Social gaming has exploded in recent years, with the popularity of Zynga's FarmVille opening the floodgates for other companies to make money out of social networking sites and mobile apps.

But how important is it to have social features in games that don't follow the FarmVille-style gameplay model? Are multiplayer options a vital element in this inter-connected information age society?

Jeroen Elfferich, CEO and co-founder of Ex Machina, believes so: "We try to enable multiplayer gaming, it's the ultimate side of social gaming," he says.

"What we try to add to that is layers of friendship. When people play games together in the same location, you should offer a different kind of experience to when they're not playing together."

Volker Hirsch, Scoreloop's strategic director, explained that prior to computers most games were social games, so it's only natural that today's games should embrace such functionality.

"There are certain features that takes games out of that [solitary] cage and put it into its old context.

"You need to look at the mechanical fit. Social connections can aid discovery, but only if people feel compelled to share it. Spam your friends on Twitter feature and people will block your stream. If you integrate it in a smart way, in a social context that is relevant [to your consumer], then you will see much more success."

Learn by doing

Elfferich continued this strain of thought, explaining that social gaming was essentially designed for the mobile phone, because it's "the only device we play games on that was designed to communicate."

Jeferson Valadares , studio director at EA social studio Playfish, dashed those hoping for a magic bullet for success in the social gaming field. "From a process point of view, the most important thing we've learned is that you don't really know what you're doing until you try it out," he said.

"We release a new version of our main games every week. [Pet Society] has been running for two years. It's been updated 150 times. It's much better to get something out in two months and then learn from it than spend a year developing it."

Hirsch was naturally reluctant for developers to embrace a single format for social gaming. "I think, what you need to have a look at - social relationships don't accrue in technology silos," he said.

"If something is as dominant on one platform as Game Center, then yes, use it as well. I know very few people, though, all of whose friends are iPhone users. The whole cross-platform approach and multi-screen approach is something at least I would bear in mind to acquiring and keeping users engaged."