how are social games implemented, their business model etc?

[Kata K]

I would like to know from you experts about the following:
1. How are social games implemented. I would like to know the technical implications (links would be great). Could not understand how the game like Farmville are put into Facebook as well as Myspace.
a. How are the advertisements served here.
b. How is the tracking on ads done.
c. Who gets a profit when the user clicks on the ADS? Is it the Faremville company or the Facebook/Myspace? Who decides on the ads served and who handle this?
2. What is their business model or the Revenue model?
3. What are the languages used to develop social games? c/vc/c++ or just flash
4. what are the big companies in gaming
5. what are the sites through which i can learn about the gaming industry. (I am already reading the wiki and the links within the wiki connections)
6. will the future be mobile gaming?


Please let me know if you have an answer to any of the above or all Thanks a lot in advance.

[Furstnae Listnae]

I can tell you how the Facebook system works from experience (and I'm sure the Myspace system is much the same).

The first step is to register your application on Facebook with their system, by entering your game title etc. For example, "Farm Ville" and then you get to choose a URL. e.g. http://apps.facebook.com/farmville and so from their apps.facebook.com/farmville becomes your "Canvas URL" and effectively this is your "Canvas Page".

From there, there is 2 options:

Option one is to use iFrame, where the Canvas Page (on facebook) displays an iFrame which frames a page from your own web server (http://www.example.com/facebook/canvas-page.html).

Option two is to use Facebook's own code called FBML, this is effectively HTML markup which is well regulated and sanitized. So, you tell Facebook to load your canvas page from http://www.example.com/facebook/canvas-page.html and this page contains strictly coded HTML, and from there Facebook checks your entire HTML and sanitizes it (for the security of their server) before directly injecting it in to your canvas page (the apps.facebook.com/farmville page).

So, in the end, all content which is displayed on your app is infact loaded from your standard web server, including the Flash content which is hosted on your server and Facebook is told (either within an iframe or fbml) to display your flash file.

1
a. Advertisements are served here like any other page, through an advertising service such as
Google Adsense with the code provided by Google to place on your page.

b. the tracking of ads is handled by your ad provider, e.g. Google Adsense, and shown in your "advertising dashboard", this is a separate service from the Facebook application service.

c. The Farmville company gets the profit when a user clicks on an ad, as the code for the ad is provided by them on a third party service.

2. An application each has different motives for it, some companies use a Facebook application of their service provided to help gain prospects of clients and, they hope, turn it into work for their company or service. Farmville has 2 ways of making revenue, as do most applications under the Social Gaming category. The first one is advertising.. as you know, the advertising provider (e.g. Google Adsense) pays them per click or per view of their ad. The second is by offering premium advantages, like buying in-game items and perks with real-life money.

3. Social games' canvas pages are usually powered by HTML/FBML and (if necessary) a server-side processing language like ASP or PHP. HTML or FBML is used to tell the canvas page to place their flash document there which then (obviously) is handed over to the flash language and the majority of the game is in the Flash file.

4. The big players in Social Gaming on Facebook (from what I know) are Zynga, PlayFish (recently bought by EA), CrowdStar, Playdom. Here is a list of them all from the most reliable source: http://www.appdata.com/

5. I don't think there's a specific site or sites to learn about the market, except to research and investigate what your competitors are doing and also become a player of the games yourself to research what the players themselves want or expect in a game.

6. I as an IT expert haven't heard anything about a rise in mobile gaming, and I don't think it has more potential than the social gaming market ,unless you're talking mobile social gaming, then maybe, but it seems more like an add-on or side to main social gaming. If the option comes (has come?) available for mobile gaming, then the big games & players, e.g. Farmville, will likely develop an application on that platform of their game, but will in no way take priority away from their main application for it.

An example of how sites have used Facebook to promote their service is http://apps.facebook.com/gottalikeit

I hope this helps.