I'm skeptical that a market consisting of products which range in price from free to one dollar requires sophisticated discovery systems. Most mobile games (and virtually all web games) are free to try - there's no need for social proof.
This is the reason casual game reviewing has never been anywhere near as valuable as in the traditional market. People just don't need to read a review about a free game before trying it, they can just sink 5 minutes in and see how it is.
The other aspect of this product is also underwhelming; the check-ins. You're essentially trying to gamify... well, games. A good game will have more than enough intrinsic rewards that layering these extrinsic ones on top will add little value in my opinion.
Social discovery is not just about social proof but also about getting signal from noise. With 70k games and growing knowing what games your friends are playing is a great way of decided what games to try out. Price cost of games may be low but no one has time to try them all out.
Check-ins are more of a broadcast mechanism rather than a gamifying one. Some users check-in for badges but a lot do it for broadcasting to the community. We are going to be providing more value to check-ins by also recommending games from them. Did you get a chance to try it out?
You're right, no one has time to try every game released; however don't you feel that the generic store rankings already do a pretty good job filtering out the noise? I'm not saying your product will have no value, just that for me personally I can't see it being a huge improvement over the existing filtering mechanism (genre specific app store ranking).
If you rely on genre specific ranking won't you only end up exploring genres that you recognize and are already familiar with? What if it could expose you to games that you actually enjoy but are in genres that you wouldn't have considered exploring.
I have tried HayZap before but I don't think I checked in. Have you guys considered doing away with signups at first, and just using my location? Then you could recommend games based on how many users around you play it (or just in general) without having to get my friends involved and for me to think I'm leaving the game I played to sign up.
Web sites and pages are similarly free to try... Yet there are plenty of services out there to help you discover the best of them (you're on one right now).
That's true; although my friends do not use HN to the best of my knowledge, and they don't have my taste in games. I know this argument comes up every time social discovery is brought up, however I feel that it's valid.
This is the reason casual game reviewing has never been anywhere near as valuable as in the traditional market. People just don't need to read a review about a free game before trying it, they can just sink 5 minutes in and see how it is.
The other aspect of this product is also underwhelming; the check-ins. You're essentially trying to gamify... well, games. A good game will have more than enough intrinsic rewards that layering these extrinsic ones on top will add little value in my opinion.