Social transition

The social games space, driven in large part by Facebook, is quickly becoming big business in the $45 billion global games industry. Next year, it's expected that the social games market will eclipse $1 billion. More and more game developers and small studios are looking to the casual and social fields to make their mark in a games industry where it's increasingly difficult to even profit on a traditional console video game. 

Setting aside a budget anywhere between $40-$100 million and expecting to recoup costs, let alone profit on the project, is just not very realistic. Only juggernauts like Activision Blizzard can seem to pull it off these days, and it's one of the reasons rival Electronic Arts just purchased Playfish.

The industry is clearly at a crossroads and needs to prepare for the future. We'd expect other big game companies to step up their efforts in social gaming as well. It's a hot field right now, and it's one of several avenues the industry will take as it transitions away from expensive boxed product to games as services. We were thinking about companies that could really benefit from entering the social gaming sector, and we believe Nintendo would be a perfect fit. 

Here's our list of reasons for why Mario and crew need to get social right now...