Games

When the Facebook platform first launched, you wouldn’t believe how many people contacted me and said “I’m going to make a beer pong application.” It has been 10 months since the platform launched and finally a top notch beer pong application has been launched. As you would expect, it’s also very popular. In just a few days almost 15,000 people have added the application and the growth is steady.

Mike Lazerow of Buddy Media, the company that developed this game, sent me an email when it launched and I had to check it out. I ended up playing the game for a couple hours trying to get on the leader board. Interesting enough I came very close to reaching the top 10 but I didn’t make it. I had however perfected my game so if you want to test the master, I suggest you challenge me to a round of beer pong.

As has been predicted, social gaming applications have become the focus of Facebook for the most part. There are also utility applications but there is only so much value that you can easily add to Facebook profiles. I think games are the way to go and from an advertising perspective, custom games are highly valuable. You get targeted individuals engaged in a branded environment for an extended period of time. If you want to play a round of beer pong, go check out the Campus U Beer Pong application.

In the spirit of the Game Developers Conference taking place this week in San Francisco, I figured I would touch on the subject since the biggest buzz at the event revolves around “social gaming.” Ultimately, playing games with your friends is nothing new. People have been playing MMORGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games) for a while now and XBOX Live is not exactly the freshest gaming platform out there right now.

While not social gaming may not be a foreign concept for many, playing games on Facebook is becoming an increasingly popular past time. The primary selling factor is that you can easily connect with your friends for a quick game of Scrabble or Texas Hold’em and there is very little time requirements. Best of all it’s primarily our friends that we’re competing with. This is in comparison to sites like Kongregate that provide aspects of social gaming but the users you play against may not necessarily be your friends.

If you take a look at the most popular applications on Facebook you will notice that all the top developers are building either gaming or dating applications and any other top apps are simply an expression of self-identity. So do you think Facebook is going to become the next hot gaming platform or will the users simply go to the next cool thing? Many of these games remind me of a more flashy version of the original Yahoo! Games.

I can’t believe it’s my last day on the force, twenty years and I am out. The guys at the station house are throwing me a little party and I think they got me a cake. I love cake, makes the job worth it if you know what I mean.

One thing I can’t stand are stick people. I know I know, it’s not politically correct for me to call them stick people, dimensionally challenged is what those whimps are calling them these days. To me those scum will always be stick people, and I am going to blast a few of them on my last day.

Ok one thing, my dad was a cop and I heard him talk bad about stick people all the time. I also heard him talk in a 40′s detective novel noir voice all the time. He would self monologue about every day things, “stupid kid flushed is fun toy down the craper again,” puff of a smoke. “I need to move on before these kids kill me,” he would say this while I was standing there; heart breaking.

Ok, so that self monologue thing is a lie but I did find a fun game called Virtua Stick Cop on Facebook and it is killing some time (pun intended). The game is really just a port of the old stick figure games from a site that used to make stick figure movies. I used to watch stick figure fights on this sight and laugh for hours and also played as a stick figure sniper there.

The game lacks all forms of social contact and really offers no way to share you experience with anyone. All and all the game fails in the social realm on all fronts. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t install the game and play it, its loads of fun (like you load a gun).

Now as long as I can make it through this day my wife and I are going to sail our boat around the world, where’s Riggs when I need him, I am getting to old for this…

There’s a relatively new show on TV called Breaking Bad. It stars Hal from ‘Malcom in the Middle’ as a middle aged highschool chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with lung cancer, nonchalantly decides to put his chem skills to use by teaming up with one of his old students to cook meth. It’s a somewhat dark drama.. but since it’s Hal, it’s also light, and always entertaining.

The show is on its second episode and its pretty good, but it’s not exactly what inspired me to write this article. The creators of the show have developed a game for Facebook that markets the show in a fantastic way.

The game itself is basically an intense version of mastermind. I was impressed by three things.

Firstly, the integration of the selection of friends or random Facebook players into the game itself is seamless. You need a partner to play, and you get to pick one within the game with pictures and names embedded into the graphics.

Secondly, the game was fun and addicting. It wasn’t just addicting because it was fun, or because you build up your score and rank and compete with your friends and the rest of Facebook. It wasn’t because the game gets more difficult the more you play either.

It was addicting because (thirdly..) every time you win a game it opens up a square on your periodic table, and each square gives you access to a different clip from the show. Collect a whole row and you can watch a whole scene.

This app is a fantastic example of a marketing solution for a product that can attract people who are not necessarily searching for it or anything in particular. This is why Facebook adds value over search marketing. The vast majority of people who find out about Breaking Bad through this app will have been looking for a game and have found the show. It’s also a great way for fans of the show to spread the word. Try that with a keyword ad.

The app only has 80 daily active users, which I think further highlights the problem that faces the Facebook platform right now. I believe that, in time, the new notification rules will let people get completely tired of the useless apps and allow the creamy ones to finally rise to the top.

Hey LOST… where’s YOUR app?

Jonathan Kleiman

I woke this morning in my palace and asked ordered my guard to get me two Steak and Egg Bagels from McDonalds. My stooge ran to the local shop and produced my meal.

As I consumed my breakfast I surveyed my empire. My land was technologically advanced but a liberal free trade system, and an apparent lack of concern for the environment, has left my nation rich but ravaged (think 1984).

I received a notification that my subjects were having tax problems. Many of my small shop owners can not compete with large corporations. In a moment of haste I decided to give the small shops a tax break. Tomorrow I will most likely burn their shops to the ground to teach them a lesson.

The premise behind the game Nations is simple: start a nation, answer some simple questions on how you want to run your nation, and thats it. Every day you will receive a problem that needs your guidance. You can either be a humble and gracious leader (wimp) or you can rule you subjects with an iron fist (the appreciate your guidance).

