socialness

So, someone was talking about 'social games' not being either games or social.

It's true that many facebook gamethings, especally in the past, didn't quite qualify under traditional definitions of game. As I understand it, there are more gamey games turning up in facebook nowadays, as well as hybrids with some gamey elements and some pay-money elements and some spread-this-meme elements and so on. But not being a game doesn't mean things can't be entertaining, toys and 'play' aren't games but people still enjoy them. So. Discounting that.

Are social games actually social? I don't really know because I don't play them. Do people ever interact within the games other than just clicking on something to send points to someone else? If your friends can come into your garden and plant special flowers in their own unique chosen pattern so that you can get 'Rex Was Here' spelled out in roses, that is interaction, but I have no idea if it happens. Do cool, unique-to-you things ever happen in these games that you might want to talk about with others? Do any of the games allow for sufficient player creativity that your results might be interesting to share and compare with other players for reasons other than to get more virtual credits?