Zynga tops Electronic Arts - Social gaming overtaking conventional games?

Games associated with social networking services such as Facebook, sometimes called social games, are problably well know to most people who uses the internet to some extent. Most people who uses facebook regularly have probably tried some of them. The games are as a rule free to play, but to get ahead in the game you have the possibility to spend real money to buy in-game things. This gives the owners of the games a respectable income it seems. The really big name in the world of Facebook games is Zynga (owner of Farmville, Mafia Wars etc), and according to this article from Businessweek Zynga has now topped Electronic Arts in company stock market value. Electronic Arts is really no pushover in the computer games industry, but Zynga has now passed the giant.

Farmville, one of the biggest Facebook games

This is an interesting development. I have tried several of these Facebook games, but I haven't found them interesting enough to keep me playing for longer periods or invest money in them and thus I have personally not contributed to the income of companies such as Zynga. Most of my friends seem to have played the games as well, but when asking around it seems that they have played on the same premises. 

If this is representative of the larger mass of players it raises several questions. Is the income of Zynga mainly based of a few percent of the players, who then pours very large sums of money into the games? If so, is that because they actually find the games interesting enough to do so, or are there other psychological mechanisms in play. Almost anything can turn into an addiction, and computer games contains elements quite comparable to, for example, gambling. The typical social game has a very clear objective and a sense of advancement, getting to the next level, getting bigger farmland etc. which can be quite compelling mechanisms. It never ends though, there is always a next level and it gets increasingly harder to reach the next one, diminishing the sense of advancement. If you want to speed up the process though, you can always spend some money. Are the social games by this capitalizing on game addictions?

Another explanation could be that many players spend a little money on the games, but feel ashamed to admit that they payed real money to buy a virtual tractor for their Facebook farm. Maybe it's a combination of both?

Whatever the basis of income for the social games is, the phenomenon seems to be a serious factor in the future of computer games. And the fact that Zynga has overtaken Electronic Arts is a big wow in my book. Social gaming isn't a parenthesis in the gaming world, it's a one of the big boys. I wonder if this development means that we are going towards a future of more casual, bite sized games and less of the more conventional ones. Maybe the general modern game consumer doesn't have the time to invest in an expansive and deep experience? I hope this isn't the case, but a common rule is of course that development goes in the most profitable direction. We'll see what happens.

All the best