In social games, friends aren't really friends; they are mere resources. And not just resources for the player, but also for the game developer, who relies on insipid, "viral" aspects of a design to make a system replicate.

Ian Bogost has posted his key arguments from the 'Social Games on Trial' session I participated in last week. It's thought-provoking, eloquent reading, even if I still stand with my general position, which is essentially 'what's the big deal'. The issue taken up in the above quote was, e.g. discussed in the context of board games where one could argue that much of the same happens. My question was that isn't it about stylization of social relationships for the purposes of play, much like in many other games. Furthermore, I still think that it's way too easy to criticize the whole social games scene for certain traits of Marc Pincus' business morals.

Also, Ian clearly should play more social games to find out 'play acts' that are other than 'mere actuations of operations on expired timers' - sure the dominant form is just that, but on the other hand, I take him also speaking for creativity and innovation within this space, so a closer look across the board would be justified; at games like Bite Me!, Nightclub City, Nanostar Siege, Verdonia, and even Frontierville, just to name a few.

Don't get me wrong, I like Cow Clicker. Besides, I have been writing about the ethics of social game design on these pages, so I do find this kind of criticism warranted. Mostly, that is - it's the over-generalizations (e.g. equating the industry with Zynga only) I find troublesome, especially coming from the academic flank they feel like flagging of a dead horse to me.

Finally there is the question of imagination that was left unanswered both in the session and in Ian's post. Check out Gabriel Murphy's comment to Ian's post, as it's echoing my points.

As I stated in the session, Cow Clicker resembles a concept I have been trying to pitch that involves collecting piggy banks and just cashing them in, instead of all the hoopla going into creating a theme and all the assets it requires (my idea was inspired by Happy Island's cash in mechanic for the returning player). I think it is indicative of the drift behind Ian's thinking and mine that we both coined the concept as an effort at ultimate simplification of game design, but mine was also coined as a provocation towards 'real' game designers' way of thinking, whereas Ian's Cow Clicker is more of a satiric take from the perspective of a game designer. The polar opposite, more or less.