Gaming on social networking sites has definitely got big, especially when they are for Facebook. Games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc from Zynga and Playfish have earned quite a reputation and encouraged more and more to develop games for the Social Web. The latest entry is from Richard Garriott, who has had his work and passion shifting from being an NCsoft designer to being an astronaut and now to the beginning of Portalarium.
His idea is to bring premium gaming to the social sphere on the Web. So why social gaming? The man is of the opinion that he might have missed making it big when the multiplayer marketing boomed, but he is not going to do so with Social gaming. He is definitely right on this one, the social gaming has grown leaps and bounds over the last 2 years, almost alongside Facebook and people are actually spending more time online on these networking platforms.
I personally think that no matter how green the pastures are, there are already big names who reign supreme in the category he is jumping into. But then, all it takes is one addictive idea and given how much less you actually need to spend compared to the huge prospects if the concept does click, you are in for one big ride. In his own words:
This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers.
I bet he is right. Given the number of users Facebook has and how it continues to grow, you can easily make do with the idea. I am not sure what exactly is Portalarium is going to bring out, just wish it isn’t about some dancing pets or hours of farming!
