PowerPoint Presentation – Putting the Fun in Functional
Amy Jo Kim has a great presentation from ETech called Putting the Fun in Functional that not only articulates how to use some of the fundamental building blocks of games for other purposes, but calls out in stark form what some of those principles are.
This is valuable because often, we take them for granted — when really, we should be focused very strongly on making sure these fundamentals are nailed correctly. (Which echoes a blog post that I read this morning on a blog by Kathy Sierra that Amy Jo pointed to as well — but really, you should read that whole blog too)…
Many of them boil down to forms of feedback, but critically, there’s two important forms of user expression as well: customization, and the ability to give fedback to one another, creating a social context.
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Excellent set of slides for sure. In my opinion it also points out why a few alternative business models for MMO’s should work. The two main avenues I would put forth would be charging for implicit exchanges (ie. giving some ‘gifts’ in MySpace costs money, and thusly carries more meaning, this should be easy to translate to a virtual world) and charging for customization (I know some smaller Asian MMO’s do this already). Both should theoretically be able to turn a decent profit, assuming they were balanced correctly.
Furcadia has managed to stay going for quite a while now selling customization: wings for their furries at $50 a pop or something.
Does anyone else see the conundrum here? I mean, leaderboards or not, levels act the same way, don’t they? (Levels, skills, all the same really in this topic.)
And if you take out the “levels”, you basically take out the whole point of “points”.
The same can be said for “collections”, since they are another “point” system.
And that all affects, and is affected by, the social aspects of the “exchanges” and “customization” mechanics as well.
My point is that while leaderboards encourage gaming the system, you can’t get completely away from people doing that.
“Encourage” seems to be the key word here.
Well, the real issue with leaderboards is that they reveal in stark terms exactly how much you suck. There can be many level 60s, but there can only be one #1. Levels force comparison, but they are flexible in that way, because each rank is not a zero-sum game.
The commonest approach to dealing with leaderboards is to therefore try to have lots of them, but what we tend to see happening is that the same folks show up at the top of more than one — often, most of them. We probably simply have never created enough different leaderboards measuring enough different things.
There’s also the timeslice approach: having leaderboards within leagues, within cohorts, etc, can create more possible slots for people to be at the top.
Hey, our company is mentioned on slide 16 (PrizePlay, mobile games where you win points for buying prizes). 🙂
And yes, I agree that leaderboards can be bad because they reveal average player’s “averageness”. I think it’s very important to remember: half of your players are below average. Meanwhile, it’s probably important for all of them to feel that they excel. There’s even a bad feedback loop going here. If your worst players quit because it is too obvious that they are horrible at the game, then the “average” points per player raises and a new set of players become the “worst” in the game.
It’s interesting to watch some players self-insulate themselves from this. Players in MMORPG’s will judge those who adhieve higher scores than them as “12 year old twitch gamers” or “people with no life” and thus try to selectively ignore the scores of those above them while still trying to increase their overall ranking.
I think that games with social frameworks are going to be increasingly playing games with tweaking player perceptions to convince them of their individual success while still allowing social interaction and social rewards. The goal is to try and convince as many people as possible that they are above average and do so leveraging as much social interaction as possible so as to boost the feeling of social acceptance/legitimacy of the socring. This probably will take the form of slices and gameplay that isn’t zero-sum or simply confusing to rank. Slices will probably be sub-communities more than anything. In WoW this is guilds leveling up together.
It could be as simple as not showing the leaderboards to people who aren’t in that ranking range. Instead, show those people other sorts of feedback altogether. Why bother telling someone they are #1,984,563? Tell them they are in the top ten Libras from Ohio that week, instead.
But then all the other Libras in Ohio will still feel unjustifiably jilted, eh? And the sad fact is that it’s the powergamers who do always tend to win these contests. I don’t think it would be too bold or impulsive of me to predict that the vast majority of gamers would never be at the top of any leaderboards.
But what if a game offered none of that, but instead concentrated on self recognition. Suppose that only the individual saw their level, for example. That would satisfy the “points” side in them. Recognition by others can be had through other aspects of game play, rather than through such lists and titles. What I’m suggesting is a combination of ways that players can achieve recognition, some easy to obtain and others so rare that it’s no big deal if you aren’t on the “list”, because so isn’t everyone else. The general idea being to offer some recognition, but to keep it at a low keyed status.
