Designed as a means of communication, searching for old and new friends, as well as a quick and convenient way to share your emotions, feelings and experiences with the world, social networks have gradually transformed something more for millions of users. For many people, modern social networks are both a means of universal entertainment and an indispensable assistant that performs many important functions through additional internal services.
When developing games for social networks, it is necessary to fully and fully focus on the interests of users. This approach is fully justified: there is interest, there is demand, there is profit (profit can also be expressed in the effect of advertising / marketing, if the game is a tool to promote a product, service, company). In addition, initially in the future game product you need to lay a viral effect - users attract their friends into the game and become its free distributors.
Many people live on social networks, and the main purpose of their stay is communication, which, in turn, will affect the online games presented here. In this sense, the most popular are multiplayer games with an extremely simple (casual) gameplay, aimed at interaction between users. Farm simulators, taikuns, "three in a row" and "search for objects", simple turn-based RPGs, global strategies, life simulators - all these genres are very popular.
Moreover, the interaction in such games can occur in various, often very discrete forms. Banal chat, presence on the scoreboard, the ability to receive and send gifts, join clans or other communities, visit friends' locations (bases, islands, farms, castles). And further. Basically, various forms of cooperation and competition in the game are highly valued here.
And now about the interesting. About new platforms and development opportunities for projects in local markets. There are some good points here. In general, something like a resumption of the web games market is happening now. And for this there are several reasons why you can start new projects:
- Death Flash.
Social networks, like Vkontakte, will no longer support this technology, which means that a certain scan expects their catalog. - Platform development within platforms.
The emergence of promising new platforms for games based on applications and social networks with an internal audience of hundreds of millions of players is an excellent reason to think about going online. Already now, following the example of the social network Vkontakte, we can say that very significant forces have been invested in the development of this platform (VK Direct Games). At the moment, the catalog already has more than 4 million MAUs and hundreds of thousands of SADs. And this is provided that the directory itself is empty. Starting soon in this catalog, you will find the opportunity to enter the market without promotion. It is also worth paying attention to WeChat, Yandex.Games and other platforms at the initial stage of development, but with great potential and an already prepared audience. - WebGL technology development .
If a few years ago it was still quite raw, now it can be used for cross-platform games. Yes, this still has a number of disadvantages, but now it can and should be done. For example, we are working with the GFX team to create a platform for developing web games. The WebGL-based engine already provides excellent results for 3D games, even on weak mobile devices from a browser with 60 frames per second.