I was thinking about why there is such a divide between social games and traditional hardcore games. Then I when I attended Digifest I realized one potential reason why. It has to do with player growth, artistic merit, and causing discussion.
More after the break!
Maybe in the early days of the arcades they designed games to suck away our quarters. But at least they gave us a challenge and an experience. The crushing difficulty of some games gave the people who mastered the game a certain degree of respect.
RPGs which feature a lot of grinding at least tried you a story to think about and a experience. Even the Dragon Quest games which are famous for the grind at least tested your skill even at max level.
Even some other games which didn't require skill to play... they usually had a message to deliver. Even if they over-relied on shock value or something else like that, they still caused people talk about certain topics.
Then you have some social games (and not the in-person kind) which are all about trying pull your friends into the game and aren't really skill-based at all. After all, why make it skill-based and/or send some artistic message when you can have every single person play it? Why would you worry about making all your players even slightly more skilled in planning or twitch action than before?
And to all those social games out there that are skill based, please become more successful. Beg of you. Please...
Micro-transactions in mixed-skill-luck games are still cool though. Totally different. Don't confuse the two.
