Facebook Details Changes, As Game Devs Question Benefits

Major social network Facebook this week released a list of new changes to the site intended to keep gamers and non-gamers in largely separate spheres, and some developers are concerned about the affect the changes could have on their games' growth. Among these changes are game notifications that will "only be shown to those who are already engaging with the application." Reversing a previous update, game stories will be seen in their entirety (i.e. not collapsed or aggregated in the users' News Feed), as only people playing that same game will be able to see the notifications. The spheres of Facebook gamer and non-gamer are not completely separate. Facebook said it will begin to show "fewer but more impactful News Feed stories" related to apps and games using the new "discovery story" News Feed item. "For example, instead of the typical story saying that someone just bought a new item, it could say 'Dave, Jonny and 3 other friends' just started playing a game," Facebook explained in a blog post. The company didn't explain the algorithm behind the feature, or how many friends need to start playing a game before non-players are notified. Through that method, Facebook hopes that users not interested in friends' gaming activities will not be hassled with updates. But the company still expects the change to help "drive new user growth for games." This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that with 200 million people playing Facebook games out of the total 500 million-strong userbase, games are a "phenomenon." But he added that game notifications are "one of the biggest complaints that we get" from users. While Facebook said that the changes, rolling out this week, will drive more "meaningful discovery" of games for those not playing them, developers have raised some red flags, mainly relating to potentially stunted virality -- a key marketing component of social games. Social game specialty site InsideSocialGames quoted Lolapps CEO Arjun Sethi, who reportedly summed up many developers' concerns: "One thing we’re worried about is, how do you find new gamers? How do they know if they will like the game or not?" He was expressing apparent doubt in the new "discovery story" feature. Elsewhere on our own website, Anatoly Ropotov, Gamasutra expert blogger and CEO at Facebook developer InnoWate (Legacy of Rome), expressed similar doubt about being able to reach new players. "As for overall Facebook experience impact: users will be segregated between players and non-players," he said. "Non-players will start seeing 'discovery' stories, mentioning that few friends have started playing a new game. No [pictures], no explanation, just the name of the game and list of friends." He added, "Users will get clean news feeds if they want, developers will see virality drop from news feed channels/streams to ZERO. NULL. It will only serve as a retention and re-engagement tool." Facebook's full list and explanation of the changes is below: Drive Re-engagement - Targeting stories based on usage. Application stories will only be shown to those who are already engaging with the application. This means people who play games on Facebook can freely share stories about challenges and progress with friends, without worrying about overwhelming their friends who don’t play. - Displaying full game stories. Now that game stories are uniquely aimed at the people playing them, they will no longer be collapsed or aggregated in News Feed. This gives you more real estate to reach your users with more relevant content. - Deploying smarter bookmarks. The apps people use the most will be automatically bookmarked and will reordered based on usage. Individual apps will no longer need to request people to bookmark them. - Displaying more prominent counts. If there’s a task to be completed within a game, or a user has an outstanding invitation, a count will be highlighted next to the bookmark on their home page for convenient re-engagement. Improve Discovery - Surfacing game activity through friends. By showing fewer but more impactful News Feed stories based on friends’ activity and social context, we hope to drive new user growth for games. For example, instead of the typical story saying that someone just bought a new item, it could say “Dave, Jonny and 3 other friends” just started playing a game. - Moving requests. With the more prominent counts, we’re encouraging users to look to the left hand nav for their daily Facebook activity, so it makes sense for games re-engagement and discovery for requests to move to that high visibility area.