Crytek – the guys behind Crysis, FarCry and the CryEngine – have stopped Cry-ing everything and have taken their “online media publishing service” GFACE into closed beta.
Haven’t heard of GFACE? Well neither had I until now.
GFACE is Crytek’s online gaming service, which is looking to take social gaming in a different direction.
When we think of social gaming, we tend to think of helping a friend plant stuff on a virtual farm; but the concept is evolving with Xbox LIVE punting more social activities with recent dash updates, and the whole concept of ‘cloud gaming’ (gaming anywhere) gaining more prominence.
GFACE’s aim, it would seem, is to take gaming into an even more sociable space – across different platforms – but in a gamer-centric direction. So, a gamer social network, then.
Perhaps Kotaku described it best: GFACE = OnLive + Skype + Facebook.
Most intriguingly, the service will have some sort of cross-platform interaction – where presumably you’d be able to have a friend on his iPhone providing air support while you soldier on via PC – all while someone uses their tablet PC with an over-head map barking out tactics.
Obviously all the social aspects are there as well – friends lists, groups, updates and interactions; sharing of interests and all that malarkey. That stuff isn’t exactly new, but handy to have, if you’re using the service to game.
The website promises both casual and core gaming in 2D and 3D.
Then there’s the ‘cloud’ gaming, which, like OnLive, means you play from servers as opposed to having the data locally.
All of this operating from within a browser.
Does gaming really need another social network gaming platform, though? It will be interesting to see how many people adopt this platform. Share your thoughts on the forum, or in the comments below.
Source: GFACE
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The problem I have with this is the server locations – might be fine if you’re playing “Barbie makes a cake 3.0” but with games that are affected by higher latencies we have to ask if it’s even viable for anyone not living in the USA, Europe or Asia.
Still if I lived in the US I’d probably not care (hell I’d probably not know more about South Africa other than “Mandela something something” and “Lions wander the streets” if I’d lived there)…so I guess with social gaming being as big as it is it makes sense for them to try and cash in on it.
Just imagine…air support on Android from Korea, tanks in on iOS from Brazil, naval on PC from London and infantry (FPS?) on XBOX from Australia – could work if it were turn based.