the gamedesigninitiative at cornell university

Lecture 3

Social Mechanics About Today’s Lecture

— Will assume you saw Koster’s talk — Will use his design terminology — But not his Twitter numbers 18 — But will go deeper than that — What the heck was he talking about? — How is it present in existing games? — How do I add it to my game?

the gamedesigninitiative 2 Social Mechanics at cornell university REVIEW: Aspects of a Game

— Players: How do humans affect the game?

— Goals: What is the player trying to do?

— Rules: How can the player achieve the goal?

— Challenges: What obstacles block the goal?

the gamedesigninitiative 3 Social Mechanics at cornell university Introducing Social Elements

— Design game to encourage social interaction — Multiplayer => Social — But multiplayer not required — Goals and Social Activity — Goals have multiplayer aspect — Challenges and Social Activity — Multiple players adjust the difficulty — Other players can help or hinder

the gamedesigninitiative 4 Social Mechanics at cornell university Trivial: “Single Player” Social

— Parallel symmetric games from Koster’s talk — Status (my high score) — Leaderboards (everyone’s high score) — Races (speed puzzles) — Tournaments (brackets of races) — Social aspects are “external” to game — Or are they really?

the gamedesigninitiative 5 Social Mechanics at cornell university Single-Player Social Design — Very easy to do with “scoring” — Numerical basis for status, comparison — Most social games do this

— Scoring can be multi-dimensional — Different categories (speed, difficulty, etc…) — Can have leaderboard for each category

— Status messages are non-numerical alternative — Update my friends on where I am in game

the gamedesigninitiative 6 Social Mechanics at cornell university Status Messages: Sword and Sworcery

the gamedesigninitiative 7 Social Mechanics at cornell university Is this Good Design?

— If this is social, all games are social — But that was Raph’s point — Bad: can ignore social elements — Don’t care about high score — Goal: design social game mechanics — Require friends to play the game — Or at least create strong incentives

the gamedesigninitiative 8 Social Mechanics at cornell university Opposition: Koster’s Basics

— 1 vs 1 — Tug of War (combat) — Flower Picking (resource race) — Dot Eating (resource fight) — Secrets (deception)

— 1 vs 1 vs … vs 1 — Last Man Standing (big fight) — Bidding (spectators) — Gamemaster Pattern (????)

the gamedesigninitiative 9 Social Mechanics at cornell university Key Design Observation

— In these designs, number of players is fixed — Traditional multiplayer set-up — Not really using a “social network” — Existing games use asynchronous turn-based gameplay — Old: Chess, Avalon Hill Wargames — New: Words with Friends, WarStorm — Social Network a variation of play-by-mail — 1990s: Play-by-email — Now: Play-by-Twitter, Play-by-Facebook — Design is largely unchanged

the gamedesigninitiative 10 Social Mechanics at cornell university Problem: Downtime

— Next move is blocked on player/gamemaster — (Pre-internet) real life communication lag — (Post-internet) player away from keyboard — How long can player take on his/her turn? — “Swapping in” a big problem — Where are we in the game? — May have been days since last turn — These problems limit you to core gamers

the gamedesigninitiative 11 Social Mechanics at cornell university Problem: Downtime

the gamedesigninitiative 12 Social Mechanics at cornell university Solution: Keep it Simple

— Classic board game design — Moves are relatively short — State determined at a glance — Examples: — Chess: Move one piece; small 8x8 board — Word with Friends: Scrabble variant — Collectable Card Game: Cards in play — But not memoryless…

the gamedesigninitiative 13 Social Mechanics at cornell university Complex Games Need a Gamemaster — Needed if actions non-deterministic — How do we know outcome? — Cannot see your die roll — Computer serves as gamemaster — Allows for complex gameplay — Turn sets up action for gamemaster — But now turns take longer to play!

the gamedesigninitiative 14 Social Mechanics at cornell university Example: Warstorm

the gamedesigninitiative 15 Social Mechanics at cornell university Cooperation (Fixed Size)