The way you answer your questions will shape and guide your nation. Give Nations a shot for a week and let me know what you think of it. If your nation is successful it will rise through the ranks and will be the most successful dictator leader on all of Facebook.

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I think to myself, “self, lets go do some good in the world.” I stand up, put my jacket on, and I get ready to solve the world’s problems. Then something happens, I open up my Facebook account and I find a game that completely eats away at my motivation.

You know the kind of games I am talking about. They are those simple games that you look at and say, “I could beat that game in five minutes.” Then you start to play, five minutes turns into ten, ten turns into fifteen and next thing you know you are fired because your boss saw you waste 35 minutes playing some Facebook game.

Well Facebook fans let me introduce you to the game that will potentially get you fired. I discovered Juggle Game about an hour and a half ago and now everyone in my office is trying to get the high score. The game is simple enough, to juggle a ball you hit either the right arrow key or left one. The longer you hold the key down the higher your character throws the ball.

The game is super fun and really addictive but it lacks a real social component. There is a scoreboard but thats really the only way you can tell your friends how great you are at juggling. I would like to see the game have some kind of juggle off, where I could juggle for a bit then my friend gets sent a challenge to beat my score.

All and all Juggle Game is one of those games that help you pass time until you can get home and play your PS3. If you get a good score at Juggle Ball let me know and I will try to beat it. Although I am not sure how you are going to show me your score, maybe invite me over to your computer and show me?

I like addicting games on Facebook. How else am I supposed to whitter away my bosses profit margins by waisting time? Most of the games I find on Facebook fail to offer the shear addictiveness of games found on Yahoo, but that changed this afternoon.

It is a cold and windy day here in DC and I was looking for something to do while I ate my 4th Chipotle Burrito of the week. Just then a dashing young man with no name through open my office door and pronounced, “You will play Herd-A-Word (HAW)!” Being a feebler man I agreed.

The man vanished and I was left with rice and steak on my shirt, and one addictive little Facebook application. HAW is an online game that challenges your vocabulary and your nerves, while reinforcing your beliefs that you should read more.

Basically all you have to do is line up orbs with letters to form words. There is a timer that counts down and reminds you why your failed 3rd grade spelling. You can then take your score and send it out to your friends and have them beat it. You can also take your longest word, Chrome for me, and send that out as a challenge to your friends.

HAW is proof that good ideas will bring users. This game is by far one of the most fun I have played in a long time. If you get a long word send it my way and give me a challenge. Chrome, man I am good.

I love a good video game. I love a good social game. When I came across Street Race, nay was hit by Street Race, I was pretty excited. My mind began to fill with simplistic thoughts of social vehicular racing.

Much to my dismay there is no street race in Street Race. In fact, there really isn’t much of a game. After installing the application I was greeted with multiple error messages and instantly informed I had loss two races.

Two races? I had only inputed my name, how odd. Fighting on, that’s what I do, I tried to purchase and ‘supe’ up my vehicle. After plowing through more error messages like some blind driver in downtown DC, I was told I could only buy more parts for my tractor (named Jonny Dear) by inviting my friends.

Was that it? Was that the social aspect of this game? I could peddle my friends and subject them to this error ridden game for more parts for my tractor? I mean give me a global score, show me tracks I have won, give me something to boast to my friends about and show them that I am a better driver.

I really wanted this game to be cool. I wanted something I could enjoy playing and prove that I am better than my friends. The problem is that the ‘game section’ of this game is nothing more than randomly clicking buttons to train my tractor and the ‘social’ part is just me pimping out my friends for more parts.

My biggest complaint is the ‘gas’ situation in this game. I would have said the game was playable if I could just purchase gas and keep playing, but I can’t. I either have to wait 2 hours or invite some of my friends to play. I have never been one to invite people to games because I dislike being invited to games. I know my friends are pimping me out for some token prize in a game.

I normally don’t say a game was a failure, but I can’t see how this game hit its intended targets. I could be wrong. If you are a big fan of Street Race let me know, perhaps I jumped the gun on this one. The game did have interesting screens to watch while random things were happening.

I am not a big fan of the “games on my page” application side of Facebook. I am also not a big fan of soccer, even with all my trips to Europe and me living in Mexico, I have never had a love for soccer. All of that going against it, I still liked a little application called Kick Ups.

The game is simple: see how many times you can hit a soccer ball (or a banana or a picture of your best friend) before it hits the ground.

Sounds simple enough, but like trying to stay balanced on a moving subway train, the action is pretty difficult. I try this every morning on the way to work and tend to fall on my fellow metroriders.

The game has all the bells and whistles we have come to expect from Facebook game. There are invite your friends and leader boards and global domination scores. Ok, I made that last one up.

My only suggestion before starting this game is that you make sure you have a mouse attached to your computer. I have been trying to play this with the tac pad on my laptop and am pretty sure I have carpel tunnel syndrome now.

Now if I can just get my hands working properly I can get back to some real work.

I found my old favorite tic-tac-toe killer, the dot game, on Facebook. I used to play this in elementary school on paper when I was bored in class, and now students can play online in class when they’re bored! What a time we live in!

The dot game is a simple two-player game in which there is a grid of dots, and players take turns drawing lines. If you finish a box, you claim the box as your own and get an extra turn. The player with the most completed boxes at the end wins.

The application lets you challenge your friends as well as find other players who are online to play against. There seems to generally be enough users to find a game, although it’s no Scrabulous.

It’s probably the best paper game ever made, so give it a shot and hone your dot game skills.

- Jonathan Kleiman runs the law blog legalintellects.com and professional network Probook