The past few weeks, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of unwanted updates in my Facebook newsfeed:
- James and three other friends played Farmville.
- Amy and two friends are playing Word with Friends
- Bob is playing Give Me Back My Life.
Didn’t we already go through this in 2009?
Facebook is slowly experimenting with bringing games back into the newsfeed. Bastards.
Those updates aren’t my friends telling me how awesome a game is. That’s Facebook trying to lure me to spend more time on Facebook. I’m sure half of my friends don’t even know their playtime is being corrupted into crappy advertisements.
Games used to be so entertaining and exciting that you had to tell people about them. They brought so much joy into your life, that if you didn’t let someone else share that joy, you were doing a disservice to the human race.
Real game makers still make games like this. I read about those games in messages from my friends. I see them when I go to a party. I hear about them over the phone, or in a conversation at lunch.
Unless I’m talking about social media with a bunch of social media nerds, I don’t hear about Facebook games. Why? Facebook games aren’t good. Facebook games replace the ideas of fun and entertainment with fear of missing out.
And is that what we really want from our games? A vague threat that serves as entertainment? The concept of playing together when other people aren’t even in the same room?
Facebook - stop rewarding games that aren’t fun. Provide a platform so people can make exciting and entertaining games that are compelling enough to draw people in without corrupting their playtime.
Get these meaningless updates out of my newsfeed. I’ve got important cat pictures I need to be looking at.