Examples like:
-Character names on items they made
-Rare to semi rare items that are truelly rare, and unpredictable so that the same players don’t corner the market. Such as rare chance encounters with stags with large antlers to display, snow white fox pelts, large gems while mining, etc.
-Tourney champions
My point being that it’s in there, but doesn’t become the gamey system that’s so common and commonly rebutted. It satisfies players to some extent, but doesn’t turn the game into a contest(s). Turning them into that ruins the immersion. Forcing players to ignore a key feature isn’t good either, better to just leave it out. It’s just not cohesive to have various game styles in the same game, especially a game world.
Those have all been done, even in one game. LegendMUD had all of those, actually. Legend is also a straight up level based system, though it does not have classes in the same way as usual.
A small community helps there… most muds offer that.
Or, the players will find a way to make their own leaderboards if the game doesn’t provide them. That site takes user submitted “scores” and “skill lists” and builds the tables out of them. It can also tell you who the best characters to learn a given skill are (both currently online and otherwise) or even the best person(s) in your group to teach you. You can also do one-on-one comparisons with other characters.
It is a VERY useful tool for learning how to build and improve your own character.
I guess I don’t follow. Are you saying that the kind of game I was suggesting would only work in a smaller gaming community? If so, why would you think that?
In a smaller gaming community, the sting of being low on the leaderboard is lessened; you don’t feel overwhelmed by a faceless majority, you feel like your friends are talented or lucky. 🙂
True, and that leaves the massive game communities to think about. And that’s what the article is all about, to spell out what players want in a game and how they enjoy it. So, again leads back to my point and the point made in the article itself. Reducing the feeling by the many of being overwhelmed, while still giving the few a bit of that feeling of overshadowing others.
It’s sort of like being a millionaire today isn’t the same as being a millionaire 50 years ago. But it’s still good, I’m assuming.
[…] UPDATE II: More notes from around the Web – here’s some excellent, detailed notes about my talk from ‘we make money not art’ . And some perspective from Alice in Wonderland, one of my favorite game-oriented bloggers. And also some comments from Raph Koster, my friend and colleague from Ultime Online days. I’m thrilled that people whom I admire are responding to my work, and finding it useful. W00t! […]
[…] These are my notes on this session from the Mobile GDC. It’s got significant overlap with the previous posting on this topic, but there’s a lot of new material too. […]
This thread has focused on leaderboards and levels. Stepping back a bit, we see that leaderboards and levels are but two of many possible ways of rating players. Like AJ says, what you reward says a lot about what your game/service values. What other point reward systems are possible?
1. A softer way of doing leaderboards that I mentioned in the talk is to say where your score relative to everyone else’s scores on a scale of 0 to 100. This is soft in the sense that a good score will tend to rank high no matter how many players are in the system. But half the players will be rated below average, which can be disheartening.
2. Another way is to reward improvement, which is competing against yourself. Less competitive, but what if you hit a plateau?
3. The softest way is simply to reward participation, e.g. a point for every time you play. Excelling simply takes persistence, which is within everyone’s reach.
I bet there are other ways to do ratings that reward other desirable behaviors. As Kristen says players will make their own leaderboards if they aren’t already present. What other reward systems have players made?
[…] Casual Games =~ Social Software http://suttree.com/2006/03/23/casual-games-social-software/ warpedvisions.org – Blog Archive – Social gaming in Python http://warpedvisions.org/2006/03/22/social-gaming-in-python/ Start on Travian MMOG http://www.hanshyong.com/blog/2006/02/08/start-on-travian-mmog/ iPod Diagnostic Mode http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/ipodsupport/diagnosticmode/index.shtml Levy: (Some) Attention Must Be Paid! – Newsweek Technology – MSNBC.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11899893/site/newsweek/ Raph’s Website – PowerPoint Presentation – Putting the Fun in Functional https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/03/11/powerpoint-presentation-putting-the-fun-in-functional we make money not art: eTech – Amy Jo Kim http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/008152.php Links hosted by del.icio.us […]
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