I was thinking about the changes we’ve seen over the last year or so with social networking, and the gaming which is being attached to it. Farmville is the obvious example with its enormous user base. The people who play these games are mostly casual and don’t spend a load of money on other games, so spending a couple bucks here and there in something like Farmville isn’t a big factor on their budget, and because there are so many of them playing, the developers make a killing. Like instead of thin rows of trees that publishers traditionally have to shake the money from, games like Farmville are vast expanses of forest that you just need to bring a rake in order to collect the earnings. It’s that crazy.

Some people will say that the success of social games is largely without merit, maybe even a fad. I look at it much like I do the craze we saw a few years ago with the Nintendo Wii. It came out bold and brassy, covered in gravy, Texas style, with a new take on how games can be played. Like in the social games market, traditional players stood at bay like they were virgins at a strip club, taking it all in and waiting to see how others reacted. Soon, most of them got their hands on it and divided up into a few camps. Camp “A” thought the implementation of motion controls to be the wave of the future, Camp “B” loved some of the ideas, but still needed convincing, and then Camp “3” thought that it would ultimately be rejected by the hardest of the hardcore, thus dooming it to failure. Well, regardless of what you think about the Wii, you can’t argue that it forced the attention of gamers everywhere. I think this same affect is happening with the social gaming market.

If any genre could benefit by being highly observant of social games like Farmville, MMO’s can. I really, truly believe that most massively multiplayer games right now need to change the formula. Lot’s are trying, most of them are still fun to some degree, but we’re seeing a lot of redundancies. Same game with a new coat of paint and some shiny bits tacked on if you will. But there’s still a chance to spice up the MMO romance. If the developers would pay attention to how people interact with each other on Farmville and games like it, then adopt the core idea that playing solo can be fun, but aiding another can be more fun and highly rewarding, then we could see some interesting things happen.