Facebook

[Helderic]

Has anyone made a BBG into a facebook app?

[JGadrow]

Wizards of the Coast did and, apparently, it's a smashing success.

I played it at its outset but I have since stopped until they can work some bugs out or until they're not so hammered by traffic. It was pretty unplayable and I ended up losing 2 days worth of character development due to an issue they had.

As far as my thought on the matter, I think it's a horrible idea to limit your audience in such a fashion. However, if you're a large corporation with an available marketing budget and millions of pre-existing customers... go for it.

[Helderic]

Wizards of the Coast did and, apparently, it's a smashing success.

I played it at its outset but I have since stopped until they can work some bugs out or until they're not so hammered by traffic. It was pretty unplayable and I ended up losing 2 days worth of character development due to an issue they had.

As far as my thought on the matter, I think it's a horrible idea to limit your audience in such a fashion. However, if you're a large corporation with an available marketing budget and millions of pre-existing customers... go for it.

Can you do into further detail about how it limits your audience? In my opinion it actually helps with a BBG because it's harder to create multi-accounts and Facebook has a awesome referral system in place for Apps.

[JGadrow]

Sure, I've met HUNDREDS of individuals who are interested in the Tiny Adventures application deployed by Wizards of the Coast but will NOT play it simply because it requires that person to sign up for a Facebook account, which they have no interest in.

Many individuals belong to MySpace and they find a Facebook account to be redundant because there is a larger base of their friends on the system they're currently using. Sure, they may sign up for a Facebook account to talk to that lone friend they have who won't sign up for MySpace - on the grounds that it's EVIL and, coupled with YouTube, part of the rapid de-evolution of the human species - but they'll quickly grow tired of logging into a separate account just to get messages from that person and quit going altogether.

It is limiting the size of your audience the same way as if you released a major game and decided to support only Windows Vista users (ahem, Microsoft: Halo 2). People with sense enough to not purchase any piece of Microsoft software until at least its second major security update - you know, because they don't like being Microsoft's beta tester - wouldn't get the opportunity to play your game despite the fact that they may have been interested.

As far as the argument about multi-accounting, you can safely multi-account. You simply need multiple e-mail accounts, which are freely available in MANY, MANY locations. Unless Facebook limits you to one account per IP address, in which case, you've just restricted the size of your audience yet again. My home office has a static IP address. My wife and I both have computers. Thus, even though you have 2 potential user accounts, you've limited yourself to 50% of that potential because we'll bother be identified by the same, static IP address.

As far as the referral system goes... this is REALLY, REALLY simple to code into a game and shouldn't be a primary factory for consideration of platform.

[Dasein Fiasco]

I think people here are misunderstanding programmatically what Facebook is.

So far as you as a developer are concerned, Facebook is really just three things: (1) an authorization process, (2) an iframe, and (3) an address book. If you have an application, and the site design fits nicely in a Facebook window, then you just need to develop the authorization hooks for your users (actually you don't - every major web dev platform has one or more APIs available) and decide if and how you want to use Facebook's database of user data to facilitate social behavior (writing to the wall, or status updates, inviting others, etc).

The idea that somehow Facebook is a platform separate from a regular web application is totally 100% wrong, and if you can write a PBBG you can probably integrate it into Facebook with a few hours study of the Facebook Developer API and review of examples in your technology platform of choice.

[Chris]

Sure, I've met HUNDREDS of individuals who are interested in the Tiny Adventures application deployed by Wizards of the Coast but will NOT play it simply because it requires that person to sign up for a Facebook account, which they have no interest in.

Well, if you make a standalone game they need to register as well, so the point is irrelevant (unless they hate Facebook for some reason)

Anyway, I checked and found the biggest game (under MMO/MMOG/MMORPG term) on Facebook to have 5,000 monthly actives. Not thrilling but not terrible either... Might be worth trying.

Anyone done something in their API? Is there any Facebook application open source script (preferably forum) available?

[Dasein Fiasco]

http://developers.facebook.com/

[Helderic]

I see what you mean Makari but I've seen games (such as Uwars) that you can play on the net like normal OR through facebook.

[JGadrow]

I had thought you meant a 'Facebook only' application. If you're talking about a web app that you simply supply an interface for Facebook then that changes my opinion 180 degrees.

This would be doing the opposite of what I was thinking you were doing - which was drastically limiting your potential audience. Now, you're offering the service to a larger audience which is ALWAYS a good thing

The only thing that sort of sucks about something like this is that you're now reliant (to a degree) on their application and some of your users are potentially vulnerable to attack in two locations, but if they're already signed up for Facebook, they're no more vulnerable than they were before

And as far as your statement, Chris, from what I've seen, there seems to be some sort of logical disconnect in a lot of people that will allow them to sign up to a game server but as soon as that game is hosted on a social network site, it becomes somehow 'odd' to sign up for that social site strictly to play the game. It doesn't make sense to me either - as that's just what I did to play TinyAdventures - but it's there.

