How the Mafia conquered social networks

Not so long ago, on the games in social networks are zombies, vampires and cuddly virtual pets. Now it is more in the style of Michael Corleone and Tony soprano.

You probably have seen it in your news feed: From MySpace to Facebook and now Twitter, the mafia-themed game more or less assumed. Gangsters, a game created by Playdom development company, is the most popular programs on the MySpace platform. Mafia Wars, which is owned by Zynga is a great success in Facebook. Social Games Network has an iPhone app called Mafia: Respect and revenge. And earlier this month, a Twitter-based game called Mafia 140 launched. The craze seems to have started with a Facebook app called Mob Wars, built by a small company named Psycho Monkey.The of many of these games are the same. You can find or join a "crowd" the social network of friends that The Game has been rebuilt. You can perform the mission, including "kill" other players in the rival mobs, in order to earn points. Your business is transmitted through news feeds or Twitter posts to your friends in the network in question.

Gambling racketeer with mania, social network developer may have found the secret to multiplayer role-playing - highly lucrative area ultrageeks - fully into the mainstream. They can build elaborate role-playing scenarios with points, levels, and weapons law, but without stain attached geeky fantasy-theme game in the vein of World of Warcraft. (2006 An episode of Comedy Central series "South Park" until the last summer.)

"Many of the core architecture is very similar to role-play in the past, and the results and so on are often the topics on this issue, but some are very general, indeed," said Justin Smith, who runs Inside blog Inside Facebook and social games. "If you compare a game to a dragon mob based games, they are in fact pretty much the same with different content."

"People just love the crime genre," said Mark Pincus, Zynga CEO to publish Mafia Wars. Bandit's game is currently the company's most popular program, with 15 million active users in social networks Facebook, MySpace and labeled. 'GTA (Grand Theft Auto) and the derivatives of the GTA games top lists, and I think that is more cultural than these games are more important to people than many other games going in other genres, if or more historical imagination. Fantasies of people who believe that it is closer to reality. "

There is another side to her: Organized crime in the real world tend to be in connection with the abduction of wealth in one form or another (drugs, money, games, whatever you want). When you get popular racketeer perception of life and transportation in a game environment, it is possible to put money in the blend. Most of the Web Mafia-themed role-playing games make money from advertising and selling virtual goods, and some allow you to collect more points and "level" by completing offers and surveys. It is no secret that some companies do little social games before, but it is a game racketeer particularly lucrative business.

"(This is) climbing its way higher, and the status and ego to be the biggest and the best and toughest," said Jason Bailey, CEO and co-founder of Super Rewards, the company partners with 140 in the Mafia power of its payment platform. In 140 Mafia, for example, players who want to speed their recovery from a game of poker can apply to "sponsor" for a service (and this will cost them money).

Plus, Bailey said, it becomes personal: "This is the smallest factor that violence also be able to feed the people and put them on the hit list. When someone does that for you, when someone kills your character .. . furore of the bars to people is much stronger and more that they are ready to return to a sports game or racing game themes. "

As with any online sensation But the question remains: Is it just a fad? From film noir in "The godfather" in "The sopranos" gangster themes has a long lifespan of their games but racketeer social networks can easily disappear from the service if something more exciting comes along. But the real lasting impact, social gaming insiders said, is the fact that in Web development makes it possible to hold a game in a phase of development. When these games hit critical mass - which is alleged Mafia game - it is easier to keep people around.

Short attention span
They also are less maintenance, "says Dave Kahn, chief product manager for the Mafia Wars Zynga.

"I want to say that the difference between what makes the most popular time Mafia Wars game that your traditional or traditional hardcore game is that you can have the same experience with a five-minute game and you can interact with your friends, "said Kahn. "I want to say a game like GTA or a game of this crime genre will be very popular if you can interact with your friends on a daily basis and it does not require much time investment for you and your friends to take interaction satisfactory. "

"You can come in and get out of the short sprint. You can play in 30 seconds, you can play in five minutes," says Jason Bailey. "This is not a first person shooter or a real-time strategy games where, if the phone call, you will get shot. It is really easy to get in and out of these games."

In the flip side, however, casual players who do not have a time of massive investment in a game is much more likely to be variable on whether the left. Time will tell how "tacky" gangster game show to be for players who are not entirely serious.

But after the attention span issues, perhaps the greatest challenge for the creators of gangster games is that there is too many already, and companies that make them have fallen in the courtroom that bears a battle ironic that acts as a mob war. There is a great atmosphere between Playdom and Zynga, for example in the recent alleged illegal use of the name in its advertising Mafia gangsters Wars game. And Psycho monkey Mob Wars creator Zynga sued law on copyright, in February.

"There are a variety of conflicts which are still in the process, and I think that generally reflect only the culture of the current development of social networks in the game now," Inside Social Games Justin Smith said. "There is a very quick iteration based on the adaptation of other games and turning them in a small way, and it has not many good examples of cases where IP is protected in court. So I think it will be really interesting to see how some of these cases play in the coming months. "

What we have learned in the Scrabulous-Wordscraper-Lexulous issue last year, when producer scrabble board game used to force a case based on Facebook imitator to change its name, intellectual property law for the games are complex, and many similar game can legally co-exist as long as they do not share some important characteristics. But it is not clear whether the mob war in Mob Wars and its ilk, and will be without bloodshed.

"There are literally 20 or 30 games on the mob-topics Facebook and MySpace platforms, and it is conservative," says Jason Bailey. "If you find something that works, they copy it and copy it and copy it to lead."

The rules of the game for racketeer games, and all other games social network that makes money through virtual goods transactions and may change dramatically when the social networks begin to introduce their system of payment. Facebook will soon start doing this, and is also circulated as a possible business model for Twitter. It is unclear what rules will be in both cases.