Bossa: Social games "will be like the Atari Eighties crash"

Bossa head and co-founder Henrique Olifiers has shared his frustrations at the iterative nature of social game design, and warned of the consequences.

"Social games for me were always on the cutting-edge until they became copycat, and after they became copycat I said, 'Well, this is not going anywhere,'" he told GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive interview.

"This will be like the Atari Eighties crash. Everybody and their grandmother had a version of Space Invaders, and these guys are going to do the same thing."

He fears that these tactics will mean more innovative games and ideas will get lost amid Facebook's casual noise.

"What I used to do at both Jagex and Playfish, they both felt like they were doing something different," he continued.

"Jagex was one of the first companies in browser MMOs. Playfish was one of the first companies to go into social games. They were leading the charge. What got me so disenchanted over time was that they stopped doing that. "That's when I said, 'This is not what I'm about.' "

Bossa Studios was founded in 2010 and created its first title, the RTS Monstermind, with more hardcore gamers in mind and in a concerted attempted to avoid the copying and churning culture of standard Facebook development.

"[Our games] should look and feel like nothing else on Facebook," explained lead designer Mike Bithell.

"We're working really hard top use these amazing tools, because there are so many things in Facebook that, if used right, make it better than Xbox Live."

To read more about the Bossa team's refreshing stance on social gaming, its recent hires and how it hopes to attract the hardcore gamers to Facebook, check out the full feature.