On Spymaster’s virality, the creators of the game speak out!
What started as a crazy idea I had because I’m now not-so-secretly-obsessed with superspy films and the luxury aesthetics of the Craig-era James Bond is currently battling Google Wave for the top spot on Twitter’s trending topics. By just about every metric I know, Spymaster, a game I built with my colleagues at iList, has become a wild overnight success.
As far as I know, we’ve been the pioneer of using Twitter as a social gaming platform at this scale. With being a high-profile pioneer of an application of a social technology, it’s expected that you’re going to get both the wild support and the criticisms of your technology’s detractors. While the huge majority of the messages I have received about Spymaster have been insanely positive, with people explaining how much fun this little creation has given them, of course I’ve had my detractors. I’ve been called the man that ruined Twitter, a “social media f–ktard,” and some other, more profanity-ridden things from those who feel that the rest of the Spymaster team and I have completely destroyed the user experience of Twitter and everything they once found good about it. It all comes down to the notification system that tweets your given Spymaster actions, such as this one from ReadWriteWeb’s Jolie O’Dell. Some backlash is to be expected, and I’m not all that worried about it. Former Digg Architect Joe Stump was the first person to really start it amongst the digerati, which eventually led to MG Siegler’s backlash post on TechCrunch. Like Joe said, though, it was bound to happen. And Joe, if you’d like to hate anyone in particular for Spymaster’s notification system, you can hate me. I came up with the idea to incentivise people in-game. But please, if there’s one thing I could say right now to you and the Twittersphere at large: don’t shoot the messenger.