Indies are like little mammals running between the legs of the big and mighty dinosaurs (EA, MS, etc.). They can life from the food the big ones oversee on the floor or drop out of their mouth while chewing. They just have to be fast and smart enough not to become trodden.

Sounds right to me. Seems to be all about product placement and dynamic.

Second point – I really wonder if the massive amount of players companies like Zygna draws are really worth much. Same difference between have a million Twitter followers who are mostly passive rather than a small core group of fans.

In looking over offerings major studios released with lolapps yesterday it really occurred to me that retaining players on a platform like this, that is so formulaic, isn’t going to work for long. At the same time, it’s cheap and easy to throw on a Superhero or Ninja skin and get something out the door. Which is good for a bigger studio because these games are less about play and more about marketing. These are potentially the new game trailers. I can see value in putting up something like this for no other reason than to have a pool of players who have given permission for later marketing efforts.

All in all, I feel that big studios don’t want to pioneer, at least on these platforms. And that’s good news for all of us who are trying to figure out if social games are useful.

So, I guess I’m in the camp of “wait and see” for social games. But I’m working on a small title, just to dip my toe in the pool and see how it goes. Which is another angle Big Co. can’t easily clone – my ability to try something, fail, and walk away. Retreat isn’t tolerated by corporations. You could lose your job that way. ;)

@GamingHorror: Yes, I agree on doing things that are fun… no comments on other points you made :)

The larger companies, on the other hand, have to shoot for big numbers because they have larger overhead. Whereas your game might be fine with 50k purchases (or 10k subscribers), a larger company has to shoot for 100 times those numbers to make it worth their while.

So let Zynga or EA or whoever come along and clone your small game. Keep your overhead low, retain your customers the best you can, and you’ll do just fine. If they come along and your usebase drops, though, time to change strategies FAST! ;)

Keep in mind: if you’re successful enough that you’re being cloned, you are pretty darn successful. Probably more so than Spiderweb, Positech, and all the other Indies. So getting beaten is really a non-issue when it comes to deciding what game to do or how to do it.