Can game mechanics help us to make applications and websites more fun and engaging? My presentation at the UX Camp Europe 2010 on May 29 and 30 in Berlin attempted a sobering look at what user experience designers can and cannot learn from games.
My grumpy talk on "badge measles" and the confusions, side effects and missing parts of gamification at Playful 2010, September 24, 2010 in London, Conway Hall.
The document discusses the history and business of Lego. It began in 1932 in Denmark as a small toy making company. Over time, Lego focused on developing interlocking plastic bricks and establishing a global brand. The summary discusses Lego's marketing strategy which includes segmenting customers demographically and psychographically, selling products worldwide through various retailers and websites, and promoting the brand through advertising, workshops and an online community.
게임 기획 관련 고전 자료 <게임 기획 튜토리얼>의 마지막 업데이트 버전입니다.
게임을 구성하는 요소들, 규칙, 동기, 보상에 대해 하나씩 살펴보고 이 요소들이 게임에 어떻게 중요한 역할을 하게 되는지 살펴보았습니다.
또한 게임을 만드는 직군 중 하나인 게임 기획(Game Design)에 대해 정의하고, 좋은 기획자가 가져야 하는 마음 가짐에 대해 쉽고 재밌게 풀어보았습니다.
이 문서가 여전히 유의미한 내용을 담고 있다고 생각하는 한 편, 그럼에도 불구하고 이 문서를 처음으로 작성했던 때(2009년)와 요즈음의 개발 환경과 직군들의 역할, 더 중요하다 여겨지는 부분들이 이 그동안 많이 바뀌어 왔다는 것을 느낍니다. 그래서 이 자료는 고전 자료로 그대로 두고, 이후로는 더이상 업데이트는 하지 않기로 했습니다.
그래서 이 버전이 <게임 기획 튜토리얼>의 마지막 버전입니다.
Lego began as a wooden toy company in Denmark in the 1890s and started producing plastic toys in 1947. It is best known for its interlocking plastic bricks which were invented in 1949. Since then, Lego has expanded to include thousands of sets across various themes. The precision engineering of the bricks allows them to stick together firmly while being easily separated. Lego pieces are manufactured from ABS plastic in plants around the world. Technological advancements include Lego Mindstorms robotics sets in 1998 and Lego-themed amusement parks which showcase how far the simple plastic bricks have come.
This document discusses a proposed Lego product called YCN Brief. It covers the history and competitors of similar products, the target audience for YCN Brief, includes a mood board, and discusses potential placement and support for the new product.
This document provides an overview of game development including defining video games, common genres, the size of the industry, and the development process from concept to release. It also outlines the major roles in game development such as designers, artists, programmers, testers, and producers. Finally, it discusses skills required for different roles and ways to get started in the industry such as through independent game development.
The document provides an overview of Hakan Saglam's experience developing mobile games using Unity. It discusses why the company moved to using Unity from other game engines and frameworks, including its open source nature, strong community, and integrated development environment. It then covers various aspects of coding, testing, debugging, and profiling games within the Unity editor. It concludes by discussing continuous integration and deployment options and using Unity services.
Gamification is the most important opportunity and challenge that publishers currently face in the move from print to convergent media. Games and gaming represent the freshest most interactive form of media today. Using game elements to increase engagement, grow a loyal and targeted audience, and support OAO (Online Audience Optimization) efforts will keep publishers relevant in the fast-moving transition from print to digital.
Video game design and programming course for the Master in Computer Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. http://www.facebook.com/polimigamecollective https://twitter.com/@POLIMIGC http://www.youtube.com/PierLucaLanzi http://www.polimigamecollective.org
Politecnico di Milano, Videogiochi, Video Games, Computer Engineering, game design, game development, sviluppo videogiochi
Gamification - A Brief Introduction to GamificationChetan Sundarde
Gamification involves using game mechanics and game design techniques to engage and motivate people in non-game contexts. It can be used to encourage behaviors like learning, productivity, physical activity and more. The document provides an overview of gamification, including definitions, examples, techniques like badges and leaderboards, and how gamification can benefit areas like education. It also discusses game dynamics, player motivations and frameworks for analyzing gamified systems.
