Miniclip vs Facebook

Ever thought that there are more popular activities than social networking and media sharing on the web? Apparently online gaming – particularly of the casual variety – is the most popular activity on the internet as attested in a recent article in gamesindustry.biz which you can read here. And for those hardcore gamers who don’t really think these are games at all, you should check out another article in the same online publication which eloquently and succinctly puts the case for a wider definition of games to be adopted by developers and designers. Isn’t this a great quote:

The key mistake made in the definition of “games” along traditional lines is that it ignores the major strength of the interactive medium. There are three primary things which human beings do to entertain themselves. They play games; they socialise; and they enjoy fiction, this latter being a uniquely human attribute that only exists in our species due to the development of language.

The huge strength of interactive entertainment, which is not shared by any other form of entertainment, is that it can combine all three of those things together – and even combine them with a fourth pastime, education.

Mm, seems its not only TV broadcasters and filmmakers grappling with the whole conundrum of convergence but our established digital industries as well. You can read the full article by Rob Fahey here.