Monthly Archives: May 2010

Should FTC file Facebook Antitrust?

Antitrust, Facebook, FTC, Government, Web2.0, ,

facebook-opolyAt almost 500 million active users and half of all internet users worldwide, Facebook is a “natural monopoly”.  It comprises over 75% of the internet users in the US.  If you are making social applications or games Facebook is effectively the only  game in town.

I am a big fan of Facebook and we are developing games for the platform.  While many  ruminate over the implications of Facebook’s privacy changes I am much more concerned by the implications of other policy changes towards businesses.

Some of my compatriots might worry about the reorganization of notifications and requests, but the elephant in the room is Facebook’s Credits.  Credits are an initiative to take control of the monetization of all apps on the platform by taking a Apple-sized bite of 30% of every transaction. This will effectively erase any profit for many companies.

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A Checklist for Kids Virtual Worlds

Community, Games, MMO, ShadyLogic, Technology, Usergenerated,

In February I  was honored to be part of a Panel on Virtual World development at Engage 2010 at the NY Toy Fair.

In “The Tactical Perspective:  A Best Practices Checklist” we discussed the process of migrating brands online, including a typical product development roadmap and timeline.  At a high level we covered the different phases of production as well as engaging an audience, building a brand, operations,  moderation and driving ROI.

Engage Expo was great to work with and has generously shared the recordings of the session:

Should Designers Script?

Games, MMO, ShadyLogic, Technology

At last years LOGIN conference Peter asked me to do a debate.  Knowing that I was bit outspoken in my views on technology and game design he pitted me against Isaac Barry of Gamehouse.  Our topic… “Should game designers be allowed to write code in a  scripting language”.

Watch the video if you want to get into the debate.  It is a bit slow initially.  I was a bit evil and switched the tables on Isaac in the opening statements by framing the debate around MMO’s and then conceding his main points around casual games.  Issac recovered about halfway for some fun points.

Or you can read more….

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