And Bejeweled Blitz, PopCap’s first official Facebook offering is no exception. It’s a perfect distillation of the classic three-in-a row experience that they pioneered. It, once again, reinvents the game by forcing you to try and go for your best score within sixty seconds. It’s a game I’ve played a hundred times before, has been cloned a thousand times, and yet somehow they’ve managed to make the gameplay feel fresh once again.

Too bad it isn’t actually a social game.

Looking at it from a chicken vs. egg perspective it seems like there’s always an advantage in making the social elements your driver. Especially if you’re not Popcap. After all, no one has bothered to argue that virality isn’t a good thing for a very long time. And socializing your product means reaching out to a new audience in a way that goes beyond what gameplay alone can do.

That’s why the catch-all term "Social Games" really bugs me- a lot. It reminds me of the early days of casual, when everybody knew that there should be a better term, but nothing else would stick. Looking at the current condition of the casual marketplace and their relation to the platforms, I think it’s beneficial to differentiate between the elements that the publisher/developer can own and the ones they can’t. It may already be too late, but I’m hoping that people can do more to separate games that are simply played on social platforms (Facebook, Myspace, etc.) from games that deeply integrate social elements.

The term I’m using is "Social Platform Games". It’s a little more specific  but leaves the door open. And if you’re all about the social platforms why not call yourself something that describes it that way. It’s a moniker that a game like Bejeweled Blitz can wear proudly, without having to worry about when or if they’re going to add in all the awesome social elements. And if you’re a true social game on top of that, even better.

Right now it’s a one man crusade to see if I can get people to adopt it the term. But if someone wants to come up with something a little more catchy accurate let me know

If other people are your resources when you play a social game, then what is it that lets the user that both communicates and interacts with that resource?

The answer is Status.

And when it comes to Social Games it’s a word with two meanings. Direct status defines player’s position in the world as the game defines it. How many points/levels/gold etc. they have. And then there’s their position relative to the other people playing: relative status.  Both are important in Social Games, but the second obviously has even more importance for social media, because that relative status allows the developer to parse just how much value each user can provide.

A pretty good example of this in action is the standard "X-Wars" games like Mob Wars, Mafia Wars, etc. Because there’s money in having more people playing the game, the developers are mostly interested in using player Status as a way to get more people to become players.

The first kind of relative status is simply being a Facebook friend. The rules of the X-Wars game make everyone on the friend’s list a potential resource for the player. The game will push the player hard to get them to invite them their friends to play the game. The game rewards for converting them, by allowing you to purchase bigger and better stuff. Essentially it’s asking the player to ask their friends whether they would be willing to change their status to help you out, and vice versa.

Ultimately that Direct status can be compared to other player’s on a score ladder, using your direct status to compare it to other people’s relative status.

Get it?

It’s one of the key methods of social communication inside a game, and in MMOs, it’s also one of the key motivators.

Thoughts? Questions? Throw them in the comments below.