The secret to successful social game development

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Mark Skaggs, vice president of product development for social games developer Zynga, delivered a keynote address, where he made 5 tips for social game developers.

Interest is more important

Skaggs believes that what is most needed is fun for all gamers, especially social gamers. A boring game does not get fun even if you add extra content. If a user buys a game for $ 60, he said, he is already boring at the first level, and he will not continue because there are 99 and stop immediately.

2. The platform is more important than the game

Skaggs said that once you design a game, you need to keep catching players. Many successful video game companies keep users because they treat the game as a service. "In fact, I'd rather build Zynga as a game platform developer than as a game developer," he said, because there is still a lot of work to be done after the game is released.

Do not ignore female players

Skaggs said that I saw first-hand how my wife played games at all free time and when the developer realized that, his game would also be very popular. In his opinion, in fact, mothers and family women are becoming core users.

Make the game simple and fun

Skaggs claims that social games are simple, fun, and enjoyable for players to recognize when compared to traditional games. He says it's a social game that should be offered, and is best positioned as a simple web page. Social games should load quickly and be easy to use.

5. Keep players is the key

At the end of the presentation, Skaggs said social games should be imagined as a holey bucket, and the player would have to plug the holes. He said that regardless of the amount of water in the "bucket", if you do not go to action, all the water will flow.