Sometimes math can really sum up a situation well.

.Today brings both interesting news and bad news out of Electric Arts. It was announced that EA has sank $300 million into purchasing Playfish, a casual game studio that’s made a splash on Facebook. While casual web games are certainly no new thing for EA, there is no doubt in my mind that they’ll be pulling in some good revenue with this purchase. Which makes the other news announced about them today all the more surprising:

Even though they just spent $300 million on that purchase, EA has also laid off a significant portion of their employees, and sources are saying that includes 40% of Mythic. According to EA, the total number of people being laid off totaled to somewhere around 1500 – no small amount – and was done because it was necessary to transform their company. Gamasutra has a ton of information in those links on this if you are looking to find out more exact details.

This was surprising for me to hear, and definitely pretty depressing. To all of you who lost your jobs, I wish you the best of luck. To EA… Probably not the best idea to announce a major studio purchase when you’re laying off a bunch of people, related or not.

For example, the Facebook change. People hated it, I made a blog post about it, but I don’t think I went into enough detail. I said why I thought it was expected, and while that has a general meaning, what does it say about game development in general? Well, for one, change is bad. People aren’t fond of it. Whenever you see a patch for an MMO, you inevitably see one thing: a whole lot of complaints – at lest if you change anything significant to the game.

Does that mean that the changes were bad? No, not necessarily – although they might be. It just means that people dislike it when you change something familiar to them. Added functionality is one thing, but this really speaks to usability and familiarity in UI design specifically. If you have an MMO with a certain UI, and you decide to revamp it entirely… People are likely going to be resistant if they are use to the old one. The new one might be better, but that doesn’t mean people will like it immediately.

That goes for gameplay changes too. Heck, just look at Star Wars Galaxies for a change from something familiar to something new. The New Game Experience was hated by many players, even though you could certainly argue that it made for a better game — not that I necessarily am, I like skill-based advancement, but I will admit the original combat system was pretty terrible. If the game was originally designed with the NGE in mind, it would have likely gone over just fine. If it came out within a few days of lunch (unlikely as that would be) it also would have been fine – except for the bad press it would likely generate. Yet, people would probably have taken to it fine and might have even considered it better.

Basically, the reason why I am looking closely at social networking sites is because they’re basically the same thing as online gaming when it comes to community on certain levels. Not all levels, but in some ways, we can see parallels between services like Facebook and Twitter, and what we see in online game comunities.

For example, the Facebook change. People hated it, I made a blog post about it, but I don’t think I went into enough detail. I said why I thought it was expected, and while that has a general meaning, what does it say about game development in general? Well, for one, change is bad. People aren’t fond of it. Whenever you see a patch for an MMO, you inevitably see one thing: a whole lot of complaints – at lest if you change anything significant to the game.

Does that mean that the changes were bad? No, not necessarily – although they might be. It just means that people dislike it when you change something familiar to them. Added functionality is one thing, but this really speaks to usability and familiarity in UI design specifically. If you have an MMO with a certain UI, and you decide to revamp it entirely… People are likely going to be resistant if they are use to the old one. The new one might be better, but that doesn’t mean people will like it immediately.

That goes for gameplay changes too. Heck, just look at Star Wars Galaxies for a change from something familiar to something new. The New Game Experience was hated by many players, even though you could certainly argue that it made for a better game — not that I necessarily am, I like skill-based advancement, but I will admit the original combat system was pretty terrible. If the game was originally designed with the NGE in mind, it would have likely gone over just fine. If it came out within a few days of lunch (unlikely as that would be) it also would have been fine – except for the bad press it would likely generate. Yet, people would probably have taken to it fine and might have even considered it better.

Basically, the reason why I am looking closely at social networking sites is because they’re basically the same thing as online gaming when it comes to community on certain levels. Not all levels, but in some ways, we can see parallels between services like Facebook and Twitter, and what we see in online game comunities.

After popping on Facebook the other day, I noticed there was a poll asking if users liked the redesign or not. apparently 94% said “no.” My first reaction to this news was “great, Facebook really is looking for feedback on their changes now,” followed by “and the result is exactly as expected.”

The result was expected, but not because I hate the redesign. I don’t find it to be terribly speical, but I don’t really hate it. I’m rather ambivalent. However, I’ve noticed soemthing after having a Facebook account for a while. They’ve changed the theme numerous times in the past, and the result is always the same: people complain about it. They always hate the new theme and they always claim that the old design was far better. They claim the new one is not usable and it will make using Facebook harder, etc…

Then suddenly they love it when the next redesign comes around, and talk about how much it was better than this latest one. I remember the last time Facebook did a redesign, and it was largely the same: people frickin’ hated it. Now, I do think that there are some issues with the new design, certainly, but the problem isn’t actually design issues. The problem is change. People don’t like it.

Every time Facebook changes the design, people have to relearn it. By the time the next design comes around, they’re all very happy with the current theme they had been using for so long, because they’re simply use to it. They know how to navigate it and do what they want. With the new design, they get confused. This is just a basic part of Human nature – I know, I feel the same way often.

So, I suspect that with the next update of Facebook, unless it gets rolled back, people will complain again as usual, and this current theme will be praised as superior.

I finally was able to get the “new Facebook” today, which I was pretty hyped about seeing. There has certainly been quite a bit of hype built up about the new home page and how it would be a great challenge to Twitter and the like.  It certainly looked like Facebook was taking a lot of cues from the popular micro-blogging platform and applying an extra layer to it. But, the question remains, are we looking at some strange hybrid? A… Twitterbook, if you will? Or are the two different  entities entirely?

Well, to begin with, I found the new update to be pretty lacking, honestly. Really, I don’t see that much of a difference at all. It has a new layout, sure, but it still is the same-old-same-old, when you come down to it. There is a feed of everything that your friends are  saying and doing. You have to refresh the page to see new updates, just like it was before. Really, the only difference is that it looks a little bit different, for the most part. That isn’t to say that it sucks, per se. It just isn’t Twitter. It is Facebook – this is a good thing! I don’t really see it as giving me this constant stream of information from everyone I have on my Facebook account, but rather I just see myself opening up the page now and then  and checking out what people are saying and what they’re doing. You know, basically the same thing that I did before on Facebook. It fills a different niche for what I want to do, which has always been the case. Frankly, I’m happy that I don’t see Facebook turning into Twitter, as I really believe the two should be separate entities with  different purposes.

I do admit that it does kind of suck expecting to see something a bit more revolutionary like was hyped, though.

Granted, I was a hold out on Facebook and a number of other online applications that are used for social networking before eventually signing up. In a way, I find this hugely ironic given my love for online communities and my fascination for such technology. Yet, I suppose it is important to note that I don’t always directly participate in things I find interesting, even if I study them quite closely otherwise.

That said, I broke on the twitter thing.

Personally, I know who to blame.

I have to admit, this is actually an entertaining marketing campaign that is doubtless to get Burger King plenty of attention. Not only that, it is also an interesting social experiment and an interesting look at how valuable friends are when met on social networking sites. There are plenty of people out there who simply add people in droves and then never really interact with them. These would be prime targets for de-friending for the joy of having a free meal. What does that say, however, about the worth of such friends? What does it say about the attachment one can have over sites such as Facebook?

Now, I come at this from the standpoint of someone who has made a huge number of friends online over the years. I’ve never actually made a friend through a social networking site, but I certainly have stayed in contact with many people that I do know through them. Yet, not everyone approaches online friendships in quite the same way – and many people certainly have people that they do not value as friends marked as one on facebook. It raises some interesting social questions.