Why would a game designer want to work in social games?

Last night I went to a meetup for area indy game developers. It’s been a while since I’ve found myself in a room full of folks skeptical (to put it politely) about social games & Zynga. They weren’t exactly booing as the folks from Macguffin defensively explained how they decided to build a Facebook game, but I think that was just because they were friends. 

I find it hypocritical that makers of hardcore games decry that social games are built for addiction and a waste of time. It wasn’t that long ago that these same arguments  (along with the one about violence) were constantly levied against the games they love so much. But this isn’t about that, there were also those with a more open mind of course, and one of them came up to me afterwards and simply asked, “how could it be fun to design such a ‘simple’ social game?”

I was considering today just espousing about the beauty of simple, and how hard much harder that is than complex. But I’ve got better. Bryan Reynolds, who is one of the more famous game designers working today, actually answered the question for me in a recent interview. 

“It’s fantastic. We’re spending a lot more time making the game as opposed to working forever on the technology needed to make it work, like creating art assets and getting them to animate just right. I feel like at Zynga, I come in every day and I’m actually doing game design. I’m actually making something better in the game.”

It’s a great read.