![]() ![]() The vast majority of today's social games incorporate mechanics that actively limit you from playing the game - usually some combination of an energy system (which limits how many things you can interact with in a single session before having to either wait or pay to continue) and a timer system (where things take varying amounts of real time to complete, but which can usually be sped up by spending money). Social games' wait timers are an inconvenience to get you to pay Animal Crossing's delays are a means of building anticipation. Let's look at some of the reasons Animal Crossing beats the pants off Facebook games. So where does Animal Crossing fit into this? Well, because it follows almost the exact same mold as many social games do, but it strips out the aggressive monetization completely, making it an infinitely superior, more satisfying experience that keeps people coming back day after day. There are a few exceptions, of course - most notably, game industry luminaries Brenda and John Romero have both been involved in a number of social game projects to varying degrees of success - but for the most part, spending five minutes with your average Facebook game makes it abundantly clear that it's not particularly interested in entertaining you it's interested in getting your money. The issue, of course, is that social games are primarily designed (or at least produced and funded) by people whose primary specialism is business and the psychological manipulation of an audience to convince them to part with their money, not people who design great games. Zynga refers to games like Animal Crossing, CityVille and FarmVille as "invest and express" games - not actually a bad definition for any of them, though the implementation differs. Unfortunately, something went wrong in the process somewhere, and social games, for the most part, became startlingly efficient monetization machines while sacrificing anything even remotely resembling satisfying gameplay. ![]() Although the vast majority of them were complete and utter crap, the principle of a social game is a sound one: something you can play asynchronously with your friends at your own pace, and which doesn't necessarily demand hours of commitment at a time. #FREE PLAY CITYVILLE GAME SERIES#Having never really played the series much before, it's an initially bewildering experience to have so little in the way of clearly defined objectives - but I know one thing: I've stuck with Animal Crossing far longer than I ever cared to continue playing a Web-based social game, which are probably Animal Crossing's closest equivalents in gameplay terms.Ī bit of background for you: prior to USgamer's launch, my job for the last year and a bit was reviewing mobile and social games. I'm still in that strange early phase of my relationship with Animal Crossing where I'm fumbling around trying to work out what I'm supposed to be doing. ![]()
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