Playfish CEO: 'Social games' phrase will be irrelevant in three years

The Social Games Summit in London seems like the place to be for interesting discussion today as Playfish CEO Kristian Segerstrale claims that the phrase "social games" won't even be used in the future. "I believe the word social games has a lifespan of only two or three years," Segerstrale said to GamesIndustry.biz. "We'll just call them games. They'll be part of the very fabric of the games industry."

Those are bold words for an industry that's no more than a toddler in people years, but it's not as if the guy doesn't have a plan. According to him, innovation is key. "I believe we're back at a time where innovation is important again," Segerstrale said. "It's not just about the platform, it's also about consumers. I believe we have a blank canvas in front of us again."

Segerstrale's main point was to say the current trend in the social gaming industry of cloning has to stop if the genre is to go anywhere, GamesIndustry.biz reports. While we can't help but agree, it's doubtful that social games will no longer be called by that name in just three years. Most Facebook games are programmed using Flash software, which is miles behind traditional games that use far more advanced 3D creation tools. Not to mention they're developed for machines that widely can handle much more than the average computer used to play games like FrontierVille.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, the CEO went on to tout the benefits of linking social games to traditional games like the recent FIFA Superstars and FIFA 11 demo link feature (pictured) as a way to shrink the gap between the two industries. It's an interesting strategy, but focus on it too much and social games might fall into the trap of "marketing tool." We hope Segerstrale is right, but the only way I see this happening anytime soon is from the other way around. The consoles do have Facebook integration, you know.

Do you agree that the phrase "social games" won't be needed in the future? If so, how are social game creators supposed to go about that? Do we even want that to happen? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.