Film Futurist

Chances are, you’ve been sucked in once or twice, most likely by Facebook. Farmville, Mafia Wars ring a bell? And there are lots more. As someone who didn’t really play video games as a child, and seldom played casual games before the smartphone revolution (in my head), the concept of social gaming as a real form of entertainment was a tough one to digest. Plus I hate getting updates from my Mafia War addict friends about how many people they’ve “killed”. It’s annoying. But if there’s one thing my ongoing social media education has taught me, it’s that when audiences respond in numbers like these reported in The Business Insider, well, I best be paying attention. Companies like Zynga came into the social media playground once Facebook showed its staying power and force of presence in our offices, living rooms and purses and are the reason a free offering like FB will be able to build a viable business model.

So as a person who creates entertainment, I evaluate these games both in terms of what they mean for changing business models in an era of social media and what it says about people’s behavior, their tastes and interests. I am sure like all things in pop culture, people will get bored and Mafia Wars will give way to Yakuza wars, which will give way to Compton wars which will give way to Alien wars and on and on. You get my drift – these guys aren’t necessarily looking to create “art” per se – they are through and through commercial entertainers. But they are capturing audiences, something like 61 million sets in the case of Farmville, certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Hollywood has always prided itself on being the arbiter of popular tastes, having dipped their toes into every kind of mainstream entertainment, until this point. The innovation and creativity that goes into building these social games is coming from elsewhere. The stories are not conventional but I would argue, still narrative in their own way. Interactivity and social connections drive these forms of entertainment. And while Mafia Wars may not make as indelible a mark on contemporary culture as say The Godfather, the audiences ability to share these gaming experiences with each other and connect in a completely non-linear manner is clearly driving the popularity. And this is practically the cavemen days of the technology. I think as social gaming evolves both in the way it drives revenue for social sites like Facebook, we will see increasingly more interested and sophisticated narratives emerging.