Instant gaming -- not a Flash in the pan
Social instant gaming trends can be traced back to the year 2000 when Flash Player, a web graphics and animation tool, established a programming language which could be used to create games. Flash could be placed essentially anywhere without the help of a publisher.
In 2007, a Facebook gaming platform was opened for third-party developers and one of the first social Flash games, Zynga Poker, was launched on desktop. In 2009, the same company released agriculture sim Farmville, which immediately became a smash hit thanks to an interesting viral component that gave players in-game perks in return for inviting their friends. With this wildly effective mechanic established, a huge number of studios began working on social games.
While the constant invites eventually began to bother users and Facebook gradually limited the functionality, the possibilities of social instant gaming had been opened up.
Zynga's Farmville
Zynga's Farmville
Ever the visionary, Steve Jobs wrote in 2010 that Flash wasn't a good fit for Apple devices. It had security issues, drained smartphone batteries and didn't suit touch screens. Yet it wasn't until a decade later that Adobe announced that it was terminating Flash, prompted by a multitude of new mobile technologies that couldn't support it.
In the meantime, HTML5 had become the preferred technology for making instant games, and Chinese platform WeChat had become the first to integrate HTML5 games into an instant messaging service; a move that was followed with great success by Facebook Messenger.
Today, Facebook and WeChat have competition in the space from Snapchat and TikTok. Each platform is taking its own evolving route to instant gaming, informed by respective social features and user bases. For each, though, instant gaming is a logical evolution as they fight for audience retention and loyalty, seek to improve user experience and provide new forms of interaction, and identify new revenue streams.
Instant gaming and social features
Every social instant gaming platform shares the ultimate goal of virality, which means ease of entering and sharing gaming is critical. As games are fully integrated into the social platforms, progress can be shared with friends instantly. Let's look at some of the other key features of the best-known platforms.
Facebook Gaming
Simple mechanics and low entry barriers are a signature for Facebook's audience of millennials, gen x and boomers. Games that appeal to female players work best. Players can share progress and leaderboards on their newsfeed, and easily invite their friends to join.
Snapchat
High-quality multiplayer games that enable users to play as their Bitmoji avatar are a prerequisite for Snap's gen z and millennial audiences. Again, female-oriented games work extremely well.
Games are built into the messaging functionality, empowering users to play with friends while discussing the game over voice or text: a completely new gaming experience. Snap's Dynamic Lenses feature is proven to increase games' virality, while push notifications and the 'Happening Now' section boost retention and playtime.
TikTok
Dominated by Gen Z, light, entertaining content is the play on TikTok. The platform has various ways of making games shareable and giving them huge viral potential through ease of sharing gameplay content and entering games.
Even mobile developers that don't have instant games on TikTok are increasingly exploring the platform's potential for user acquisition, reflecting its uniquely engaging mechanics.
So while the core drivers of instant gaming success on each platform share a common thread, there are distinctive in-built features that differentiate them and suit their respective audiences.
Making and publishing instant games
So how can developers and publishers make the most of the social instant gaming opportunity? Should we all rush to get our IP onto social gaming platforms as well as -- or even instead of -- the app stores?
In truth, it's not as easy as all that -- yet. Despite its development over a decade or so, this is a rapidly evolving part of the video games market. The development technology, monetisation tools and ecosystems are still a work in progress.
Gismart started making instant games for Facebook as an experiment back in 2018 after seeing the success of social games on desktop and anticipating that mobile could be even better. Back then, the Facebook Gaming platform was an open ecosystem and any indie dev could publish on it, which led to low-quality games and unsuitable content. Now, games can only be provided by official partners and each game is quality tested.
Word Search Tournament on Facebook
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