Of course, it has been possible to connect a computer to the internet and play a game with other people for a long time.
We started on Facebook because it was the easiest, most mature platform."
"Our guiding thought and vision was to transform video games from something sad that you do by yourself into something social and fun for everyone. The company's latest release, Geo Challenge, requires users to memorise flags, learn the location of cities and guess a country's identity from its shape. Many Playfish games also have an educational element. For the first time, games are where you hang out. "Competition is great but to create social interactions - not about who is better but about social emotions - is much more complex. He reckons the gaming industry is being reinvented by social networking. "That's not possible on any kind of console." "We have added a vital new element to games - namely your friends," said Kristian Segerstrale, chief executive of Playfish. The rather more traditional Texas Hold'Em Poker, by Zynga, meanwhile, has attracted almost 6 million players. Context Optional, a social network marketing group, built Kidnap! for the Travel Channel as a marketing tool. In the same month, Kidnap! went from nowhere to 2.5 million players. Pet Society has more than 3 million members - it grew 30% in October alone. In Playfish's highly popular Pet Society, for instance, players design and decorate their own homes, visit friends nearby and earn points not by killing but by kissing them. In stark contrast, the second generation of social games is more friendly and collaborative - in the same way as many Facebook users now value the quality of their online friendships instead of merely measuring their online success by quantity. They allowed players to "bite" or "tag" their friends to turn them into zombies or vampires and the person who did that to the most people was the winner, of sorts. The first wave of social network games were essentially variations of tag and were based very much on the initial excitement of social networks - ie, who can get the most friends. It is responsible for four of the top 10 games played by Facebook users worldwide, including Who Has the Biggest Brain? in which players compete to solve maths and memory problems. Using bright colours, animated characters and addictive quizzes, Playfish has already attracted 25 million registered users in its one year of existence. Though most social networks have their roots, or at least owners, on the west coast of the US, one of the most successful social gaming companies is based in Britain. Investors have spotted the opportunity of social gaming and even as the economic climate turns chilly they have been putting funds into these businesses. Facebook is already seeing over 2bn minutes of game play a month, and the longer people stay online the more chance the game's developer and the network itself have to make money out of them, most obviously through advertising.