The player

Bafta's games awards show that games are going social, writes CIARA O'BRIEN

SOCIAL GAMING has certainly made an impact on the gaming industry, so much so that it’s getting its own award.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) has created a category in its annual games awards dedicated specifically to social games. It’s designed to encourage creativity and further innovation, but it’s probably one area that doesn’t need much encouragement at present. New games are springing up all the time.

Announcing the new category, the chairman of Bafta’s video games committee, Ray Maguire, described the rise in popularity of social media games as “meteoric”.

He’s not exaggerating. With the increase in use of social networks such as Facebook, the category has simply exploded. Take FarmVille. That game has more than 60 million monthly users, and it’s become so popular – and annoying for some other users – that it’s even inspired its own parody game, FarmVillain.

The popularity of Facebook itself is in no small way responsible for the increase in such games. According to Bafta, more than half of the 500 million registered Facebook users regularly play games on the network.

It’s a whole new platform for gaming and developers alike. The appeal for developers is obvious: social network gaming gives them access to a global audience for relatively low cost. And like most things on social networks, it takes only a few of a user’s friends to play the game before it takes off. From a business point of view, money can be made through micropayments. The potential is almost endless.

Developers have to tread carefully, however. As a general rule, users are fickle, and making the wrong change can mean that players start to drop off, as some developers have already found out. FarmVille may be popular now, but Mafia Wars and PackRat are just two of the games that have also grabbed the attention of users.

And they’re not the only ones that have to watch their step. Those micropayments can add up – particularly if you’re not the one footing the bill. Earlier this year, a 12-year-old boy in the UK hit the headlines when he spent more than £900 on FarmVille without his mother’s knowledge.

But it’s clear that such games aren’t going anywhere any time soon. The new award will be presented for the first time in 2011 at the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards.

theplayer@irishtimes.com