— Friends help player overcome challenges — Roles (medic!) — Mentoring (free XP) — Gifts (free magic items) — Reciprocity (item exchange) — Why wasn't booing given a number? — Is it the same as gifts? — Is it the same as mentoring?

the gamedesigninitiative 16 Social Mechanics at cornell university Example: Dragon Age Legends

the gamedesigninitiative 17 Social Mechanics at cornell university But Plays Like Single Player

— Do not actually fight battles with your friends — Would require coordination after each move — This would make it a turn-based RPG — Requires constant online with lot of downtime — In DA: Legends, Friends are resource — Friends lend characters to your for the battle — You control entire party on your own — Social coordination is after each battle

the gamedesigninitiative 18 Social Mechanics at cornell university Social Games Use Resource Sharing

— Zynga games have money as resource — “Hire” your friends to do tasks — This transfers your money to them — Works with game specific resources — Farmville: Seeds, energy Numeric — Vampire: Blood Resources — DA Legends: Party members Object

the gamedesigninitiative 19 Social Mechanics at cornell university And This Leads to Monetization…

the gamedesigninitiative 20 Social Mechanics at cornell university Opposition & Cooperation

— Opponents, Friends may change dynamically — Ganging Up (king of the hill) — Deception/Bluffing (turncoat) — Prisoner’s Dilemma (lesser two evils)

— Fundamental in 3+ person games — Recall: Kingmaking, Politics — Very difficult to balance

the gamedesigninitiative 21 Social Mechanics at cornell university Is This Truly “Social”?

— Opposition leads to turn-based play — Mechanics derived from board games — Again, a form of play-by-mail — Designed for (relatively) small groups — Opposition is still very “personal” — Adding players unbalances resource sharing — Too many players, too long a game

the gamedesigninitiative 22 Social Mechanics at cornell university Leveraging the Social Network

— Support open-ended cooperation/opposition — Want to encourage large personal network — But also allow small-scale (or even solo) play — Allow time for communication — Friends not immediately available — Do not “block” on requests — But allow for quick mobilization — Provide rich communication channels — “Join our secret group to plot John’s demise”

the gamedesigninitiative 23 Social Mechanics at cornell university Unbounded Resource Sharing

— Example: Mafia Wars — My empire versus your empire — Opposition is no longer “personal” — Again, very hard to balance — Large social networks crucial for survival — Mobilization is also critical — Small networks need much work/money

the gamedesigninitiative 24 Social Mechanics at cornell university Diminishing Returns

— Friends can only help a limited number of times — Friends run out of resources to give — DA Legends: User per day limit on friends — Implemented with an “energy” resource — Social activities require energy use — Have to wait for friends to recharge — Energy replenishes over time (or with money) — Encourages spreading out friends over time — Going “all in” makes you vulnerable

the gamedesigninitiative 25 Social Mechanics at cornell university Guilds and Large Economies

— A lot of rich gameplay from the MMOs — Guild vs. Guild — Trade/Contracts — Elections/Politics — Arbitrage — But not really prevalent in social games. — Why not? (privacy policies?) — Can we create it?

the gamedesigninitiative 26 Social Mechanics at cornell university Why do Guilds Form?

Exclusivity Supply Chains

the gamedesigninitiative 27 Social Mechanics at cornell university Why do Guilds Form?

Exclusivity Supply Chains

the gamedesigninitiative 28 Social Mechanics at cornell university Guild Specialization

— Supply chains lead to specialization — Each person has different role in chain — Guild structure balances member roles — Very different from social game design — Friends are often interchangeable — Actions limited by network size, not organization — Is this too hardcore for social gamers?

the gamedesigninitiative 29 Social Mechanics at cornell university Summary

— Social gaming is still not well understood — Many games are play-by-mail variants — Downtime prevents a lot of complex gameplay — Want mechanics that leverage network — Support open-ended cooperation/opposition — Provide rich, but asynchronous communication — Want depth of MMO without complexity — MMO economies are fantastic for gaming — Want “guilds” with deep specialization

the gamedesigninitiative 30 Social Mechanics at cornell university