The document discusses the product life cycle of Lego toys from their introduction in the 1940s through periods of growth, maturity, and decline. In the late 1990s, Lego began facing challenges as it entered the maturity stage, with increasing competition and changing consumer behavior. A series of missteps in the early 2000s, including over-expanding product lines and venturing into unrelated businesses, led to major financial losses. However, under new CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp in 2004, Lego implemented a successful turnaround plan focused on profitability, simplifying operations, and refocusing on the core brick-building toy business. These changes helped stabilize the company's decline and set it back on a path of growth.
The document summarizes the supply chain of Lego products from sourcing raw materials like plastic and rubber, to manufacturing components through molding and painting/decorating, packaging, distribution through a single warehouse in partnership with DHL, and finally reaching end consumers through specialty retail stores, online ordering, and other retailers. It also discusses Lego's rationale for centralizing its supply chain after continual profit losses in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and some difficulties in implementing the new centralized strategy including strained relationships and lower than expected delivery frequencies.
This whitepaper offers an introduction to the world of Gamification. Containing theories and examples, it provides a framework with which the reader can start implementing Gamification in his own organization.
a college seminar power point presentation on upcoming gaming technologies
p.s: the fonts i used were different then its shown plz install the font "Shopping Script", "Cheveuxdange", "lato light", and "mv boli"
Improving LTV with Personalized Live Ops Offers: Hill Climb Racing 2 Case Stu...Jessica Tams
This document discusses improving monetization in games through personalized live operations offers using the case study of Hill Climb Racing 2. It describes segmenting players based on both their purchasing behavior and gameplay interactions to create targeted offers. Machine learning models were used to predict player preferences and maximize revenue. This approach resulted in a 52% increase in lifetime value for Hill Climb Racing 2 players through more relevant offers.
Gamification - Defining, Designing and Using itZac Fitz-Walter
A presentation that describes the concept of gamification, it's roots, design and application. Minimal words, lots of pics and lots of fun to present. :)
Make sure to sign up to my weekly gamification newsletter: http://gamificationweekly.com
This document provides an introduction to game design and development. It defines what a game is, including plays, sports, video games and computer games. It then discusses game design theory, including primary schemas related to rules, play and culture. It also covers game fundamentals and components. The document outlines the evolution of graphics, sound, controllers, technology and multiplayer aspects of games. Finally, it discusses various game genres such as adventure, board/card, puzzle, platform, strategy, sport, action, shooting, simulation, role-playing, music/dance and cross genres games.
Nintendo is a leading video game company that produces gaming consoles. Their newest product is the Nintendo 3DS XL, an updated version of the Nintendo 3DS handheld console. The 3DS XL has outsold competitors since its 2015 release. Nintendo has strong brand recognition globally and owns popular game franchises. However, they have not expanded into mobile/tablet gaming. Maintaining their position will require differentiating new products and targeting adult customers who recall older Nintendo systems from their childhood.
The document discusses how game designers have mastered the art of making things fun and how UX designers can apply game design principles and elements like status, points, leaderboards, and achievements to make user experiences more engaging. It addresses some of the conflicts between usability principles and game mechanics, arguing that building skills through challenges can be fun and uncertainty does not have to impact the core user process. The presentation provides resources for learning more about gamification and hiring game designers to help apply these concepts.
Paideia as Paidia: From Game-Based Learning to a Life Well-PlayedSebastian Deterding
»Gamification« has sparked the imagination of many for the potential of games in education, but turned away an equal amount within the games and learning community with its disregard for the complexities of design and human motivation.
However, this talk suggests that there is a deeper reason for the negative reaction in the games and learning community: namely, that gamification really provides a distorted mirror that throws into stark relief issues in today's game-based learning at large. Conversely, that best way to advance games for learning today is to look deep into this mirror. Doing so reveals a triple agenda for the field: to expand from deploying games as interventions in systems to the gameful restructuring of systems, and from designing games to the playful reframing of situations; and to shift from the instrumentalization of play and learning to paideia as paidia.
