Gamzee Blog

Betable’s Tyler York has a post about Facebook allowing the first real-money gaming social game in England here:

http://blog.betable.com/rigging-the-odds-what-facebooks-gambling-strategy-means-for-developers/

I applaud Betable for trying something new. They’re the only company I know that has a betting/gambling API you can drop into your existing game. And in theory, they are licensed, so you can skip the regulatory hassle, integrating gambling and betting into your game much more easily than if you went through the trouble of getting licensed yourself.

However, it’s no wonder Facebook is moving slowly here. There are major issues with gambling, it’s heavily regulated, and Facebook wants to be super-cautious as it tries out this approach. Of course they’re going to go with someone who already operates in the space where it’s legal; and they want to pilot it out.

It’s also not counter to how they’ve been doing things for the last few years. While Facebook initially opened up its platform for game development, they’ve been rolling out new features slowly and testing and piloting with select companies. This has happened for every new feature I can think of on Facebook — Web App/HTML5 integration, Credits, Offers, pricing in local currency, Open Graph, even the just rolled-out subscriptions. Companies like Zynga usually get first crack, because they have a high volume of players and a good relationship with Facebook.

Betable has a vested interest in having gambling in social games be open to everyone. After all, the more people who want to make gambling games, the more potential Betable customers. But it’s not just a matter of dropping gambling mechanics into your existing game; there are a host of other factors that go into making online gambling operations successful, as I’ve addressed previously (http://blog.gamzee.com/2012/07/trends-at-casual-connect-2012-new-game-game-nights-and-more/). And as discussed, larger offline poker, sportsbook, and casino companies and online gambling and sportsbook companies have an edge in this space. And those companies will get licensed themselves so that they can keep a bigger piece of the pie.

Making games in HTML5 is tough. You’re facing the fact that it’s a new standard, that you’re competing with other technology that’s much more mature (sometimes by 10-15+ years) and has loads of toolsets and workflows, and that most people would rather do what’s easiest rather than figuring out how to make new tech work well.

These guys are making HTML5 games. But they’re doing the hardest thing possible with HTML5 — synchronous multiplayer. God bless ‘em, and best of luck. Side note, they seem pretty sharp — all three are ex-Googlers, they’re all engineers, and one’s the first Facebook Platform Partner Engineer. Not too shabby.

It’s through the efforts of folks like Artillery (and the guys behind the new versions of Safari Mobile and the Android Browser, and Chrome, and a bunch of platform-makers and toolbuilders) that the tech gets driven forward.

The future isn’t Flash.

Well, not really news. But our very own Sean Soria wrote a guest post for Facebook’s HTML5 blog on Skyscraper City and making a speedy HTML5 cross-platform game.

Now if I could only get him to blog here, we might have some more content.

The game continues to experience some truly awesome growth. As you can see from the chart on Inside Social Games/Appdata, we’re the 4th fastest growing emerging game on Facebook this week! Woohoo. Check it out at apps.facebook.com/skyscrapercity.

Wow, who knew I had so much to say about HTML5 game development?

Gamzee Interview with Inside Social Games

Thanks to A.J. Glasser at Inside Social Games for taking the time to interview me.