August 06, 2011, 7:53 AM — Social gaming is big business for Facebook, and all signs point to Google's jumping into the social-gaming market with Google+. But can Google+ offer anything different (or better) than Facebook already does? We asked Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam (Dragons of Atlantis, Kingdoms of Camelot), and Neil Haldar, executive producer for RocketNinja (Unstoppable Wrestling, Ocean Kingdom), about their first impressions of the gaming potential of Google+.
While both men were reluctant to speculate deeply about long-term plans for Google+ gaming (which is understandable, considering how little Google has said about social gaming or a developer API), they both noted that Circles could add a lot to future social games, especially since companies in the social-gaming business have things a little better figured out now than they did when Facebook Games launched. Read on for the full Q&A.
Kevin Chou, CEO, Kabam
What do you think of Google+ so far?So far we've been impressed by Google's implementation of Google+. Their ability to release a product that is pretty much at feature parity with Facebook at version 1 is quite a feat. They've done a good job beginning to integrate all their properties, and they've shown that they can create a quality, high-touch product with design in mind. We're looking forward to seeing how long-term consumer adoption and usage play out.
Do you believe Google+ will open doors to new kinds of social games we haven't seen (or haven't seen succeed) on Facebook?Google has not made any specific announcements regarding outside apps, including gaming. And, it's yet to be seen if hard-core or even casual social gamers will actively use the network to play games. So it's really too early to comment on games for Google+. We'll have to see how Google supports games and various communication tools as they continue to build. We'll be watching that keenly, and making sure that we're serving our playing customers across the right platforms.
Do any Google+ features stand out as particularly useful for a social-game developer?One thing that does look very interesting to us as a games company is Circles. A major component of our massively multiplayer social games is alliances, which, along with in-game social communication tools, allow you to partner with up to 100 other players at a time to coordinate your activities (raids, defense plans, etc.). Circles could provide a great, easy-to-use tool to establish and manage your community of game-playing friends, facilitating out-of-game as well as in-game communications among your Circle of gamers. Most important, you can do this without annoying your other Circles of friends with all of your game communications.
Neil Haldar, Executive Producer, RocketNinja
Do you believe Google+ will open doors to new kinds of social games we haven't seen (or haven't seen succeed) on Facebook?Google+ has the potential to be a powerful new entrant to social gaming, for a few reasons.
First off, Google owns a browser. The Chrome Web Store, already populated with Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, etc., feels like it is gaining some early adopters and a lot of casual gamers for in-browser experiences. Thus far, the experiences feel very well integrated into the browser, and they feel fluid and fun.
Second, Google+ Circle additions, for me, autopopulate into my GTalk and Gmail interfaces. On the surface, that feels like stronger connectivity to the real-world experiences of what I do on the Web, rather than navigating to Facebook and exploring the amazing myriad of connectivity and games under a Facebook URL-ized world.
Third, we're seeing Google work games into the Chrome app store. It will make sense if the HTML5-driven app experiences within the Chrome store become socially connected to work with Google+. If they do, this could portend an easy push into Android devices via in-browser rendering, potentially bringing Google+ game experiences to mobile devices.
Lastly, games developers have spent a lot of time refining and constantly getting closer to "social-gaming Zen" on Facebook and other social networks. New games on Google+ will start with that knowledge from day one, allowing game experiences to grow from the accumulated knowledge of where we are today.
