While social network (i.e. Facebook) games are played quite a bit, they rarely seem to be subject of sustained debate either among critics, (Dutch) developers or academics. One of the intriguing questions regarding social games is of course to what extent they are indeed social. In my column I discuss some insightful exploratory research from Wohn and Lee to be published in Entertainment Computing. The paper’s title is quite self explanatory “Players of Facebook games and how they play”. Do check out the paper, and of course my column (downloadable below, for free yo!).
Het gebrek aan een geïnformeerde discussie over social games helpt natuurlijk niet bij het beter maken van deze spellen.