Filed under: Games, Web services, Social Software, Facebook
Of Facebook's 500 million-plus users, 200 million of them play games. Thanks to some new changes in Facebook's UI and policies, announced at the big Facebook Games event tonight, those Facebook games are about to become more fun for gamers and less spammy for non-gamers.As part of its gaming initiative, Facebook has made its sidebar navigation more relevant by pushing your most commonly used apps to the top of the list. That means that even Facebook's apps, if you don't use them, can be sorted down below the "more" fold. This isn't gaming-specific, but it will keep the games you play at the top.
Apps with new events will get a blue icon next to their names, so you know what's new right away. Game invitations now get lumped into one badge, though, so you know how many you have at a glance, and you won't have to individually respond to every one. Game-specific notifications in the activity stream will now only be shown to users who are actually playing the games. Finally! This means no more spam in your stream when your Farmville-addicted friends get new items. If you're playing a particular game, though, you won't miss a thing.
Facebook has also come up with a less spammy, more persuasive way for you to discover new games to play with your friends when you can't see those in-game events: you'll just see a notification that your friends started playing a game, something to the effect of "John, Mark and 4 others started playing Farmville." Fortunately, you can hide these, just like anything else in your stream. Once you sign up for a game, though, it looks Facebook has removed all the policies keeping developers from sucking you in with repeated messages and action items.
These changes look positive for gamers and game developers, making it easier to get hooked on a game and find friends to play with. What Facebook didn't focus on as much is how great it is for non-gamers who were tired of all the loud game promotion in their news feeds. All in all, I'm looking forward to, as the Facebook Games team described it, this "more thoughtful" approach to Facebook gaming.
Facebook Games announcement: big UI changes, more fun and less spam! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�CommentsOlivia Wilde
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