I saw this over at Jeff Tunnell’s blog: GarageGames is working on something called The Great Games Experiment. It’s a bit of an awkward title for what it is.
Think of it as a MySpace clone just for games. Gamers can sign up to build a profile showing what games they own or are looking forward to, while developers can sign up to promote their projects. It also has some of the cool profile stuff known from Xbox Live, such as generating a gamercard that you can post anywhere. The site is still in its beta phase, so there’s not a lot of people there, but it looks sort of nice already.
So does the world really need a social networking site for games? The answer is yes. Or more accurately, YEEEEEES!
The Great Games Experiment, or at least something like it, could help establish a vibrant and viable Long Tail indie scene for video games. The term Long Tail is a relatively new buzzword that probably needs explaining. It essentially refers to all the stuff you won’t find in an average store but can easily find through services like Amazon, Rhapsody or Netflix. The idea is that as long as you have a large enough mass of niche stuff that can be conveniently searched and filtered through recommendations, people will gradually wander further away from the big hits and explore the more specific things. The sum total of long tail revenue can then theoretically (and already in practice in some cases) exceed the short head of hits.
The Long Tail is incidentally one of the pillars of Manifesto Games‘ business plan and investor’s pitch. Manifesto, as you probably know, is trying to aggregate indie games under one download service. They’ve managed to put together a nice catalog of games with some good ways to browse around. Sadly, they don’t truly get it.
I have a ton of respect for Greg Costikyan’s entrepreneurship, but I am not a big fan of how Manifesto has positioned itself. Before its launch I thought Manifesto was going to be big, but then it took a wrong turn by going with annoying “tongue-in-cheek” communist theming, an immature attitude towards mainstream publishers (e.g. a logo defacing/parody contest) and the cultivation of a cliquish and fake-edgy kind of community. When you’re in the business of selling games, it sucks when your site doesn’t seem all that open-minded or fun.
But there is a more fundamental problem with Manifesto’s approach. In the book The Long Tail, author Chris Anderson argues that the original MP3.com failed because it didn’t really have many reference points to mainstream music. Mind you, this is the old MP3.com indie music sharing environment, before it became a magazine style sister site to GameSpot. What you got there was a whole katamari worth of amateur material, but few easy points of entry. If you could have searched for MP3.com artists similar to ones you already knew from TV or radio (or better yet, browse profiles for well-known artists), perhaps it would have been more successful. Similarly, I think instead of becoming the Long Tail destination it wants to be, Manifesto Games is setting itself up to be an island.
I don’t know if there’s a grand ambitious plan behind GarageGames’ social networking site, but I hope so. It’s got a much better shot at getting large numbers of people excited about independent or niche games. It’s at its core a place for indie developers and gamers to meet, but profiles are not limited to games from a catalog; you can add or discuss any type of game you want. It’s an environment where a gamespace for Unreal Tournament 2004 (with YouTube videos, tagcloud, reviews and demo download, most of it user-contributed) can sit right next to a gamespace for a low-res homebrew shooter that’s sold at $7.
There needs to be a place where small games can virally market themselves the way small bands have rapidly emerged from MySpace and YouTube. I don’t know if this is going to be that place — it is still under major construction and has only 1200+ gamespaces and 2700+ profiles — but I will be keeping a close eye on it.
GGE’s certainly an interesting place with a decent amount of potential. Not a particularly snappy title though, so it may not make it into mainstream gaming’s subconcious. But we’ll see. It kind of reminds me of NewsVine in many (good) ways.
I created a profile this morning and added you to my friends list by the way, along with SEGA — there’s no Nintendo listing just yet, though, which is indicative of just how early on this site is in terms of growth. The majority of games I’m playing at the moment (DS and Dreamcast) aren’t listed either, so I may start making some entries myself.
Wrestlevania
January 23rd, 2007
P.S. I have two invites for anyone who wants one.
Marek
January 24th, 2007
Thanks you! Finally someone who gets it.
timaste
January 24th, 2007
Oh hey, you’re from GarageGames. Thanks for reading!
Marek
January 24th, 2007
Hey great writeup. Agreed 100% on your assessment of Manifesto games, which is a shame. I really like those guys, but you’re not going to get a lot of new blood (that doesn’t come from an angsty teenager) if you actually literally treat your business model like your vitriol-fueled end-of-GDC rant.
