"We're talking about two distinct things," began moderator Hugh de Loayza at a Casual Connect panel discussing game networks and social networks like MySpace. "Seven of the top ten apps on Facebook are games," said the vice president of business development for Zynga. "That represents about 5.45 million daily application uses."

"Social game networks are networks embedded within social networks," de Loayza continued, and then asked his panelists what the major challenges were.

Russell Ovans, the president of Backstage Technologies started by saying, "The primary benefit for a small software company such as ours...was that we could reach this huge audience, basically overnight."

"Though it isn't really that easy," continued Ovans. "There are now thousands and thousands of applications on Facebook. Being found amidst all that clutter is the challenge. Key benefit: huge market. Difficulty is standing out."

Richard Fields, the chief executive at MindJolt takes a different approach. "We do something a little different than most of the applications out there. We're something of a middle-man. We help allay the costs of getting your game out there, getting the exposure."

Fields says that finding your game, and then finding it again is "a big issue." The social networks are important though, he says, and a developer can take advantage of the viral aspects of said networks. "Standing out from the crowd is one of the biggest issues that a new developer would have."

Gabe Zichermann, the founder of rmbr, commented, "The most interesting thing to me is this pivot number of ten-to-fifteen-thousand installs." Once a game hits that number, he said, "That's when you can really tell if it's good or not."

He also noted that while developers are very passionate about games for social networks, it's not matched by consumer enthusiasm or commercial enthusiasm. "Users are not saying 'I really want to play my favorite game on Facebook.'"

Stephanie Bergman, the director of product management for MySpace.com says that if you don't listen to your developers, "you're kind of wasting your time. All that feedback is important. It's important for us to know, because we're going to incorporate it into our platform."

Ultimately, she says, if she doesn't help the developers succeed they've failed as a platform. "The games that are flourishing on MySpace are the ones that are taking advantage of the social nature of MySpace users," continues Bergman. "The games that are going to succeed on MySpace are the ones that are customized for our users."

As Fields says, "Every single [platform] has its own unique traits and quirks. There really is a different user demographic – and different users are interested in different things. The social networks," he says, "are constantly changing."

Zichermann said that he feels like developers are in a war with Facebook. "We're not 100% sure if Facebook wants us there." Over the last year, he's tried and tried to get representatives from Facebook to attend gaming conferences. "There really is some sense that we are at the whim of the platform owner here." He concludes, "It's a little awkward."

Ovans is quick to point out that the benefits far outweigh any potential "cold war" between developers and the social network. "There is no greater opportunity than to write for that platform at this time."

Zichermann also has a bold closing statement: Facebook is to games what Napster was to music. "Facebook is not about stealing games from people." Instead, it's about letting people who have no experience, make games that can be played by millions of people. "It's not that people want to be able to make their own games, but that they want to play with their friends."