Ever start a fire with flint and steel?

Small spark on some fine dry kindling …coax it, nurture it…shield it…feed it…give it room to breathe…

One wrong move and you can put it out before it gets going…even someone getting too close and accidentally breathing on it can put it out…or a pile of leaves can smother it.

That small spark can turn a small flame just for a lesson at Boy Scout camp or even the stone circled campfire for cooking and late night ghost stories…sometime even a powerful raging forest fire.

Sparks of creativity are like the tiny dots of fire that leap from flint and steel.

Everybody has them.

Next time, instead of letting life, work, hierarchy, bullies or lizard brain fear get in the way…take that spark and coax it, nurture it, shield it, feed it, give it room to breathe and keep the wet blankets off of it.

Whether it’s your spark or someone else’s, once it catches…and grows…the powerful ranging creativity “fire” can spread and change the world…or at least the face of gaming.

Trust the idea. I’ve seen it happen..whether it was on Nox, C&C: Generals, C&C: Red Alert 2, FarmVille or Treasure Isle.

Question is, what have you done with your sparks today?

I appreciate the clarity and logical discussion Andrew Chen brings to the issue of “offers” on Facebook.

Read more on his blog here.

Had a wide ranging conversation with a very smart friend this morning about FarmVille, speaking at conferences, and different leadership styles.

During the conversation, he shared how early game developers used to complain that mistakes by retailers ruined the opportunities for their games to become hits.

Because of FarmVille and my experience making hit PC games for Westwood/EA, an instant set of connections flashed through my mind.

“Selling games at retail is like a glacially slow version of selling games on the internet.”

The thought process unrolled:

1. Selling at retail is a glacially slow versus using the internet.

2. The slowness and “physical-ness” of selling at retail creates it’s own set of problems (shelf space, inventory, cost of goods).

3. Debugging the problems with your product at retail are exacerbated by the problems created by selling at retail. (Do players not like the game or did the retailer forget to put it on the shelf?).

Now about selling social games online.

1. “Instant on”: player sees and clicks a link to your game on Facebook and starts playing instantly with no obligations.

2. If the player likes your game, they keep playing. If not, they quit playing. We know how  as game makers how many people are playing the game each day.

3. Without looking at any personal information, we can know when people stop playing the game and can make daily adjustment to add fun, remove boring parts and fix bugs.

4. When a player spends money in your game, it shows up in your bank account that day.

Seems obvious to me. Hope other people see it too:

Don’t waste another minute selling games at retail.

Seriously…stop it. Right now.

Do you see it too or am I off track?

Social games are mainstream.

Here’s why I think so.

According to various sources over 10 million people watch “Oprah” each day. Most people definitely consider “Oprah” mainstream.

Compare Oprah’s 10 million viewers with the 20 million people who play Zynga’s “FarmVille” game each day. Or compare it to the 6.5 million people who play Zynga’s “Mafia Wars” each day. (source: developeranalytics.com).

Doesn’t it seem like social games have hit the mainstream?

Let me know what you think.

See more about Zynga here. Check out FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Cafe World too.