Slashdot Mirror
What Google+ Games Needs To Beat Facebook
donniebaseball23 writes "Google's new games offering on Google+ has only been around a few weeks, and it's been getting mixed reactions. According to veteran game designer Ed Del Castillo, the potential is there to beat Facebook at its own game, if Google improves in the right areas, which he outlines as evolved content, player discovery and a push for HTML5. 'Overall, the quality of Google+ gaming isn't bad. It's just another Facebook with fewer games and fewer friends. It's a baby step in a time where successful companies, like Apple, are taking huge strides. The good news is that they didn't blow it. They have a good base to build on,' he said."
It's bene out for a few months now and nothing that interesting has come out of it. People aren't moving there from Facebook, nothing interesting is happening there (compared to Facebook), and like the article states they missed some really great opportunities. I mean, Google is pushing for HTML5 and all kinds of nice new technologies. They used to innovate. They did nothing this.
I was actually interested to see what they have for offer. I saw Angry Birds and some mention about playing with your friends, so I asked my friend to join me, thinking "oh this should be fun together". But when we actually tried to see how to make a game, the great oh-so innovative multiplayer aspect was that the more friends you invite to play the game, the more levels you unlock. So fun! Not.
I see Google+ becoming just an another niche product within Google. Just like Orkut is mostly used by Brazilians. Google+ caters to the technical people and if you have those kind of friends or want to interact with them in some other way than the IRC, email, IM, forums and newsgroups, sure (though I'm not so sure that group wants to move on from the established places). There are technical people and some artful people, but that's pretty much it. It's a niche, and it's a niche that already mostly uses other mediums like forums, slashdot and newsgroups.
Google+ still exists?
You don't get it.
The core innovation is how they are implementing circles.
I'm not sure why some developers poor implementation of a feature is Google's fault.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The irony of your comment is not lost on me.
I don't understand why an article like this should be interesting at all.
Really. Why is this anything?
Google actually worked with those developers to make those games to Google+. No one else can sign up as develop yet. I would say Google played their role in it.
The circles won't do much if Google+ doesn't offer anything new or can't get people to move. Gaining popularity for new social networks is extremely hard because of the established user bases. Circles alone won't cut it. Besides, Facebook added those features too. Google+ succeeded in one thing - it made Facebook to improve their site a little bit.
The only complaints I've seen about the game implementation on Google+ has been game developers bitching about the fact that they're separated into their own tab and not splashed all over the main stream like on Facebook. As long as they're separated, I could care less what they do, but if they start caving into developer demands and splashing game bullshit all over the main stream they're going to lose a lot of people and they really can't afford to lose people.
Comon now, let's think for a second here. Google owns Google+. Google also "owns" Android, which is the single largest Mobile OS. Google should leverage (I hate that frigging market-speak word) its Android market to increase Google+ adoption. That means making full, unadulterated, high-performance (IE NOT HTML5 or Flash) versions of Google+ games that natively support Android - full blown apps. If they REALLY want to make an impact then they should target iOS too. Now THAT would rake in some serious users if the games are good. People would be joining Google+ just because they found a free Google+ game on the Android Marketplace that caught their attention.
Better known as 318230.
Yeah, from now on pi will be equal to three in Google.
Google+ Nethack, of course! ;) ...Or a multi-player version of Nethack ?! ;D
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
http://xkcd.com/918/
I really can't say more... other than I'm not a fan of Facebook.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Fun.
less dirty than FaceBook, but still feel dirty.
circles would be innovative if they could overlap/intersect. As it is, Facebook offers quite the same feature.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Good luck with that we have a hard enough time getting enough performance out of flash. It would be a great thing but the performance just is not there for most gaming needs.
Got Code?
Not exist!
lizardb0y
http://www.vintage8bit.com/
They can, and facebooks implementation is pretty damn bad and hard to find. Most people aren't even aware they can do that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Honmestly, the fact that Google+ is aiming for HTML5 games is by and large the reason it'll end up getting and keeping mindshare in the long run. Flash is reliant on Adobe's good graces to get fixes et al, but putting it into the HTML standard means that the FOSS mantra "all bugs are shallow to many eyes" starts having meaning. Basically, it may mean that google+ might have to make some small sacrifices to allow for firefox32767 (or whatever inflated versioning they use this week) compatibility, but it'll have a more robust environment for programmers and a much lower bar to entry (you need all sorts of development tools to make a flash game, you need a text editor to make HTML). Of course mindshare alone doesn't make for a successful platform (I'm looking at you, Commodore), but that mindshare will mean that eventually there will be a much richer gaming environment, and presumably the richer gaming environment will translate into user numbers eventually.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
I agree completely.
