Mafia Warz

I had a strange feeling I'll be doing critique on mafia wars while Jiwei's video was running, I guess thats +1 for prediction markets working.

On to the app, from someone that aims to design games, this thing is crap.

No, seriously, it really really sucks.

It's mechanics are almost non-existent, there is little-to-no strategizing involved, everything is just point and click.

The game dynamics are worse, its just do this, invite friends, do that, level up. There's little variation from level 1 to level (Arbitrary Large Number) except the number of friends that one needs. I remember when I wrote my application for 3216, I said most apps on facebook have minimum user interaction, both between the game and between players, meaning all you need to do is repeat very similar tasks day-in day-out in order to progress. Mafia wars is the very representation of that.

But why is it still attracting 24 million users monthly?

First, most people use facebook when they're bored or tired of work, they need something to take their minds off whatever they were doing, mafia wars lets them do that. Its simple(really simple), its instant gratification and it doesn't require a huge amount of time commitment(per use). Players can log on, do a few things, level up and go back to whatever they were doing. And most importantly, it never ends.

Secondly, the idea of being a mafia lord is very enticing to most people. For adults, these fantasies were planted by movies like Godfather and 上海滩(coast of shanghai, mob movie by Chao Yun Fat) since young. For youngsters, its games like GTA and serials like The Sopranos. Mafia wars provides it users an illusion of being a mafia lord, it gives them an avenue to imagine. By having no graphics, no effects etc. users have to rely on their imagination to 'fill in' what they did. This is the same as other 'imagine games' like farming and opening a cafe, prying on the busy daily lives of people nowadays and giving them an escape.

Thirdly, peer pressure, when 10-15 friends throw mafia wars invite on you, its hard NOT to join, and once you join, you are again given the illusion of socializing, of playing the game together with your friends. When in actual fact there is minimal socializing going on. This pyramid scheme style of recruiting new players is downright dirty, since it 'forces' players to recruit new players in order to advance, and the sad thing is that players just do so in order to play the game.

On a side note to the lead generation fiasco. While Zynga is very very dirty and full of fertilizers, you have ONLY yourself to blame if you get scammed.

To quote my guild leader "No amount of internet security will solve the gaping security breach sitting in front of the monitor"

And guess what, that is one thing that ISNT taught in school. We're taught to never take candy from a stranger, but we're not taught to NOT click on the link that says "CONGRATS!! YOU ARE OUR 999999th VISITOR".

Lastly, there still doest seem to be a defining authority on internet scamming, if I rob some Scottish in Scotland, chances are good I'll be sentenced by Scotland local court. But if I scam a Scot? Too bad, you stupid Scottish!(I sincerely hope no one here has an affiliation with any Scots). Now we have to trust the facebook authorities to take care of what are scams and what are not, but who is facebook to decide when they have their own apps, their own adds, who do we complain to when we get scammed by facebook??

p.s. To answer prof Ben's statement of "Flixster not exactly a facebook app". I think, its rather much more than a normal facebook app. Compare it to marketplace, one lists items people want to sell, the other lists movies. Not too different right?
Also, lets just consider that flixster.com did not exist before facebook, the current flixster app would've been great right, you can connect with friends, organize outings, write reviews, create quizzes etc. Which is what most other non-game apps do as well.