[Parhelion]

Yes and no.

Canvassing a gaming network is going to get you players who are already familiar with games. I am not familiar with too many actual gaming networking sites (TMS technically is not such a site), but I imagine the downside of that is that by and large most of the players already have a "home game" and are networking to find other players from those same games. This is like setting up a pizza shop in the middle of a entire city block of bigger pizza shops. That's just my speculation, though, and it's outside the bounds of this survey.

Facebook has different uses, and a much different audience. You say you don't mix your online gaming with your "professional presence", which suggests to me that you either think down on gaming in general (and thus hide the fact you do it) OR you use Facebook in the same manner that you would use a networking site like LinkedIn. I could be wrong on both accounts, but if either is true, it's essential to point out that you would not be the "average" Facebook user. I suppose it depends on who you were trying to get to hire you, but saying "I like WoW" or "I dig these 80's text games" is NOT the same as posting pics about how you dropped acid while banging forest animals and then things went all pear-shaped. To be honest with you, gaming seems to have lost its "taboo" status for adults... but then, I'm not in 'business', I'm in the labor/environmental industry -- and all of my coworkers play online games, and I have NEVER had a boss that did not play online games or was at least curious about it.

Facebook does not have very many social rules or expectations on what people can share -- you have straight-edge businessmen, rockers, stay-at-home moms, children, old ladies who like Red Hat, and, yes, game enthusiasts. A gaming company that uses Facebook to promote its product may have the same success rate as the organic whole foods store down the street or a company whose entire reason for being is to build 2000-dollar custom painted litter boxes that function as normal furniture.

Of course, FB has other uses -- you don't HAVE to use it strictly to try and reach a new audience (although that's a perk). You can use it as a way to stay connected with the audience that you ALREADY have; while a small handful of your players may use a particular game networking site, it's a safe bet that the majority of your players at least recognize Facebook, even if they don't frequently use it.