The Keys to Social Play: Designing Viral Distribution without Spamming Your Friends
How can we go from 10M players in WOW to create a game that 6 Billion people want to play? Virtual worlds are the new frontier and creating an MSO is our moonshot.
What will it take for a game to jump from millions to hundreds of millions to play is not how hard or easy a game is, but how social. This presentation covers new research on emotion and the fun of games and outlines ways to create new forms of social engagement. Games that take advantage of small time slices allow players to asynchronously spend more time with their friends no matter where they are. In addition to competition and cooperation (PvP, PvE) and the established game genres (fight, sports, race, war strategy, D&D role play, simulation) there are game mechanics that create social interaction. This presentation covers new social mechanics from our research to offer more play styles and flesh out your gameplay. By connecting these systems designers can drive player behavior to create viral engagement. Together we will explore examples from WOW, Maple Story, Hot or Not, PlayFish, Parking Wars, and XEODesign's own experimental iPhone games: Tilt and TattleTalz.com.
We'll look at the social behaviors players enjoy most and how to add social emotions beyond collecting friends, reporting high scores, adding a social network, and tacking on a store. Players love spending time with their friends, and they like interacting with each other more than the game. Come hear the latest research results on emotions and games played on social networks.
From XEODesign's latest player research we will look at:
* What mechanics and emotions drive social interaction.
* How social games create tension without violence.
* What mechanics and emotions drive social networking and increase social capital.
*The emotions and mechanics that drive microtransactions.
We'll share examples of how to design viral engagement does not mean adding chat and a store. Instead we'll show how to connect these systems and design viral engagement into play and include our research results of emotional engagement of games running on social networks on all platforms: social media like Facebook and MySpace, casual games like Pogo, mobile phones such as our Tilt and TattleTalz, as well as console games such as XBOX Live.
Intended Audience: Whether you an Indi working on a game launched on a social network like Facebook, part of a large team working on a AAA title, or designing the next hit casual game; social interaction is an incredible tool to create tension and
engagement. No one wants another social network to join. Everyone loves
spending time with their friends. Attendees will walk away with a deep
understanding of why games need to avoid "social networking" and how to create social engagement instead.
Prerequisites: Familiarity with Social Games such as those running on Facebook.
Format: Lecture
Track: Design
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 2:00 PM
Room: Harbor