The document provides an overview of Hakan Saglam's experience developing mobile games using Unity. It discusses why the company moved to using Unity from other game engines and frameworks, including its open source nature, strong community, and integrated development environment. It then covers various aspects of coding, testing, debugging, and profiling games within the Unity editor. It concludes by discussing continuous integration and deployment options and using Unity services.
Gamification is the most important opportunity and challenge that publishers currently face in the move from print to convergent media. Games and gaming represent the freshest most interactive form of media today. Using game elements to increase engagement, grow a loyal and targeted audience, and support OAO (Online Audience Optimization) efforts will keep publishers relevant in the fast-moving transition from print to digital.
Video game design and programming course for the Master in Computer Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. http://www.facebook.com/polimigamecollective https://twitter.com/@POLIMIGC http://www.youtube.com/PierLucaLanzi http://www.polimigamecollective.org
Politecnico di Milano, Videogiochi, Video Games, Computer Engineering, game design, game development, sviluppo videogiochi
Gamification - A Brief Introduction to GamificationChetan Sundarde
Gamification involves using game mechanics and game design techniques to engage and motivate people in non-game contexts. It can be used to encourage behaviors like learning, productivity, physical activity and more. The document provides an overview of gamification, including definitions, examples, techniques like badges and leaderboards, and how gamification can benefit areas like education. It also discusses game dynamics, player motivations and frameworks for analyzing gamified systems.
The document discusses the product life cycle of Lego toys from their introduction in the 1940s through periods of growth, maturity, and decline. In the late 1990s, Lego began facing challenges as it entered the maturity stage, with increasing competition and changing consumer behavior. A series of missteps in the early 2000s, including over-expanding product lines and venturing into unrelated businesses, led to major financial losses. However, under new CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp in 2004, Lego implemented a successful turnaround plan focused on profitability, simplifying operations, and refocusing on the core brick-building toy business. These changes helped stabilize the company's decline and set it back on a path of growth.
The document summarizes the supply chain of Lego products from sourcing raw materials like plastic and rubber, to manufacturing components through molding and painting/decorating, packaging, distribution through a single warehouse in partnership with DHL, and finally reaching end consumers through specialty retail stores, online ordering, and other retailers. It also discusses Lego's rationale for centralizing its supply chain after continual profit losses in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and some difficulties in implementing the new centralized strategy including strained relationships and lower than expected delivery frequencies.
This whitepaper offers an introduction to the world of Gamification. Containing theories and examples, it provides a framework with which the reader can start implementing Gamification in his own organization.
a college seminar power point presentation on upcoming gaming technologies
p.s: the fonts i used were different then its shown plz install the font "Shopping Script", "Cheveuxdange", "lato light", and "mv boli"
Improving LTV with Personalized Live Ops Offers: Hill Climb Racing 2 Case Stu...Jessica Tams
This document discusses improving monetization in games through personalized live operations offers using the case study of Hill Climb Racing 2. It describes segmenting players based on both their purchasing behavior and gameplay interactions to create targeted offers. Machine learning models were used to predict player preferences and maximize revenue. This approach resulted in a 52% increase in lifetime value for Hill Climb Racing 2 players through more relevant offers.
Gamification - Defining, Designing and Using itZac Fitz-Walter
A presentation that describes the concept of gamification, it's roots, design and application. Minimal words, lots of pics and lots of fun to present. :)
Make sure to sign up to my weekly gamification newsletter: http://gamificationweekly.com
This document provides an introduction to game design and development. It defines what a game is, including plays, sports, video games and computer games. It then discusses game design theory, including primary schemas related to rules, play and culture. It also covers game fundamentals and components. The document outlines the evolution of graphics, sound, controllers, technology and multiplayer aspects of games. Finally, it discusses various game genres such as adventure, board/card, puzzle, platform, strategy, sport, action, shooting, simulation, role-playing, music/dance and cross genres games.
