Social games market will "crash very hard"

The social gaming market that has propelled firms such as Zynga to success is going to crash very hard”.

That’s according to Silicon Knights’ founder Denis Dyack, who believes that Facebook gaming and similar phenomena are in for a shock when the bubble bursts.

It is damaging traditional gaming for sure… but how it’s going to work out is anyone’s guess,” he told Industry Gamers. The trend that I see is it’s probably going to be one of the biggest bubbles and explosions that our industry’s seen in a long time and I think when it crashes, it’s going to crash very hard. I don’t think there’s an economy there.”

He elaborated on the latter claim, explaining that the money that has been invested in such games has been foolish, and doesn’t lend itself to a long-term business model.

Dyack said: As far as I know, [Zynga’s investment is] going into pure social gaming. It looks like marketing to me. It doesn’t look like real gaming. I think Zynga’s valuated more than some traditional publishers right now that have been in the industry for decades.

Right now you’re seeing a lot of influx in venture and you’re seeing a lot of excitement and a lot of pie in the sky ideas, but when games actually have to start showing pure revenue and real ‘here’s how much we made and here’s how much it cost’… I think that industry is going to not last very long.”