social games Tag

I've been thinking about this post about Chris Trottier's gameplay models as well as my own experience with casual games in general and Facebook games more specifically. It has become reasonably clear, zeitgeist-wise, that at least the perceived demographic for most Facebook games is the mom demographic.  For many casual games as well (I'm willing to bet that is a big reason for the otherwise inexplicable rise of the "hidden object game."  Highlights magazine is really sad they didn't pioneer that genre and make a mint.)

Naomi Clark and I had a remarkably reasonable discussion in the comments section here the other day, and I've been mulling over it since.  The gist being I was saying I didn't really see the point of describing labor mechanics as a specific thing, and...