Nintendo is a leading video game company that produces gaming consoles. Their newest product is the Nintendo 3DS XL, an updated version of the Nintendo 3DS handheld console. The 3DS XL has outsold competitors since its 2015 release. Nintendo has strong brand recognition globally and owns popular game franchises. However, they have not expanded into mobile/tablet gaming. Maintaining their position will require differentiating new products and targeting adult customers who recall older Nintendo systems from their childhood.
The document discusses how game designers have mastered the art of making things fun and how UX designers can apply game design principles and elements like status, points, leaderboards, and achievements to make user experiences more engaging. It addresses some of the conflicts between usability principles and game mechanics, arguing that building skills through challenges can be fun and uncertainty does not have to impact the core user process. The presentation provides resources for learning more about gamification and hiring game designers to help apply these concepts.
Paideia as Paidia: From Game-Based Learning to a Life Well-PlayedSebastian Deterding
»Gamification« has sparked the imagination of many for the potential of games in education, but turned away an equal amount within the games and learning community with its disregard for the complexities of design and human motivation.
However, this talk suggests that there is a deeper reason for the negative reaction in the games and learning community: namely, that gamification really provides a distorted mirror that throws into stark relief issues in today's game-based learning at large. Conversely, that best way to advance games for learning today is to look deep into this mirror. Doing so reveals a triple agenda for the field: to expand from deploying games as interventions in systems to the gameful restructuring of systems, and from designing games to the playful reframing of situations; and to shift from the instrumentalization of play and learning to paideia as paidia.
The document discusses how elements of game design can be applied to user experience design through gamification. It outlines theories of game design like flow and player motivation that can enhance usability. The presentation argues that integrating game mechanics and making tasks fun can improve skills learning and create positive user engagement without compromising usability.
If you consider using game elements in education, this presentation gives a hint at how to do it.. not only on a digital level, but also in the psysical classroom.
See what you should think about when it comes to motivation and fun :-)
This document discusses using videogames for teaching. It provides examples of educational games like Ludwig that teach renewable energy. The document covers game design principles like loops and surprises that create engagement. It also discusses balancing fun and learning, flow theory, and using metrics to improve game design. Overall, the document argues that videogames can be an effective way to transmit formal rules and concepts through hands-on experience in virtual worlds.
Video: http://goo.gl/oKMFm // Are points and badges mere indulgences for the faithful looking for redemption in loyalty programs? In nine (and a half) theses, this talk will walk you through the history, definition, and issues of “gamification,” and point out what is worth salvaging for designers and researchers.
This document discusses using math games to motivate students. It begins by introducing the concept of digital natives and millennial learners, noting their characteristics like being active, multitasking, and preferring collaborative and hands-on learning. It then discusses how games appeal to how the brain is wired to learn, through patterns, emotion, collaboration and problem solving. Specific math games are presented that incorporate these concepts, along with challenges teachers may face in implementing games. Overall the document argues games can better teach students using theories embedded in video games compared to traditional classrooms.
The document discusses issues with common approaches to "gamification". It argues that many gamification efforts focus only on superficial elements like points and badges without incorporating meaningful game design principles. This results in "exploitationware" that uses extrinsic motivators to encourage behaviors but lacks intrinsic challenges that make games engaging. True gamification requires integrating feedback and rewards into systems with engaging core mechanics that provide learning and flow experiences for users.
Gamification Strategies How to solve problems, motivate and engage people th...Karl Kapp
This document discusses gamification strategies and how games can be used to solve problems, motivate people, and engage learners. It provides examples of why games appeal to people through elements like storyline, characters, and music. Games can create an emotional connection and be used in learning and instruction. The document also discusses how gamification can increase engagement and motivation for learners through elements like points, badges, and leaderboards. Specific examples are provided of companies that have successfully used gamification in their marketing and customer engagement strategies.
More Than Points: Architecting Engagement Through Game Design ThinkingDustin DiTommaso
The buzz surrounding gamification as an engagement platform is reaching critical mass in our industry with the bulk of attention directed to shallow, superficial layers of points & badges but there’s more to unlock. Lot’s more.
