Call it Funware. That’s the name for applications with game-like mechanics and game-like behavior that really aren’t traditional video games. And Funware just might steal the thunder from video games, which may no longer have a monopoly on either interactivity or fun.
With new places to play — such as the iPhone, on Facebook, or even with Google mash-ups on personlized web sites — web-based social interaction is changing the way that many people entertain themselves.
While the term may be new to you, you can readily grasp it, particulary if you’ve heard the phrase, “Facebook is a game.” Tossing sheep at your friends on Facebook certainly qualifies as Funware. So does competing to get more followers on your Twitter account than your friends. And so does filling out your profile details on LinkedIn, the professional networking site that gives you a little reward if you fill out the otherwise tedious online form in full.
The name “Funware” was coined by that Gabe Zichermann, CEO of New York-based start-up rmbr, to classify his own company’s photo-based fun application. Funware examples are proliferating, giving Zichermann plenty to blog about. But he’s not the only proponent of this new kind of threat to traditional web sites and game companies alike. In a recent panel discussion of the subject at the Web 2.0 Expo, the panelists concluded that Funware is something every social media and gaming company should embrace.
“Unequivocably, for the first time, games have direct competition for user time,” Zichermann said in an interview. “Until now, we’ve been [like] Pac-Man eating the cherry of television and the printed word. Now, a new type of application has emerged that, in the long term, could be more engaging and sticky than what the game industry produces.”
Zichermann, who posted his first Funware title today at rmbr, has a vested interest in espousing this view that game companies are lagging on Funware, as he plans to raise money soon for his own Funware company. But he has a decade of experience in games (he was founder of game downloading firm Trymedia, which Real Networks bought) and so he has some credibility in claiming to be ahead of the curve. And other industry veterans back him up.
Funware includes applications such as eBay, which made it fun to earn rewards as a competitive buyer or seller on its auction site. The term may also be applied to alternate-reality games such as “ilovebees.com,” where masses of players collectively solved a mystery about an invasion of earth. The site I’m in like with you uses game-like behavior to radically reshape a typical dating application.
The Google Image Labeler, created by Carnegie Mellon University researcher Luis von Ahn, is built around an “ESP” game where two people try to simultaneously label an image and, without being able to communicate, try to come up with the same label for the image as the other person. If they correctly identify a person in a picture as a man, they can get some points; but if they correctly identified the man as Bill Gates, they would get more. The game helps Google improve the accuracy of its image searches.
Flickr traces its origins to game industry veterans Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, whose team stumbled upon photo-sharing while they were trying to make a game. Bunchball has made a tool, dubbed Nitro, that makes web sites more engaging by instilling them with reward-based activities. Entellium has built game principles into its customer relationship management software and Seriosity has a game-like email program.
One of the ominous things for the video game industry is that almost none of these Funware ideas or businesses have come from game companies, which are now failing to catch on to an expansion opportunity. It’s an odd situation, given that game designers are the ones who best understand how to keep consumers addicted, Zichermann says. What’s more, it’s possible that social networks that use fun game mechanics may actually be robbing games of their audiences, he adds. Read the rest of this entry »
