Grepolis Facebook

What a massive headstart the guys at Innogames have simply because they chose to get involved with Facebook and allow ‘Facebook Connect’ as an entry into their latest game, the Grepolis Game.

We’ve been discussing it here in gaming land for a long time, the additional success that could be had by developers getting into bed with facebook and also the ease of use for MMO gamers wanting quick and easy logins to games such as Grepolis.

But whats made the Grepolis Facebook link so much more important now is demonstrated by the underground talks between Google and Zynga to develop a ‘Google Games’ platform to rival that of facebook games and smaller rivals such as Myspace games and Yahoo Games.

With Google apparently set to get into the gaming world via experts like Zynga, there is no doubt a future social networking gaming arena is coming from the big G. This shows that the future seems to be along the lines of a ‘home base’ ie: a social network platform. And games, search and overall web interaction will come through this portal of sorts.

It’s an interesting theme not just for gamers in the ever-growing free browser web MMO market – but also for standard users who are experiencing a ‘back to the future’ of sorts in terms of web trends – as a social network or portal dates right back to the introduction of say Yahoo and AOL front end websites that allowed the early users to seek, play and stay within the walls of the companies websites.

Sure, there were links and options through search offers paths to other sites. But for things like online games, top ranking lists of gamers, browsers and the general community – it was a ‘hub’ of sorts and people were happy to hang and interact with the other users/gamers.

Grepolis and their Facebook choice have set them up nicely, as Facebook will remain the dominant power for social networking and gaming into the foreseeable future, allowing Grepolis to keep gamers close to their social profiles and send plenty of advertising the way of potential future gamers, ready to quickly signup and login.

The only drawback we can see, is that the link between Grepolis, Facebook and gamers could take away from the official forums. Naturally, players using facebook connect and the FB interface to play around the game – with want to talk, ‘like it’ and interact with friends and other grepolis gamers via the facebook fan page and general discussion areas.

While there will always be a place for the forums, the sheer volume of posts, visits and interaction could decline as gamers shift to the simplier platform facebook offers for gamers – simplicity, speed and visibility.