Civilization creator Sid Meier has given the thumbs-up to social gaming by describing the genre as an exciting “new frontier.”
“[But] I don’t think it replaces any other forms of gaming. It just is attractive to a different type of gamer…and enriches the world of gaming as opposed to one thing replacing the other,” Meier told IndustryGamers.
“You’re not going to see hard core gamers switching in totality over to social gaming or iPhone gaming or whatever it is, but you’re certainly correct in that there’s a lot of new outlets for gaming, whether it’s iPhone applications – again, a lower development cost – Facebook applications, browser games, all these things.”
According to Meier, the industry is still discovering the rules of social gaming – including “what’s going to work, what’s not going to work” as well as the primary target audience.
“That’s probably what makes it very exciting for me, is to be part of exploring the frontier and trying out different things that haven’t been done before and see how they work in this new world,” he explained.
“But I think we, every year or two, we do see a new – whether it’s the Wii a couple of years back, or iPhone gaming or Xbox Live – there’s always a new opportunity. Gaming is just growing into more and more different areas without really leaving behind any of the existing ways of playing.”