By considering the psychological underpinnings of engagement driven by intrinsic player motivation, meaningful interactions and yes - mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics we can create a framework for architecting passionate user engagement, guiding behavior and ethically satisfying business goals.
This document outlines 10 potential pitfalls of gamification:
1. The Crap Crab - Abuse is not a value proposition
2. The Maelstrom of Misplaced Challenge - Getting in the way of efficiency
3. The Trapped Sea of Staleness - No fresh content and challenge
4. The Urobus of Unintended Consequence - Neglecting side effects
5. The Social Signal Sea Serpent - Ignoring context meanings
6. The Autonomy Leech and Value Vampire - Curbing autonomy through control
7. The Ice Shelves of Ignorance - Not knowing your users
8. The Feature Shallows - Neglecting design process
Gamification uses game mechanics and design principles to engage learners and motivate behavior in non-game contexts like education. It works by rewarding learners intrinsically when they experience wanting and liking through feedback. To design effective gamified learning, one should understand the audience, clearly define goals and objectives, provide frequent feedback on progress, reward effort through incremental rewards and adaptive systems, and incorporate elements of chance, peer interaction, and surprise. An iterative process of testing assumptions early allows for improvement.
This document discusses integrating game mechanics into teaching to make courses more fun and engaging for students. It begins with an introduction to the presenter and their background in game design and education. The presentation then discusses what fun is, how gamification works, and applying game elements like status, leaderboards, incentives, and goals to motivate students. Examples are given of a video game programming course that was gamified, which led to increased attendance, assignment submission, and student engagement. The presentation concludes by addressing problems with gamification and taking questions.
Rules of Play: Design Elements of Addictive Online Learning GamesDave Schaller
The document discusses designing addictive gameplay for online learning. It summarizes that games are designed to be compelling experiences where players must learn the rules to play. It then discusses key elements of game design including core dynamics, space, components, rules, actions, skills, and chance. Game design should balance these elements, such as balancing skill and chance, to create interesting choices for players with meaningful consequences. The document provides examples and recommendations for designing skill-based and choice-based gameplay.
Don't Play Games With Me! Promises and Pitfalls of Gameful DesignSebastian Deterding
This document summarizes a talk given by Sebastian Deterding on gamification. It discusses how gamification aims to use elements from games like points, badges, and leaderboards in non-game contexts. However, Deterding argues that most current gamification fails to truly tap into what makes games fun and engaging. He draws on the work of philosophers like Roger Caillois and Raph Koster to argue that fun in games comes from mastery through interesting challenges, not just from extrinsic rewards. For gamification to mature, it needs to focus more on gameplay elements that foster creativity, play, and learning through problem-solving.
Educators as Game Designers Workshop - 1Bernard Bull
This document discusses how educators can design games for learning. It begins by defining what makes something a game, noting they usually have goals, rules, feedback, and voluntary participation. It then discusses four categories of games and learning: games in education, repurposing non-educational games, gameful learning which takes inspiration from good games, and game-based learning which designs games for specific learning goals. The document emphasizes how games keep people engaged through constant feedback, challenges at an appropriate level, collaboration, and flow. It suggests educators can apply these principles when creating their own educational simulations.
Game design involves solving two main problems: interface and fun. The interface must provide clear and intuitive feedback to help players understand the game. Fun is a subjective concept and difficult to define, but goals and rewards can motivate players according to theories of fun. Effective game design draws on techniques like those used by Miyamoto at Nintendo to create engaging and enjoyable gameplay.
Game Thinking - Free Chapter from Even Ninja Monkeys Like to PlayAndrzej Marczewski
A chapter all about Game Thinking and how gamification fits into the overall scheme of all things games.
Get the full book on Amazon! http://www.gamified.uk/even-ninja-monkeys-like-to-play/
Mechanics, Messages, Meta-Media: How Persuasive Games Persuade, and What They...Sebastian Deterding
1. Persuasive games use procedural rhetoric through their rules and gameplay to convey particular messages and perspectives to players. However, players can interpret the same game differently based on their understanding.
2. The document examines two games - Train and Playing History 2: Slave Trade - that aimed to persuasively convey the message that blindly following rules without considering people can be dehumanizing. These games were received very differently by audiences despite their similar messages.
