Social games

Want to come up to speed fast on all those social games you don't have time to play? Mia Consalvo's recent 2011 Foundations of Digital Games paper "Using your friends: Social mechanics in social games" will do the trick. As Mia said to me at FDG, "I played these games so you don't have to" :P As per usual with Mia, the paper is excellently written, packed with content, satisfyingly concluded with useful take-aways. The FDG Proceedings do not yet seem to be available online, so I will provide the link when they are.