Playdom vet: 'There's always room for hardcore games' on Facebook

A design veteran of Gardens of Time house Playdom is more bullish on the "hardcore" Facebook games trend than you might think. During his and Playdom VP of game design Steve Meretzky's annual panel at GDC Online 2012 in Austin, Tex, Playdom veteran and Goko's David Rohrl expressed interest in hardcore (i.e. "mid-core") games on Facebook.

"There's always room for hardcore games," Rohrl said during the second point of their panel. The storied designer then went on to analyze the successes and failures of Playdom's own core-focused release, Marvel Avengers Alliance. Admittedly, there are more successes than failures with that game, and developers like Kixeye and Kabam can attest to the possibilities of games on Facebook geared toward the traditional gamer.

Rohrl went on to mention that innovation "outpaces" re-skinning other games--likely because "hardcore" gamers can sniff out a clone or copycat game from a mile away. Hardcore games might monetize far better for fewer players, but it will be interesting to see how far this trend go, as in farther than we're seeing with games like Dungeon Rampage. As far as potential, highly speculative trends go, color us excited.

Are you excited to see more hardcore games on Facebook? Is Rohrl on the right track? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.