[Helderic]

So, no one has had experience using Facebook?

[AcidicOne]

I have to agree with Makari, Facebook and myspace is redundant. not to mention I sadly have both accounts(created a long time ago) and they where both short lived. I have found there are people who like me prefer actual conversations with people via msn/yahoo or the phone. Or you have those who love there myspace,facebook,friendster and the other billion different social networking sites out there. So with that being said, supporting Makari's statement about limiting your audience, your limiting your exposure to those who are the type to leave msg's, fill your inbox with mundane apps,gifts, messages, chain mail galore. Personally if you ask me, I have yet to see a social network that was not basically a profile, and a metric buttload of spam.

Also to go with chris's point personally I have my facebook account suspended.Why? because yeah some of the games only offered through facebook are fun,But that being said, constantly being bombarded with spam, and invites,gifts etc is just downright annoying. Nothing annoys me more then to clear all my messages before going to bed, only to wake up to a entirely filled inbox with nothing of interest. So limiting your audience to only a social network again hinders your numbers.

Probably the best way to go about it I think, would be to create a stand alone version, that anyone can register for, a spin off for facebook and call it a day. Only because i know the various bbg's that I play, the only messages I receive are from friends,guild/clan members, or something of importance, and not invitations to try more apps, or "how much are you worth" requests (*cough* facebook *cough*).Thus making those of us like me happy and content I do not have to sign up or login to my facebook account to play a game I enjoy, and those who are quite content to spam along and use the social networks to there hearts content

[luvva]

I have a facebook account, but i rarely use it for anything other than talking to people

making a facebook app will be applicable if you can code it into your site, but why use the app if you can access the site directly?

[xBleuWolfx]

So, no one has had experience using Facebook?

I use Facebook alot.

Probably the best way to go about it I think, would be to create a stand alone version, that anyone can register for, a spin off for facebook and call it a day.

Do mean something like this: Developer creates an rpg called "BattleWeb" then Developer creates a Facebook App called "BattleWebmini". "BattleWebmini" is the same as "BattleWeb" with the exception that it might not include all of the features of "BattleWeb"? If so, I think this would be the best solution to people that already have a BBG and want to build an app for Facebook. Personally, I would first create a full-fledged stand alone game and after sometime create a Facebook App version that includes some but not all of the features of the stand alone. I would also put in a link in the Facebook version that directs the Facebook players to the full-fledged game. That way, people that really like your game will be willing to create a new account to play the full version and it will also give you great free advertisement.

[Scion]

when you develope a facebook app....your implementing an interface to your existing site that operates inside the facebook app, using a series of facebook supplied interfaces to retrieve and access the users facebook data. this allows you to get info about the users friends and send messages or post to the users history...

each app has a mini and a large version the mini can be included directly on the users home page...

the facebook app is just another interface to your existing application....which means that you can still have non-facebook access...depending on how youve set up your game you can have facebook and standalone players playing directly against/with each outher...

the same goes for myspace and the other 'open social' sites...

personally if i was starting out, id start with myspace simply because it implements the open social standard from google....and there are some pretty big sites in brazil and india that also implement them...as does the nzing..engine.....means if your out to make a lot of dosh...then your giving yourself a much bigger combined audience than through facebook....although you may find that if you not multi-lingual the pickup might be slow on the foreign language sites.

[Advisador]

FWIW: I wrote a PBBG on Facebook's API last year.   It was an interesting experience.   Scaling was an issue, but not terribly difficult to solve (hardware & caching are your friends).  The biggest issue was marketing and finding the target audience.   Our game is a strategy/RPG and requires a little more thought than say Zombies! or Vampires!, which aren't really games at all.

And yes you can now use Facebook Connect to allow players to login to your game with their facebook account, but we didn't have that a year ago.  We did allow  people to play outside the "Facebook Screen" by going directly to the game url (this speeds up game play a bit), but most people played directly inside of Facebook.

We found overall that while social networks have the potential to reduce your marketing expense (friends invite friends), this is offset by the fact that most people on facebook want to play a quick game of something, not an immersive game that takes time and effort.   Or to paraphrase, the hard-core gaming audience isn't really using Facebook at this time.   Plus, there's a social network within each game (your friend today may stab you in the back tomorrow, but only in the game).  Facebook's social network isn't really built to handle such a fluid social environment.   The game really needed it's own internal social features.

After a year of being on Facebook, we are working towards a second version of the game that will be standalone. Almost all of the players are excited about this.

You can check it out at http://www.friendsandfoesstudios.com/toothandclaw