I can’t believe how many Facebook games insist on being annoying, rude, stupid and undeserving of my time and attention. No, I don’t want to invite other friends before I even know what this game is about. No, I don’t want to wade through several layers of “Someone has a crush on you!” ads and promotions for other applications before getting to the actual app I was maybe possibly interested in. I also don’t want to play your stupid game where I have to bid fake money on my friends, or steal their parking space when they’re not looking. Most of all, I’m sick of the pyramid scheme viral mechanics. “You’ve been bitten by a vampire, now bite three other people!”. NEIN.
Why are so few Facebook games actually fun and inviting? Why do so few of them genuinely and positively leverage having access to all your friends?
Yesterday I played Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures. Its gameplay is extremely minimal but I was pleasantly surprised by how nice and friendly it is and how it doesn’t try to act like a crazy door-to-door salesman or Jehova’s witness. It also includes a simple but fun mechanic: you can buff your friends. Yeah, this isn’t rocket science. You can pull up a list of friends who are also playing the game and you can buff them. As a result, they’ll be a bit more powerful during their next encounters. That’s it! A non-annoying thing to do that uses your friends list! I logged in again this morning and found that a friend had healed me by 3 points while I was offline. This actually encouraged me to keep playing.
Other Facebook games could learn from this. (But really, it’s just common sense.)
Hey, my name is Marek Bronstring and I'm Head of Content at Sega. You're looking at my rarely-updated game design blog. I think this sidebar needs some more text so let me tell you what my top favorite animals are: 1) meerkats 2) 
I couldn’t agree more.
ZeroXcape
December 17th, 2008
It’s official now, I love you!
rense
December 18th, 2008
[...] process followed by funware developers has the tendency to be a race to the bottom. If there are 3 people making "Vampire" games, then the one who abuses social networks [...]
Ted Howard : Games People and Web People
December 20th, 2008
Just as an added thought: I think most game/app developers are shortsighted, focusing only on user acquisition (often in the most spammy way possible) rather than focusing on user engagement & retention. I don’t just want to see better games on Facebook because that’s what I want as a gamer… from a design and business point of view, I’d like to think that if you make something that people actually enjoy using or playing you’ll reap far more benefits in the end.
Marek
December 20th, 2008