I hope you all had a great New Year’s Eve celebration. While 2009 saw the amazing growth of social games, looking ahead, I wonder whether 2010 will be the year where:
- More complex game mechanics catch on?
- Facebook changes continue to take away the institutional learnings from leaders like Zynga, helping to level the playing field?
- A synchronous game other than Poker finds a sizable base within the Facebook platform?
- That none of the big games reach their previous peaks?
- EA succeeds in creating a cross over game to the social platform?
- A social game company behemoth rises out of the Northeast (or anywhere outside of San Francisco)?
- Facebook credits completely revamps the payment structure of social games?
- Users tire of “appointment gaming”
- Facebook growth slows down and developers begin to tackle niches and localization to maintain growth trends?
I’m looking forward to the year ahead and watching the innovation that is sure to come. If you want to get a little bit of a crystal ball’s view of these and other social game topics, I highly recommend reading Tadhg Kelly’s inciteful post on Gamasutra and Eric Eldon’s interview with Mark Pincus on InsideSocialGames.com
I’d like to see 3D advanced graphics and more complex mechanics come to Facebook games…then they could start drawing in more of a “core” audience.
Oh yeah — don’t forget a rush of games for the new Apple tablet!