Google has been ramping up to get into the games space in some capacity for quite a while now. Back in June, it looked as if its new social network service, Google Plus, would be getting support for Facebook-style games before long. That day is now here, as Google today announced the addition of games to the lineup of Plus features.
For many, games are one of the most annoying aspects of Facebook. Seeing that your friends want you to water their flowers or send them fertilizer can get in the way of spying on their lives. That’s why games are getting their own separate page, keeping them isolated from everything else.
Irritating as they might be to some, social network games are a very profitable business, as evidenced by the increasing emphasis placed on them by companies like Electronic Arts. Zynga, the biggest of the bunch, has almost entirely made its fortune through Facebook. Its recent IPO filing noted, “To date, we have derived substantially all of our revenue and acquired substantially all of our players through Facebook. We expect to continue to derive a substantial portion of our revenue and to acquire a substantial portion of our players from the Facebook platform for the foreseeable future.”
