Zing! In an interview with Gamasutra, Richard Garriott, also known as Lord British of Ultima Online (and Portalarium co-founder), had some choice words for Zynga's most popular social games: FarmVille, FrontierVille and CityVille. While Garriott had nothing but praise for FrontierVille, led by industry veteran Brian Reynolds, he told Gamasutra:So when I looked at FarmVille. It's super popular. You go play it and you go, 'Wow, this UI is actually pretty damn clunky.' It's actually hard to use, it's confusing to use, so if I was a beginning user, a light user I'm going like, 'Wow, it's just not that elegant.'Garriott went on to conclude that, because a majority of social gamers interact with interfaces similar to FarmVille and CityVille (and more than likely those exact games), Facebook gamers will eventually converge with the hardcore crowd.CityVille has surpassed FarmVille, even in popularity -- which was the most popular game in the world. But I look at it and go, 'It's actually too much for me.' Literally, there is so much going on the screen concurrently; I can't keep up. I mean there are stars bouncing around and things to click on and, literally, I find the game overwhelming.
Garriott also revealed in the interview that his first major social game, Ultimate Collector, will release sometime this summer across several platforms including Facebook, Hi5, iPhone and even iPad. Then, Garriott will focus on Lord British's debut on Facebook in Lord British's New Britannia (a working title), which he has yet to reveal a release date for. Portalarium recently released it's first game to test the waters, Port Casino Poker.
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Do you agree with what Garriott had to say about Zynga's games? Do you think he'll succeed where he thinks some social games have failed? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
Tags: cityville, farmville, frontierville, Gamasutra, lord british, lord britishs new britannia, port casino poker, portalarium, richard garriott, Richard Garriott portalarium, Richard-Garriott, zynga
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