During the summer my kids have had a lot of free time. Aside from driving me and my wife a little crazy, they have spent a lot of time playing various flash games. Now of course being a fan of video games I have kept all of my old video game systems and video games, so there is no shortage of good high quality games to play. So I'm asking myself why they are favoring these somewhat annoying games online. I think the answer lies in simplicity. They don't have to give a lot of white matter work to understand the objectives of these games, and I just have to say that I am glad I'm not a tron.
I think that Zynga's recent success with similar types of games really shows how this principle is not only popular, but profitable as well. There is a lot of copycats out there though, which makes sense since it is really hard to come up with new kinds of games. I have been impressed by a few the innovations I have seen, but even most of those borrow heavily from various predecessors. In looking at my game design it also borrows heavily from previous game types, which is why I'm so confused why no one has ever made a game like it. Well I'll just have to keep at it.
