View
5
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Janne PaavilainenProject ManagerGame Research Labhttp://gamelab.uta.fi
Games in Social Media
Introduction
Janne Paavilainen (M.Sc.Econ), doctoral candidateProject manager, games researcher, lecturer, independent consultantGame usability, playability and user experienceDesign and evaluation methodsFocus on qualitative, applied research
Completed research projectsGameSpace’2006 Casual, mobile, multiplayer
SoPlay’2008 Games and play in social media
Triangle’2010 Free-to-play, game experience
Game Research Lab, University of Tampere: http://gamelab.uta.fi
F2PModel
GameDesign
PlayerExperience
?
Content
Social Games 101Design features & characteristics
Social Games Research: Four PerspectivesThe Players’ PerspectiveThe Psychological PerspectiveThe Playability PerspectiveThe Payment Perspective
Final thoughtsBalance & tradeoffsNew F2P research project!
Social Games 101:Design Features & Characteristics
Social Games 101: Definitions
Social NETWORK Games, i.e. Facebook games
”Games that adapt your online friendship ties for their play purposes, whileaccommodating your daily routines” (Järvinen, 2011)
Asynchronous, massively parallel single player games
Social Games 101: Basics
Social network as a platformHuge, heterogenous audienceViral platformAccessibility
Free-to-play revenue model (i.e. free-to-pay)Core use is free of chargeMicropayments for premium content and boostersDouble currencyOffline progress mechanics
Metric driven service paradigmCasual game design values
Accessibility, Acceptability, Simplicity, Flexibility (Kultima, 2009)Fiction, Usability, Interruptability, Difficulty & Punishment, Juiciness (Juul, 2010)
Social Games 101: Design
Five design drivers for social games (Järvinen, 2009)SpontaneitySymbolic PhysicalityInherent SociabilityNarrativityAsynchronicity
Social Games 101: Going Deeper
1. Accessibility2. Interruptability3. Continuity4. Discovery5. Virality6. Narrativity7. Expression8. Reciprocity9. Sociability10. Competition
1.1 Approachable title and theme
1.2 Efficient tutorial
1.3 Understandable core mechanics
1.4 Intuitive goals and rewards
1.5 Minimize click fatique
1.6 Familiar UI conventions
1.7 ...
1.2.1 Accomodate
1.2.2 Assimilate
1.2.3 Accelerate
1.2.4 ...
Low-Level
Mid-Level
(Järvinen, 2010)
High-Level
Paavilainen (2012)
Social Games 101: Metrics
The ARMAcquisitionRetentionMonetization
Some Key MetricsDAU/MAUEngagementConversion rateARPU/ARPPULTVCAC
http://www.slideshare.net/mochimedia/fgs-2011-panel-metrics-from-top-game-developers
(Kontagent, 2011)
Social Games Research:Four Perspectives
The Players’ Perspective
SoPlay project, semi-structured in-depth interviews18 Finnish Facebook usersHow they perceive and play Facebook games
Perception Toys, not-real-games, just past-time...
Playing Whenever, where-ever, spontaneous...
Fun Organizing, collecting, building...
Frustration Spam, simplicity, external requirements...
Sociability Low but essential, friends are important...
Micropayments Quality, vices, cheating, trust...
Paavilainen et al. (in review)
The Players’ Perspective
SGs are mainly played to kill time, fill gaps and torelax... Displacement activity?External audience has a role
Emergent social playfulness
Everyone wants more challengeThere are hardcore social gamers
Commitment to digital lifeReverse engineering game mechanicsPlay several games in parallel to evade offline progressmechanics
Sometimes fierce competition emergesPeople cheat also in social games
The Psychological Perspective
Cognitive biases in decision making“A cognitive bias describes a replicablepattern in perceptual distortion,inaccurate judgment, illogicalinterpretation, or what is broadly calledirrationality.” (Wikipedia, 2012)
Examples:Anchoring Buying a used car
Availability heuristic Prime example
Bandwagon effect ”Let’s buy Facebook!”
...
The Psychological Perspective
”Perspectives from behavioral economics to analyzinggame design patterns: loss aversion in social games”(Hamari, 2011)
Biases towards loss aversionEndownment effect Withering crops...
Sunk-cost fallacy Effort made...
Status quo effect [X] Yes...
