Translation Results Requested Through Conyac Made Public

Facebook was never optimized for social gaming

The viral invite mechanic on which this model of social gaming works fails because of two reasons:

1. Not every user on Facebook is genuinely interested in playing or trying a social game. That’s not the primary use case of the network, since Facebook is first a publishing platform and then a marketing platform. Good content goes viral on the platform because it adds value to the users, who are largely out there looking for good content. Facebook is optimized for good content, not for game invites. 2. The underlying network is based on real identities. As a result, users are more sensitive about spamming their friends and creating poor experiences for them. As with any other technology experience, users don’t necessarily differentiate negative behavior (spam) from day one and gradually acquire the sophistication to avoid spamming. The current breed of social gaming companies that have optimized and perfected the art of acquiring users on Facebook and other non-native viral platforms are now faced with an additional challenge (since Facebook’s policy tightening) with which they have no experience: Building a user acquisition platform where they own the users across games. Companies which have already built a user acquisition engine on a native platform have a headstart here. The smaller screen problem and ‘unbundling’

Every web-first company seems to be up against this challenge. Mobile gaming comes with three unique problems:

1. The small on-screen real estate limits monetization options.