A social network game is a type of online game that is played through social networks, and typically features multiplayer and asynchronous gameplay mechanics. Social network games are most often implemented as browser games, but can also be implemented on other platforms such as mobile devices. The first cross-platform "Facebook-to-Mobile" social network game was developed in 2011 by a Finnish company Star Arcade. Social network games are amongst the most popular games played in the world, with several products with tens of millions of players.(Lil) Green Patch, Happy Farm,Farm Town, YoVille and Mob Wars were some of the first successful games of this genre. FarmVille, Mafia Wars, FrontierVille, CityVille, Gardens of Time, Kantai Collection and The Sims Social are more recent examples of popular social network games.

While they share many aspects of traditional video games, social network games often employ additional ones that make them distinct. Traditionally they are oriented to be casual games.

A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time. Video games are often single-player activities, pitting the player against preprogrammed challenges or AI-controlled opponents (which lack the flexibility of human thought). Multiplayer games allow players interaction with other individuals in partnership, competition or rivalry, providing them with social communication absent from single-player games. In multiplayer games, players may compete against two (or more) human contestants, work cooperatively with a human partner to achieve a common goal, supervise other players' activity or e), co-op and objective-based modes assaulting (or defending) a control point. Multiplayer games typically require players to share the resources of a single game system or use networking technology to play together over a greater distance.

History

Non-networked

Some of the earliest video games were two-player games, including early sports games (such as 1958's Tennis For Two and 1972's Pong), early shooter games such as Spacewar! (1962) and early racing video games such as Astro Race (1973). The first examples of multiplayer real-time games were developed on the PLATO system about 1973. Multi-user games developed on this system included 1973's Empire and 1974's Spasim; the latter was an early first-person shooter. Other early video games included turn-based multiplayer modes, popular in tabletop arcade machines. In such games, play is alternated at some point (often after the loss of a life). All players' scores are often displayed onscreen so players can see their relative standing.

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

Social networks and the analysis of them is an inherently interdisciplinary academic field which emerged from social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. Georg Simmel authored early structural theories in sociology emphasizing the dynamics of triads and "web of group affiliations."Jacob Moreno is credited with developing the first sociograms in the 1930s to study interpersonal relationships. These approaches were mathematically formalized in the 1950s and theories and methods of social networks became pervasive in the social and behavioral sciences by the 1980s.Social network analysis is now one of the major paradigms in contemporary sociology, and is also employed in a number of other social and formal sciences. Together with other complex networks, it forms part of the nascent field of network science.

In the field of sociolinguistics, social network describes the structure of a particular speech community. Social networks are composed of a "web of ties" (Lesley Milroy) between individuals, and the structure of a network will vary depending on the types of connections it is composed of. Social network theory (as used by sociolinguists) posits that social networks, and the interactions between members within the networks, are a driving force behind language change.

The structure of a social network

Participants

The key participant in a social network is the anchor, or center individual. From this anchor, ties of varying strengths radiate outwards to other people with whom the anchor is directly linked. These people are represented by points. Participants in a network, regardless of their position, can also be referred to as actors or members.

Relationships

There are multiple ways to describe the structure of a social network. Among them are density, member closeness centrality, multiplexity, and orders. These metrics measure the different ways of connecting within of a network, and when used together they provide a complete picture of the structure of a particular network.

A social network is a theoretical concept in the social sciences, particularly sociology and anthropology, referring to a social structure made up of individuals or organizations.

Social network may also refer to:

Academic

Internet-related