Facebook gaming and other trends to look out for at The Game Developers Conference | GAMING / TECH

GamePro put together a pretty good rundown on the top trends to watch out for at The Game Developers Conference this week.

The first is Social Network Gaming…Most people on Facebook are well aware of such games as Farmville, CafeWorld, Restaurant City, Pet Society…and well, the hundreds of similarly constructed games. If Facebookers aren't playing them, they're friends and family are.

What's most interesting about the expansive popularity of such games is their simplicity. In a quickly evolving world of highly interactive, massively complex gaming systems, with a focus on fancy schmancy controllers and high definition motion graphics, there's absolutely something to be learned from the extreme popularity of these simple, user friendly, social network games. Not only are they simple in development, but also in structure and theme. Build a farm. Then what's next? Well, tend to your farm, make money, and build it bigger. Then what?? Somehow, these simple games have managed to capture the attentions of hundreds of thousands of players, gamers and non-gamers alike. Btw, how's your mom's cafe coming along?

(Above: Zandl Group Young Adult Panelist's Restaurant City (Playfish) spot, SNAX X-press is part of a successful self-made Facebook francise--on Cafe World, he runs SNAX Supreme!  SNAX X-press comes complete with an arcade, movie theater -- and even an employees only break room.  Note: he doesn't make any 'real' money on his venture.)

And the big guns are catching on. GamePro cites EA Games' acquisition of Facebook game maker, Playfish and Sony Online Entertainment's entrance into the Facebook Game realm. The article moves on to discuss the future of social network gaming, and what we might be seeing in the coming years. The big question is whether 'hardcore games' will sneak their way into the Facebook realm. We're thinking it's the perfect simplicity apparent in all these current heavy hitters that makes for mass appeal. And that's a big reason why platforms like Second Life didn't really get universal adoption. When you start to make things complex, you start to exclude the non-gamers who have so surprisingly tended with great care to their restaurants, farms, fish and pets.

And that's good news for the more conceptual, less equipped gaming developers out there. The most popular, biggest money makers in gaming aren't necessarily the ones with all the frills and fireworks.

Other trends cited by GamePro:
- Indie Game Developement
- Piracy and DRM
- Non-iPhone mobile platforms
- Improvements in narrative development

Read all about it (super engaging) at GamePro.com.

- jmd