What can be said about social gaming? My experiences with Farmville.  Post-mortem.  I played to about level 20 as a farmer.  I had fun picking crops at predetermined times. Timing my life around Farmville production cycles proved more than I could keep up with.  Others in the family and friends circles played more.  A lot more.  To the point only an Mmo gamer would understand or end up spending hour after hour, day after day, 3-8 hours at a time, playing the game.

That Farmville is an mmo is a bit of a stretch.  Maybe it’s not hardcore.  It’s social.  Still rolling that discussion over as I think about my Diablo 3 avatar and how long it took to get to level 60(72) paragon witch doctor.

Checkmarks for an mmo:

people interacting,

in fact they have to interact to succeed in the game.  Within actually playing the game

Within auction house systems

a virtual currency

used for buying/selling, and trading in-game items

persistent worlds to play in

so if a player logs out the world is still there, still moving, still creating interactions

Avatars persist.  Accomplishments and play’s rewards persist even when player is logged out.

There is no finish to the game.  It is perpetual.  Endless play is possible.

To go into other games such as City Ville and some jungle resource collecting game I did play through the first few levels.  As a hardcore gamer I found it tough for the facebook/zynga games to hold my attention.  With more complex interactions and the ability for a player to cash in on their game play would have definitely held my attention more.  Funny thing about cashing in on play is there are a few games out there that permit it. Staying on the good side of the Terms of Use has been a guiding principle for me.  But making millions selling virtual loot has evaded me.  I still try and set other goals with a higher chance of the goals happening.  Such as, pays my bills kind of pay.  The pays my bills play is done in the goal of infinite wealth as put forward by Buckminster Fuller.

Also Fuller goes on about what do people do when all the necessities are performed by 1 out of 50 people.  The other 49 I suggest can play MMO’s.  So I play.

As for creation of these games from a newb’s to beginner point of view I see artists, programmers, and business functions people coming together to create a game and get people to play it.  Making money is  a bonus but to me, making the game to end user playing the game is the best.

Appears that the place for articles is on a blog, not facebook.