ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the rise of Facebook social games, explore the sociability they fostered, and discusses how social games are positioned in the wide field of games and what they reveal and reflect about games and game studies. It deals with a historical overview into the origins and development of social games, and then move to discuss how various examples of social games, with social, monetization, and distribution-related key features that have shaped these games and their operation. The advantages and downsides of such features are then discussed in more detail, making use of a series of studies that have included both game developer as well as social game player perspectives, while also analysing the games themselves in detail. The chapter focuses on the impact of social games for the direction game business and game culture is taking, including the free-to-play games developed for mobile devices and 'app ecosystems'.
