Co-founder Sebastien de Halleux gets futuristic.
When will social games stop being so derivative? It was the first question for Playfish co-founder Sebastien de Halleux at LeWeb '10 this morning.
"In the first quarter of next year you're going to see a raft of announcements from new entrants in the social gaming category with new game design concepts," he said, while admitting that there has been a lot of copying until now.
Roughly half Facebook users are engaged in games - 200-250 million on a monthly basis, according to Halleux.
He also talked about the growth of branded games on Facebook. "There has been a little bit of a status quo in terms of the top ten in the last year, but that's hiding a more meaningful trend," he said.
"Look underneath that cover at the categories, and you see the emergence of new categories." He cited the Arcade category, with games like PopCap's Bejeweled Blitz, and Sports, with Playfish/EA's FIFA Superstars.
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"Where are your first-person shooters, where are your racing games?" he asked. "There's lots of room still to innovate.
He admitted that technology is a factor in this, thanks to the limitations of Flash, and the mechanics of social gaming itself.
"Technology has never been a limiting factor to create great gaming experiences," he said.
Playfish currently sells about 90 million items a day in its games - "ten times the total number of items listed on eBay in any given day" said Halleux, after being asked about virtual items. The company has also sold 1.7 billion virtual apples.
"You buy those items to get a social benefit. You buy a cake to give to your friend for his birthday, or you buy a rose for Valentine's Day," he explained.
However, another dynamic at work is that virtual items are meaningful - for example FIFA Superstars players paying eight Euros for a gold player pack, because they see that as meaningful (and worthwhile) in the context of the game.
Typically, between 1% and 5% of Playfish players are currently spending money within its games. "Those players are actually spending a significant amount of money, certainly in comparison to retail," he said.
Interestingly, Halleux claimed that users have asked for things like introducing a $100 price point within Playfish games - "we wanna higher price point so we don't have to do multiple transactions" as he put it.
"They don't feel nickel and dimed. They respect that we're offering them the content for free in the first place, and letting them decide [whether to pay]."
Halleux also said there's a lot of room for "game enhancement through brands" in the social gaming world - more so than on console. Think Dr Pepper drinks in Playfish's restaurant-themed game, as an example.
However, Playfish expects the majority of its revenues to come from direct player transactions in the future.
What about mobile though? Playfish has only dipped its toes in the app store waters so far, so will that ramp up in the months and years ahead?
"Mobile is extremely important to us," he said, from an EA perspective. "We try to select the network that has the best social graph and that gives you an experience that includes your real friends..."
