The Final Fantasy maker is done with 'social games' as we know them

It's said that the phrase "social game" has a different meaning in Japan than it does in the U.S. (But in truth, it's not terribly different.) When you talk about "social games" in Japan, you're generally referring to the borderline gambling simulators disguised as card battle games. That's the kind of "social game" that Final Fantasy creator Square Enix wants to distance itself from in 2013.

Mobile game producer Takehiro Ando said as much within a blog post on Japanese gaming news site Famitsu. Social games have earned quite the dashed reputation, thanks to shady "complete gacha" elements, in Japan. However, social games don't exactly have spotless street cred in the U.S, either. We're looking at you, FarmVille and Smurfs Village.

The solution? "This year, what we are going to do is push ourselves to find various new, fun things," Ando writes, according to Kotaku. Ando continues to describe the goal as "fun games that run on smartphones." What we hope that means is "fewer games with shady monetization schemes," but it could easily just as well mean "mobile social games with the same lame money making systems that are just more entertaining." At any rate, either is better than what we're stuck with right now.

Are you tired of the current social games model? Where do you think social games should go? Add Comment.