Comments on: How is the Facebook Redesign Affecting Social Games? October Gaming Charts Released

By: D.C.

D.C. — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:09:29 +0000

Kidnap doesn’t force you to invite friends. At any point in the game, you have the OPTION of “Kidnap’ng” your friends (by sending them an invite/request)…but this is not a requirement. They even filter your friends list so you can see who’s actively playing with the app and who’s not – so you’re not bugging people who aren’t interested. But technically, you can add and play the app without ever sending out one invite, just sit around and wait to be Kidnap’d yourself.

By: Mike Gowen » Hot Sidebar Action: October 28th

Mike Gowen » Hot Sidebar Action: October 28th — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:30:49 +0000

[...] How is the Facebook Redesign Affecting Social Games? Inside Facebook takes a look at how the redesign is affecting (or not affecting) the gaming app charts. [...]

By: mich

mich — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:03:57 +0000

What is the case of Kidnap in Facebook now? Is it still activating? I hope Facebook could do something about that issue.

I am just an ordinary application user and I, myself hate it when I am required to invite more friends just to increase its number of users. I like to play the games or participate in any groups or applications that I really like. I think that’s fair.

Just like this game that I am playing and getting so addicted to is Realm of Empires. At present, it only has 4,417 active users but it didn’t bother me at all for as long as I am enjoying the game I will add it to my list. Although I hope this would increase and be in the top 25 chart. That would probably be an honor for me that I am part of the success of that application.

By: Hank Stram

Hank Stram — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:21:03 +0000

Where does this data come from? I think that you should do a little bit more research before publishing stories like this. Kidnap is violating the Terms of Service that Facebook enacted in February 2008 by forcing users to invite friends before engaging with the content of the application. If this is the case, then I think the more telling statistic would be Time on Site or Application Removals.

In fact, if you look at the Discussion and Review Boards on the About Page, you’ll see that a number of users are complaining about the forced invites. In addition, Kidnap is violating another TOS, by publishing stories to users’ walls and newsfeeds despite the users’ desire to have their activity remain private.

As a Facebook developer, I’m always excited to see application succeed out of the gate, but in this case, Kidnap is deceiving their audience and attracting huge sums of users by blatantly breaking Facebook’s rules.

By: Christopher Ross

Christopher Ross — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:48:09 +0000

I read an article the other day (here maybe?) that said most Android downloads are games, no wonder Google is getting to Adsense for Gaming! I wrote a piece about it a couple weeks back, if it's OK to link: Google Launches AdSense for Video Games