Online games go social

Jo Ann Hicks doesn’t identify with gamers, but she spends hours online every day playing “Kaneva.” The 41-year-old homemaker likes the shopping-and-partying game – where she operates a virtual nightclub and hosts parties – because it helps her interact with people, not provide escape from them as traditional games often do.

Social and gaming networks, once considered polar opposites, are cross-pollinating as online interactions replace prime-time TV and other, more traditional media experiences. Games like “Kaneva” are attracting players that games like “Super Mario Brothers” never did.

“What people will say is more interesting to me,” Hicks, of Columbia, S.C., said of her preferred game. “As opposed to Mario, who’s only going to jump.”

Game developers say there’s money for both sides in this convergence.

Social networks that incorporate more features of “massively multiplayer online games” could enhance their already-substantial earning power. And gaming sites would benefit from increased membership and broader acceptance.

David Dague, a 34-year-old executive in Chicago who runs the Web site tiedtheleader.com, said games have changed since the early days of “Space Invaders.”

“I’ve seen gaming go from a solitary thing to where there really is a cinematic experience going on in front of you that you can share in a social capacity,” said Dague, whose site coordinates matches in Xbox Live games like “Halo 3” and hosts forums about gaming.

“Video games have become the ultimate party line,” he said. “The question is, who are you sharing it with?”

Played in virtual worlds with advertising and goods for sale, games like “KartRider” and “Kaneva” now go beyond the scope even of early interactive games. They’re less about skill levels and escapism and more about joining friends and strangers in virtual spaces where chatting, comparing fashions, going dancing – and, yes, slaying monsters – are all options.

Networking sites are encompassing more interactive features that consume increasing amounts of users’ time – long considered a defining feature of computer games.

MySpace and Facebook are massively multiplayer online games in disguise, says Gabe Zichermann, who is developing “rmbr,” which he says will make a video game out of tagging and sharing digital photos.

“The reason why Facebook is a really compelling MMO is because it’s fun and you get something out of it,” he said.

There are interactive titles like Scrabulous for Facebook, and MySpace is rolling out a games channel early next year.

“They’re going to be able to monetize their users at the same level (as the games do),” Jessica Tams, managing director of the Casual Games Association, said of the social network sites. “That’s a lot of money.”

Launched as a beta program earlier this spring, “Kaneva,” created by an Atlanta-based company of the same name, had 84,000 members in October, according to comScore Inc. Once players download the game, they see advertising and can buy all sorts of virtual clothing and upgrades for a few dollars apiece.

It’s a substantially different business model from online fantasy games like “World of Warcraft,” which tend to require subscriptions, at $15 or so per month, and usually don’t allow users to buy things for real money, online or off.

“Those folks who are developing the next generation of massively multiplayer games really need to raise the bar anew,” says Christopher Sherman, executive director of Austin-based Virtual Worlds Management, which organizes conferences to discuss emerging online trends.

Venture capital, technology and media firms invested more than $1 billion in 35 virtual worlds companies between October 2006 and this October, said Virtual Worlds Management.

Stephen Prentice, of the Gartner Group in the United Kingdom, believes the time is right for online social video game services to take off.

“The huge opportunity is for a lightweight, three-dimensional environment, a virtual world equivalent of Facebook,” Prentice says. “Trying to predict who that is going to be is difficult. Anything could happen here.”