I don’t necessarily agree with his conclusions. I think he’s overly concerned with sexism while glossing over the fact that women (and mainstream gamers in general) may not be interested in the same play patterns, but it’s definitely worth a look.

via Lou Anders

She does an excellent job of breaking down the economics.

All I have to do is consider that I already spend most of my time gaming on a PC. Partly that’s because I’m an old man with a fetish for humming boxes that I built myself, and partly it’s because I want all the other features that a PC offers: instant access to my email, Twitter, screen-grab software, and my own music to replace generic rock track X on racing game Y.

If the 360 does start to support all these things (there’s no confirmation as to whether Last.FM will be able to run in the background as a soundtrack to your games), it’ll become the kind of gaming machine that I want to spend my time with for more reasons than just because it has some games that my PC doesn’t.

It will become a device that has more of the networked infrastructure, and more of the media tweaks and toys that I take for granted as part of my desktop computer.

I think that there’s way more to it than just this. With the Natal Microsoft is planning to re-launch the XBox. And if I’m reading between the lines correctly, they’re essentially going to do what Nintendo did with the Wii, except they won’t even bother to beef up the hardware. They’ll simply bundle the new motion technology in and go on a media blitz. And I think that could work. After all the box will basically be able to do everything from downloading games to playing movies and music off of your home network.

It’s taken a while, but the 360 may finally be the “everything box”.

Every time a new market opens up the first games to appear are built on traditional, time-tested play patterns. From the DS to the iPhone, from XBLA to browser games, it’s always rock-solid gameplay that shows up first, with the fancy stuff pulling up in a later bus. And it’s been true since the beginning of the medium. It wasn’t the gorgeous graphics that made pong a household name.

Sure, basic expectations have grown in the last thirty years. These days players expect a lot more from even the most basic games than just a sprinkling of pixels and some bloops and bleeps. But it’s not zero-sum either. In the wrong hands, or used in the wrong way, adding more graphical effects may just serve to confuse your audience, or make a game that has less mainstream appeal. More isn’t always better, and the audience for social games isn’t one that will necessarily appreciate a hardcore experience.

There will be ad-based revenue streams. There’s an opportunity to draw those pirate customers into the revenue stream. We want to draw them into the Windows family and maybe there’s an upsell opportunity later.

I’m not sure how you can offer a "pirate version" without upsetting the paying customers, and/or limiting/breaking features when the software becomes aware that its not a legitimate copy, but it may be possible they’ve come up with something original here.

That would be exciting because I’m sure an elegant solution to having multiple versions and revenue streams would be something that a lot of people would be interested in. However, most of the time it ends up being just another flavor of brute force.

Obviously there’s going to need to be a strong integrated web component in the next version, so maybe this somehow ties into that.

Anyone have any other ideas on how this might work?

Social Media is a means to an end while Social Games are an end to themselves.

That’s not to say you can’t use a Social Game as a media tool. In fact I believe that the ability of a game to send a marketing message is one the great missed opportunities of the current media generation. But that’s another post…

If you’re looking to have something that gives you a quantifiable return on investment then Social Games exist in a different category because the money generated comes directly from your application.

Whether you’re choosing direct sales, micropayments, or even click through advertising, it’s much easier to figure exactly how many dollars you’re getting for your doughnuts.

There are ways to cut that profitability up and apply to other Social Media models, but it’s nice to have something that has such a clear value chain.