make the game different each year.  Like I said, the game has inherited a more genuine hockey feel this year.  Players miss passes, have pucks hop over sticks, and goalies will bobble the puck around leading to bizarre goals.  Added this year is goal review – sometimes the refs will go to Toronto to review a play and your high sticked goal will be called back.

Online

Online features have been added – the new Ultimate Hockey Hockey mode is a card based system of play.  You earn points to purchase packs, which give you all kinds of unheard of players to put together a team with.  Take your team, play other teams, get more packs… you get the picture. 

Other than that, your online features read like a laundry list like any other sports game.

Solid Hockey Game

So, in general, NHL 11 is a solid addition a sportsgamer’s or a hockey enthusiast’s collection.  The game is fun, but does a good job of feeling like hockey when you play.

Why the sudden shift in demographic?


The business of game development has shifted the balance of power away from mega studios producing shrink-wrapped titles. That isn’t to say large companies are irrelevant – huge mainstream titles will still require the financial backing appropriate to their size and scope – but the business model has changed to more dynamic titles (think downloadable content and expansions) which require ongoing development and support rather than single titles.

The new runners are smaller studios with teams capable of quickly bringing ideas to market and distributing to huge audiences through social networks like hi5 and Facebook. If any particular idea doesn’t work or turns audience away, tear it out of the product and keep releasing iterations. Anything that works, do more of.

Innovation can now happen at an accelerated rate where niche audiences are equally as accessible as more traditional “mainstream” masses. The great benefit this brings to the table is that there really is “something for everyone” – some may see this as extreme fragmentation, but it’s a natural outcome from basically eliminating the barrier to entry for game developers.