Could games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft work on Facebook?

Who knows (and definitely not at the moment), but Facebook's European head of gaming partnerships Julien Codorniou hopes "every successful game that exists on PC, consoles, should come on the Facebook platform at some point." According to PocketGamer.biz, Codorniou made the forward-looking remark during this year's Social Gaming Summit in London.

The European mirror to Facebook's Sean Ryan did, however, point out what's keeping the industry from getting to that point. Simply put, the rampant copycatting needs to stop. As PocketGamer.biz's Will Wilson put it: 'Please stop making FarmVille-style games, we've already got enough, thanks.' Codorniou went on to praise games like Social Point's Social Empires for sourcing its inspirations elsewhere, like the popular Age of Empires PC strategy franchise.

And while Codorniou wishes for the best games on consoles to also hit Facebook, he knows where the immediate future is. "We believe the mobile web platform is the future for the gaming industry," Codorniou concluded. "Bet on mobile, HTML5. This is really the future of gaming for us."

Alright, so you know that already. But let's stop and think for a second: Could the best of traditional gaming really make it to Facebook? Well, we're certainly getting there. From advancements in the Unity Player and Flash Player (the primary tool for making Facebook games) to the Unreal Engine arriving on Facebook, we're inching ever closer to that reality. These types of games on the web are simply an eventuality--the audience for them, however, is far from that.

Do you agree that mobile is the future of social gaming? Will hardcore or traditional games ever have a place on Facebook?

Facebook strategy games match PC quality ... from back in the day

"We see the emergence now of companies on Facebook who are building what they'd call a core game," Facebook games platform head Gareth Davis said to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview. "Games targeted at people who played PC games back in the day, strategy games. They're at the quality level now of those PC games."

Considering these games are being created in 2011, we're not sure whether that's a compliment or a complaint. This isn't to say that games like Kixeye's War Commander or Edgeworld by Kabam aren't impressive in their own right. However, if Davis is referring to classic real-time strategy games for the PC like StarCraft and Command & Conquer--you know, games that allowed for real-time multiplayer matchmaking and control of individual units on the battlefield--then we'd have to disagree.

Davis's ultimate point is that new genres are blooming in the Facebook games space for growing niche audiences, like hardcore strategy gamers (from the late '90s?). Jokes aside, new niches in Facebook games are certainly cropping up, and that can only mean more diversity from the tired FarmVille formula. For instance, Entertainment Games is aiming directly at our parents with its first Facebook game, Retro World.

"So we're seeing this broadening now of the kinds of games and audiences and you can be very successful, creating different types of games and you can make a lot of money doing it," Davis told GI.biz. "We're seeing a real maturing of the eco-system as people figure out the right opportunities and go after them." If this means an end to the rampant propagation of the 'Ville species, then count us in.

[Via IndustryGamers]

Do you think strategy games on Facebook come close to the classics? What other niches do you think Facebook games could cater to?