Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
games for them to move to as they churn out of one game and on to the next.
Facebook games can also sell paid advertising within the game, either deliv-
ering players to products or hyping other games by the developer in order
to keep players within the same company's reach. For Zynga, the company
behind the development of Frontierville , the recipe is so successful that they
attained a private valuation for their company that exceeded the worth of
prominent video game publisher Electronic Arts in late 2010. 28
Zynga's Frontierville and Playdom's City of Wonder share much in com-
mon, but there are enough dif erences between the games to make both
worthy of analysis. The only set up required is to have an updated version
of Flash and an active Facebook account, through which people can search
for the game or click on the link on a friend's game to begin playing. The
games are then installed to the Facebook account and players can start
the game in short order. Signing up requires giving the program access to
certain elements of one's Facebook account, like the ability to access basic
information, send emails, or post on a player's wall. Players are encour-
aged to turn over information in exchange for things like daily emails that
contain advantages to be redeemed in the game. After signing up, players
are faced with their fi rst opportunity for play. In the case of Frontierville ,
players design an in-game avatar, choosing from a relatively wide number
of options to personalize their appearance while roaming the frontier. Once
situated in the game, both games of er tutorials to show players how to
play, explicitly pointing out various features of the game with large, mov-
ing arrows and careful shading of the background and key objects to draw
player's attention to the desired components. Tutorials are relatively short,
taking less than ten minutes, and then players are let out into the more open
game world. The focus of the tutorial is to quickly acquaint players with
the elements and objects of the game, whether it is to build a civilization by
adding people and growing goods ( City of Wonder ) or developing a settle-
ment on the wild frontier ( Frontierville ).
In congruence with the economic incentives for these games, both fea-
ture ways for players to advance by buying their way ahead via dual cur-
rency systems. City of Wonder features coins as a dominant currency,
which is used to buy most things in the game. Gold bars supplement the
coins and can be used to speed research into technologies that progress a
civilization or to purchase special, more powerful buildings to improve cer-
tain aspects of their city. Each player starts out with a fair number of gold
bars, and more trickle in as a player rises through the levels in the game,
but the greatest and quickest infl ux of these bars requires investing cold,
hard cash to buy them. Frontierville works with the same general principle,
although their gold bars come in the form of horseshoes, which can be used
as a short cut to completing most objectives. Both also cross-promote other
games produced by the same developer. In the case of Playdom's City of
Wonder , the promotions take the form of framing devices around the game
screen encouraging players to play other Playdom games. Cross promotion
 
 
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