As a G+ user I'd be perfectly content with games being not even included in the first place, because that's not at all what I want to use it for. If I were a developer already invested in trying to make money off G+ games, then I'd have made a bad business decision. A huge share of users are there because it's not covered with games and bloat, it's only a simple way of connecting with people and sharing links and posts. I hope Google also realizes that and sticks to just making a little money off ads and whatever they sell right now, instead of trying to make even more with games and losing their user base.
more people.
Google launched a service that only a few were allowed to use. People who were curious about it were told to get lost. People who were allowed to sign up got bored because nothing is happening, so they left. The miracle behind Facebook is the ability of people to find friends and relatives they haven't seen in years, even decades, because EVERYONE is welcome to sign up.
It's bene out for a few months now and nothing that interesting has come out of it. People aren't moving there from Facebook, nothing interesting is happening there (compared to Facebook), and like the article states they missed some really great opportunities.
It is interesting to see other people's perspective on this. Like many of us here, I'm a geek. I've seen more than one person I know post a countdown on Facebook with a link to their Google+ account and then, kill off their Facebook account entirely. I haven't gotten rid of my account, but I also got an e-mail from Facebook the other day reminding me I haven't logged in in more than 30 days. I did not plan that or anything, I've just been using it less and less. I've been using Google+ much more than I ever used Facebook. Partly this is because Huddles on the mobile app are an unbelievably easy way to do free group chats with people I actually want to talk to on a regular basis. My co-worker informed me via a Google+ Huddle, late last night, that she was not going to be in this morning. I have about the same number of friends on Google+ as I do on Facebook, but fewer of them are old high school classmates and more have things to say I actually care about. Oh, and being able to view public comments in my locality is an extra entertainment and occasionally even useful.
So I'd say Circles, Huddles, and Nearby are great additions that are better than Facebook. The other big advantage being the things Google+ doesn't have, namely a million notifications from games and boring people that I have to wade through.
I have not played any. Every single one pops up a privacy notice asking if I will let it look at my personal information and list of people in my circles. I say no so it won't let me play. I have enough spam without saying yes to every popup that appears.
You can add people to as many circles as you want, I do believe that is the definition of overlapping/intercepting.
Circles isn't as innovative as it sounds. Sectioning information into the groups you want to know about it is fine except Google and anyone willing to pay them can bypass your circles so you still need to be careful what you say.
Featureless? I find Facebook cluttered and annoying, and I feel locked in by their decisions. Facebook keeps changing things around, as well; just when I've gotten used to things a certain way, it all shifts around. I don't like the one dimensional approach of Facebook wherein my friends are one giant group. I have several hundred "friends" and I can't remember most of them because I haven't put them into any subgroups. I am hearing that Facebook is implementing something like Google's circles, but frankly it's a bit too late.
Google Plus, like Google's other well designed products, has a clean, streamlined feel to it. The circles thing is right there, apparent and easy to start using. It's kind of the basis of the system, in fact. They seem to have incorporated the best features of Facebook and Twitter, so you can follow people without adding them to some circle of yours. You can treat the system like Facebook, post micro logs or lengthy treatises as you wish, and you can categorize your contacts into as many arbitrarily named circles as you want. I suppose a professional services provider might have customer circles which would be useful for notifying people of new developments, sales, times available, etc. A music teacher could use this service to great effect. Really, there's great potential here.
Games? Meh, I guess if that's what they have to do to compete, as long as I don't have to have it rubbed in my face like on Facebook where someone is always being announced as having completed this or that level or milestone and then I have to tell it to hide all similar postings.
Technically literate people seem to be switching to G+ or at least spending a lot of time there, and I'm glad. I really hope it does well because it's a really well thought out product.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Ok, I'm not really understanding the article, nor the comments. This being in light of the fact that -- as was already submitted here a week or so ago -- Google+ is NOT a social Network according to Google. It's an identity service.
Admittedly, I'm not sure I entirely believe that, as there's clearly some social network aspects to Google+. But it certainly is clear that, at the moment, that is not what they are promoting it as.
Thus, more games etc, seems kind of redundant. Other than for purely speculative reasons, should Google decide they want it as a social network.
Regardless, personally I have no need of an identity service. I will not ever sign up to any social network that requires me to use my real name. So Google+ is an useless product for me, regardless of what games or features it may ever have.
