St. John remarked that the recent "discovery" of micro-transactions and virtual goods as a business model has actually been a vibrant and growing part of the gaming industry for years. He also highlighted several crucial differences between traditional console games and social games -- including designing virality into the core game mechanic, the need to build an addictive game that will maximize yield from users who start playing for free, and the increasing irrelevance of IP licensing to a game's success.
The previous panel discussion included Sebastien De Halleux, COO of Playfish; John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom; Roy Sehgal, GM and Executive Producer at Zynga; and Neil Young, Founder & CEO of ngmoco. The panelists discussed the rapid pace of innovation in the social gaming space, the importance of continuous measurement and testing of key game metrics, and the fact the space is still looking for the category-defining hit -- among other topics.
For more coverage of the event, see the following articles on VentureBeat: