Cracking analysis from Soren Johnson on Free-to-Play, how it shapes game design for both good and ill, and the opportunities it opens in its wake.

"...a genuinely meaningful social mechanic can create its own share of problems. Facebook friends are not necessarily one’s actual friends. Players often announce their names and character details in various forums, hoping to find “fake friends” to fill out their list. Doing so creates three advantages. First, the more friends the player has, the more opportunities for his character to be borrowed and thus earn friend gold for the player. Second, high-level friends make combat far easier because of their high stats and upgraded skills. Finally, a surplus of friends allows the player to bypass the rest time restriction." How do you get around all this? Johnson explains all. It's a really lovely piece of genuinely social game design.

"Just because you give a game a theme, doesn’t make a game about that thing. … A game’s mechanics give it meaning. It fundamentally does not matter how you theme a game, the mechanics ultimately determine what a game is about." Soren Johnson is smart.