You can see the light at the end of the tunnel

Some scary and awesome things are happening at the moment. I realize most of these things didn't happen JUST NOW but I think the combination of all of them is really cool.

Digital Downloads are amazing for pretty much any medium. I haven't had to go to a bookstore in years thanks to my Kindle/Kindle app. I don't seem to be the only one as Borders is dead. I have bought a large quantity of games the last few years, fewer and fewer at Best Buy and Gamestop.  I haven't purchased a physical music album in years.

Free to play games are also becoming more and more palatable. Sure, the bizarre business strategy from Asia still has some kinks to work through. A lot of MMOs use the shift to free to play to as the final hail mary for a failed game. I'd put Age of Conan, Champions Online, and Pirates of the Burning Sea in that category. Other MMOs, like Lord of the Rings Online have been very successful with it. I imagine niche games like Fallen Earth will prosper and grow more with such a business model. Even traditional shooters like World of Tanks and now Arma 2 are free to play. I know the former is successful and I believe the latter will slowly grow and prosper more with such an offering.

Facebook Favorites

My new company makes mobile games for iPhone and Droid phones, but also Facebook games. I think one of the most important things to do as a designer is play games, so to me this clearly means I need to play Facebook games. Oh no, the dreaded hellpit of evil, theft, and villainy of the video game world.

I've found my assumptions to be largely confirmed in my Facebook game travels. But I've also found that there are some games I genuinely enjoy. In fact, I even have a favorite Social game developer now: Wooga. It seems I'm not entirely alone in my enjoyment of their games. Maybe I should get about making better games to beat them...

Social games are largely asynchronous cooperative time sinks. As such, maybe a post like this will encourage you to join me!

Crappy Web Game Rant

This year's GDC focused quite a bit on Zynga, social games, and all the accouterments. I didn't attend GDC nor do I play many of these games, but I've read several blogs, opinion pieces, and presentations about Zynga, free to play games, and the "future of our industry."