Also, good to see Garage Games doing some crazy community outreach stuff beyond Dev relations. They could be the Adult Swim version of PopCap if they presented themselves right, and things fell into place.
Jake
January 24th, 2007
I’m glad to see a thoughtful analysis of the site. Consider your blog bookmarked.
Dylan
January 24th, 2007
The MySpace for games analogy is one often used to describe GGE, but your analysis of GGE’s relation to long tail theory and contrast to Manifesto Games is very insightful. A rare and enjoyable read - thanks!
Meanwhile, the GarageGames Game Store (garagegames.com/pg) continues to grow, minus the pretentiousness of the Manifesto site. By contrast, our game store is uniquely positioned because as a developer of both game engines and games ourselves, we work closely with the games that land in our store. We’re not simply distributors, as Manifesto is, we’re true development partners and publishers. And while we encourage indiedom at every opportunity, that doesn’t mean we snub the big boys like Microsoft either.
Josh D., GG
Joshua Dallman
January 24th, 2007
Also: This site is great, thanks for the recommendation. I enjoy how refreshingly untacky it is for a networking site, especially one dedicated to such a potentially tacky field as videos games.
Jake
January 24th, 2007
Joshua: thanks! I like your non-pretentious store. Also now that you mention Microsoft, I think GarageGames’ has the right stance towards XNA. It’s another part of the puzzle, so I’m glad you guys are treating it as a friend not an enemy.
Marek
January 24th, 2007
[…] Marek Bronstring, of Idle Thumbs, has made an interesting post about The Great Games Experiment: a social networking site for gamers. His take: […]
Functional Autonomy » Blog Archive » Gamer YASNS
January 29th, 2007
Interesting stuff - a “neutral ground” where indie games can advertise themselves and gamers can swap tips has long been needed for those of us without multi-million dollar marketing budgets. Thanks for the review. I look forward to seeing GarageGames develop!
Adam
January 29th, 2007
[…] MySpace for games (Vía Digg) Enlace Permanente | Enviar por email a un amigo Más anotaciones de: General,Internet […]
Ecetia » The Great Games Experiment: La red social de los juegos
January 31st, 2007
[…] Tonight’s first award is the prestigious Best Blog URL award. This award goes to the website address that most amused and entertained me, and continues to do so. The content has to be good too, and on that basis, the winner is… Gameslol.com, and Marek Bronstring’s ”A MySpace for games“, predicting success for indie developers through the Great Games Experiment! […]
Carnival of Video Game Bloggers @ The Collected Writings of James Newton
February 19th, 2007
Hi, I found this through James Newtons blog carnival and have to say this is a very interesting blog. How did you find out about something so early on with such low user numbers? Ive applied to sign up and need to wait to be accepted (going by the website!). I definatly agree that it needs to be re-named to something shorter and more memorable. Once logged in is there a forum or something to post these kinds of suggestions to the website creators? I think it’s something that will hold back the sites growth due to the long URL…
Great article, keep it up
Gazz
February 19th, 2007
Welcome, Gazz. I just noticed the Blog Carnival went up. Nice to know it’s led you to my blog. I’ll be sure to link back to it today.
I found out about GGE by way of Jeff Tunnell’s blog (the CEO of the company that’s building it). There was recently a survey amongst GGE users and there’s also a blog where you can leave comments with suggestions, so you can definitely make your voice heard.
Marek
February 19th, 2007
[…] Many A-list bloggers such as Conversion Rater and Read Write Web have been predicting that niche social sites will be a big deal, and I agree with them. For more of a Developer take on it, Marek Bronstring had some great insite. Once basic human needs, such as getting laid, are taken care of on sites like MySpace and Facebook, social features work well for hobbies and targeted interests of users. So far, even in closed, invite-only Alpha state, we are finding huge interest in our efforts. We already have over 2,800 game listing and are nearing 8,000 users. Our Alexa rating is already dipped below 20,000, and our page views are growing exponentially. […]
Make It Big In Games » Blog Archive » Great Games Experiment Goes Open Beta
March 2nd, 2007