Which is kind of a shame, I actually was excited about Google+ being a much better tool than Facebook when I first heard about it. However, the ID thing is a deal-breaker.
Though, at least it scared Facebook into making a very small step towards fixing its many, and massive, privacy issues.
The major steps have yet to come, in order to scratch a dent in facebooks monopoly.
I do NOT want to sign up to a service which (apparently?) changes my name on other google sites, like youtube for example.
You can't use an alias and your account ends up 'tying' your other google services closer. While I see the advantage in some ways, I am personally not interested.
I've already been dumb enough to post too much stupid shit on the internet under different accounts which could easily be tied together, I don't need to be made even easier to identify.
Also, to my knowledge, I don't believe it's possible to seperate my work friends, internet gaming friends, internet asshole troll friends, family, real life 'nice' friends and real life asshole troll friends! - I'm one of those weirdos who is in many social circles and some of the people I know would be horrified at some of the shit I discuss and find humourous.
Facebook, at least I had my name obscured (couldn't find me by real name) and if I recall, I'd managed to make it so even searching for my email, I wouldn't come up.
What Google+ needs for games is these guys putting some real games for real gamers on the service. None of this cow clicking and popularity contest crap. Give us some games with real meat.
Every game I tried to play greeted me with a pop-up saying:
[Game] is requesting permission to ... View a list of people from your circles, ordered based on your interactions with them across Google
What are the implications of that (if I click the "More info" link it just gives me an email address for the developer)? Does that give the game developer a way to spam the people in my circles? Admittedly, they do provide a link to a privacy policy (which is different for each game), but if they think I'm going to read all of that to figure out what they plan to do with my list of contacts, well, they're wrong. I just ended up playing none of them.
How about we focus on getting Google+ working with Apps first, before we worry about games.
You know, Apps. Us paying folks. Who have been told fake deadlines a number of times, and now can't even get a commitment on the timeline ( no, "soon" does not constitute a "timeline". Not when the other deadlines turned out to be lies ).
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Games are not going to drive people to the service. Facebook was popular before it got apps/games
Google should spend time fixing broken stuff like their "personlized news searches" that defy all logic, instead of this crap.
No, you couldn't care less. Let David Mitchell explain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw
The presumption by him [and me] is that you're American.
Nobody actually cares that much about circles except for tech journalists who think dragging things to a circle is the most amazing innovation ever.
You acknowledge that you're a geek, which is exactly what the grandparent post said Google+ would appeal to--niche technical users who feel the need to abandon Facebook in favor of the a geekier product.
Isn't it funny how quickly everyone forgot that Eric Schmidt said Google+ is an identity service rather than a social network?
I opened an additional account with no contacts to try the games. They are actually entertaining. An yes, the settings they demand is a bit worrying. I wish there was an opaque way to invite/interact with contacts without giving full access tothe game.
Same here. I am apalled that this criticism doesn't feature more frequently in G+ games reviews. Having 3rd party developers have full information about my account and contacts was the main reason I ditched my FB account. I'd be okay if some features required extra permissions (like friends leaderoboard and so on), I'd even be willing to show the game a particular circle of friends, but not like this.
This and the "identity service, not social networking" thing are the two major letdowns from this service. And I think i can imagine the tsunami of cash pushing on the other side, so my hopes are really low.
"Do no evil" my foot.
I agree, and am a fan of Google Plus. What I personally would like to see is the ability to place a whole circle within another circle. I ALWAYS want to share EVERYTHING I do on there with my wife. Same with a few other people. I was hoping they would let me nest circles within circles. That said, I'm still pretty happy with it and haven't looked back since.
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
They have had the product out for several months, but you can't join unless you've got an invite. Why did I switch from MySpace to Facebook? Because I post things where my friends will actually be able to read them. Why do I stay on Facebook? Because I've found more of my old High school buddies there than anywhere else. Open it up to everybody, or shut it down. Until you do that, who gives a rip what the service can or can not do?
Google+ appeals to niche technical users who feel the need to abandon Facebook in favor of a social network where people actually have something interesting to say. A social network that isn't bogged down with layers of ads and games and a long history of privacy issues. Personally I feel that Google's implementation of Circles is brilliant; they took a feature that could be implemented in Facebook and made it both obvious and effortless to use. The "Nearby" Circle on Android is awesome as well.
Actually, 3.14159..... rounds off nicely to 3.1
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
This is exactly why I like Google+; there aren't any games whoring themselves all over my main screen.
... to beat Facebook.