Insensitivity to income changes Spending...
Biases towards goalsQuota anchoring One more turn...
Goal-gradient anchoring Soon finished!
Endownment progress effect Kickstart yey!
The Playability Perspective
Heuristic evaluation of Island god (Digital Chocolate, 2010) social game18 novice inspectors, two week evaluation periodNokia playability heuristics (usability, gameplay, multiplayer)Three meta-evaluators
Total of 50 unique playability problemsBoring, repetitive gameplay Gameplay Domain specificInterrupting pop-ups Usability Domain specificNo difference between good and evil Gameplay ContentOverlapping objects selection Usability UI controlHelp not available Usability HelpAwkward cursor interaction mode Usability UI controlFriend requirements for progress Multiplayer Domain specific
The Playability Perspective
Current social games design features cause domain specific playability problems,which might diminish game experienceDomain specific problems were found from all evaluated categories:usability, gameplay and multiplayerNovice inspectors have hard time to analyse problems thoroughly, causingconfusion and mixing the root cause of the problem, and the consequencescaused by the problemEstablished playability heuristics are useful for evaluating social gamesEvaluating playability in the early design is important, because players can easilyswitch to another game in free-to-play, social network domain
Paavilainen et al. (in print)
The Payment Perspective
We conducted a large survey on free-to-play games, n=3675Survey was advertised in various domainsMultiple constructs with multiple question items each
Question items based on earlier research in the domainStructural Equation Modeling (SEM)
SUBJN
ATT
PI
CUI
PE ATT = Attitude towards purchasable virtual goodsCUI = Continuous Use Intentions,PE = Perceived Enjoyment,PI = Purchase IntentionsSUBJN = Subjective Norm
The Payment Perspective
Surprising resultsEnjoyment has NEGATIVE effect on purchase intentionsExamples from TF2 and Habbo Hotel data (similar findings from SNGs as well)
Final Thoughts:Balance & Tradeoffs
Accessibility Depth
Game Content
Simplicity Complexity
User Interface
Mass Audience Niche
Target Group
Friendly Aggressive
Monetization
Single Player Multiplayer
Virality
Happy Misery
Experience
Free-to-Play Culture
New Research Proposal: Free2Play
Studying the best practices of free-to-play game servicesFast-paced, results driven applied research in cooperation with Tekes Skeneprogram and game industryCurrently mapping industry interests, project would start in early 2013
Work packages:WP1: Predictive consumer behavior models based on large survey dataWP2: Case Studies on Best Practices: analysis and designer interviewsWP3: Player Studies: interviews with paying usersWP4: Gambling and Free-to-Play Games
The teamProf. Frans Mäyrä (scientific leader), Janne Paavilainen (project manager), JuhoHamari, Jani Kinnunen, Kati Alha
Interested to participate? Contact frans.mayra@uta.fi
References
Hamari, J. (2011). Perspectives from behavioral economics to analyzing game design patterns: loss aversion in socialgames. Paper presented at the CHI2011 Social Games Workshop, Vancouver, Canada.
Juul, J. (2009). The Casual Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Järvinen, A. (2009). Game Design for Social Networks: Interaction Design for Playful Dispositions. Proceedings of the 2009
ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games. DOI= http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1581073.1581088Järvinen, A. (2011, February 8-10) State of Social in Social Games. Presentation at the Casual Connect Europe. Retrieved
from: http://casualconnect.org/lectures/community-social/state-of-social-in-social-games/Kultima, A. Casual Game Design Values. 2009. Proceedings of the 13th International MindTrek Conference: Everyday Life in
the Ubiquitous Era. New York, NY: ACM. DOI= http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1621841.1621854Paavilainen, J. (2010) Critical Review on Video Game Evaluation Heuristics: Social Games Perspective. Proceedings of the
International Academic Conference on the Future of Game Design and Technology. DOI=http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1920778.1920787
Paavilainen, J. (2012) Design and Evaluation Heuristics for Social Network Games. Paper presented at the FDG2012 PlayerExperience Workshop, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Paavilainen, J., Alha, K., Korhonen, H. (in print). Exploring Playability of Social Network Games. Approved for ACE 2012conference as full paper.
Paavilainen, J., Hamari, J., Kinnunen, J., Stenros, J.(in review). Social Games on Facebook: Players’ Perspective.
Recommended