A lot of talk has been given to the radically quick collapse of the Facebook gaming universe, including Zynga’s recent troubles and jump to the online gambling space. Left unsaid is that, if you’re a social network other than Facebook, things are probably a lot worse.
Which in a platform that’s supposed to encourage some level of virality, pretty telling. Whether its telling about Google+’s viability as a game platform, or its viability overall, is hard to tell.
I once played Triple Town on Google+ Games, when I was in a facebook-avoiding mood. That’s about all I can say about it.
Google+ is bigger than Twitter now. (Reference: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Google-surpasses-Twitter-to-take-number-2-social-network-after-Facebook_id39150) Of course, Google keeps screwing up a good thing with their constant, clumsy interface redesigns.
Why didn’t games work on Google+? Let’s look at the origin of “social games”. Facebook games grew because “virality” (read: spamming people’s walls) was super easy. As Facebook restricted “virality” because users got sick of yet another “click here to give someone a cow!” posts, the games waned. Google+ allowed you to ignore posts from games by default, which means the games didn’t have as much “virality” and therefore grow like they did on Facebook.
Not sure why this is a surprise.