Another example of a game company losing a chance to do something creative happened with Pete Parsons, who headed the Bungie studio at Microsoft’s game division. He left left the company to start his own Funware company, Fyreball, (our coverage). Parsons agrees with Zichermann’s views on Funware stealing time away from gaming. “The idea of play, or interactivity, is fundamental to humans and for a long time, this has been overlooked,” Parsons said. “Game companies should be setting aside creative people to look at creating Funware experiences on the broader Internet that build on the experiences from the console games.” One thing that might happen is that the people who know how to design great games might move into Funware companies. Why would they do that? Maybe it has something to do with valuations. Facebook with something like 500 employees is reportedly worth $15 billion, about the same value as EA ($16.5 billion) with 8,000 employees. It’s easy to see the attraction of Funware for the rank-and-file video game employees. Of course, if the bubble bursts in social media, those who stay at the game companies will feel better.