The game market has fractured into several niches over the years. Gaming includes everything from board games played around a table to social games that only live on Facebook. It has been interesting to watch the gaming space evolve and expand with the assistance of the internet. Today, there is an online version of almost every game known to man.

Companies like Zynga have millions of players using social networks to play games that involve farms, fish and you name it… These are called social games.

EA made it’s fortune producing and distributing video games for the X-box/Playstation crowd and now is moving into net-based games.

Hasbro has ruled the board game category for years and is now into online gaming. Television game shows continue to draw good ratings, with some game shows, like Family Feud, making the transition to the web as well.

The point is that there are many ways to play games, and millions find time to enjoy a game on the internet regularly. Game play is a big and diverse business!

Now a new niche is beginning to emerge on the web: The Party Game..

These are the party activities that we have learned at countless birthday parties, bridal showers or company parties. They are being developed as mimics of these familiar party games and used to support online parties for the important life events.

It seems logical that if every other genre of game has made a move to the online world, that Party Games will be in the space eventually as well.

What Party Games do you enjoy? Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Spin the Bottle, Yankee Swap or maybe Truth or Dare?

At one time, I wanted our online party application to be considered a social game, but now I am rethinking the association.

From now on, AlbinoPhant is not a social game, but is a Gift Sales Facilitator.

This title is not nearly as catchy as social game, yet it does describes what we do… Maybe we should have an acronym in the title, like GSF party game…

The fact is that we have a great deal of social features in our party game. So we could be considered a social game. There are multiple players joining in a game, and there is a comment stream with shared videos and images on the game play page….   But, we are NOT a game using offer-scams. We are a party game, with REAL gifts to offer. Yes, real gifts that are purchased in eCommerce and shipped directly to each players door.

The stories of these social game scam bother me, and I want no part of the association…

My first introduction to this issue was in an Andrew Chen blog post titled: Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article.
Andrew’s discussion led me to a link back to the originator of this apparent firestorm, Michael Arrington of Techcrunch. I read Michael’s post and concluded that for sure, don’t want to be called a social game.

This “offers” business seems like a grab for money in an industry that has challenges finding monetizing solutions. Frankly, I am sad to hear that gaming customers are being treated badly and that legitimate advertisers are being drug through the dirt by these negative associations.

So here is how a Gift Sales Facilitator/GSF party game works:

* First, you recognize that people are sharing gifts (real gifts not virtual mumbo jumbo) with each other during the holidays and at events all year long.

* Next, you find the most common party activity that groups use to socialize and share these gifts with each other.

* Finally, you build an application that facilitates the sale of the gifts, and provides a fun way to pass the gifts around in an online party game.

Mix those 3 components into a social network platform and you get a gift sales facilitator on Facebook…

I wish that I could have used the descriptive title of a Social Game. It might be easier to market than breaking new ground. But I choose to distance our White Elephant Party and future products from the mud-slinging, and just pioneer a new category:

I also realize that there is a bunch of money flowing through the Offers model.  But when I look at how many birthday, wedding, graduation and holiday gifts are purchase every year, I say…. Let me facilitate some of that honest and profitable action.

For now just call us a Gift Sales Facilitator or maybe a GSF party game.