3. The document argues that a game's genre, visual framing, and how it travels and is portrayed in media shapes how audiences perceive and interpret the game's intended stance and message. How a persuasive game is framed and circulated in culture can impact
Gamification in health behaviour change produces muddled results. Why? Because game design elements, behaviour change techniques, etc. are too decontextualised and underspecified to guide design implementation. Talk at the CBC 2018 conference "Behaviour Change for Health: Digital & Beyond", February 21, 2018, London.
This document discusses factors that contribute to gaming enjoyment through three key concepts: safe action, embarrassment, and autonomy. Safe action in games is achieved through features that establish negotiated consequences and collective enforcement of in-game commitments. Embarrassment is reduced in gaming contexts by social framing that normalizes behavior and shields players from disapproving observers. Autonomy in gaming emerges from a relaxed field free from pressures where players have license to configure gameplay and minimize consequences according to their preferences and values.
City Games: Up and Down and Sideways on the Ladder of AbstractionSebastian Deterding
Like games and everyday life, games and cities have been intersecting in two primary ways: modelling the city in an abstract view from above, with planning games and urban simulations, and transforming people's everyday urban experiences and behaviors with playful interventions on the ground. Neither one, this talk argues, has been particularly successful in creating lasting improvements in citizen's well being. To accomplish this, we need to take game design seriously and look sideways at the messy middle between map and territory, the processes in which one is translated into the other (or not). My keynote at ISAGA 2017 in Delft, NL, July 10, 2017.
Experience design is not about shiny new digital technology - apps, touch screens, games, beacons, the works. It is a different perspective on exhibition and museum design, and a different process as a result. My talk at the Museum Association's 2017 Moving on Up event in Edinburg, February 28, 2017.
It's the Autonomy, Stupid: Autonomy Experiences Between Playful Work and Work...Sebastian Deterding
A core tenet of traditional play theories is that play is voluntary. This view has been troubled by recent empirical phenomena of "instrumental play" and "playbour": instances where play is mandatory, has serious consequences attached or is done as gainful labour, such as goldfarming. Similarly, people are increasingly using game design elements in non-game contexts like work to make them more playful and engaging. This talk suggests that the conceptual troubles of playbour and gamification can be resolved by focusing on autonomy as a psychological state: how much autonomy people experience informs whether they understand and a label an activity as "work(-like)" or "play(ful)". Drawing on a qualitative interview study with participants engaging in instrumental play, the talk will tease out how social and material features of gaming and work situations support and thwart autonomy experience and thus, their understanding as "work" or "play."
1. Meetings are unavoidably boring when there is little shared knowledge and understanding between participants due to large, dispersed groups with differentiated roles.
2. However, meetings are still necessary for accountability in sharing information and making decisions.
3. The document proposes increasing shared understanding through methods like social streams and colocation, and establishing alternative practices for specific meeting purposes like sharing non-critical information or making simple decisions. This could help reduce unnecessary boring meetings while maintaining accountability.
Would the real Mary Poppins please stand up? Approaches and Methods in Gamefu...Sebastian Deterding
This document discusses approaches and methods for gamification design. It outlines two conflicting theories of fun: fun as an additive substance that can be added to non-fun activities, or fun as an emergent quality that can arise from any well-designed system or activity. The document advocates following game design principles to restructure existing activities and find inherent challenges, then structuring them with goals, rules, and feedback to create engaging gameplay experiences. It emphasizes iterative playtesting to get the design right.
This document discusses the concept of productivity and leisure. It suggests that while technology was meant to reduce work and increase leisure, modern technologies and apps have instead led to overwork, less productivity, and less well-being. Cultural and economic factors like secular Calvinism, the Horatio Alger myth, inequality, and precarity serve to reinforce this system. The document argues for rethinking productivity to focus on well-being, flourishing, reflection, and leisure instead of endless work and "hacking" one's life. It draws on thinkers like Aristotle, Weber, Pieper, and Keynes to advocate for economies of leisure instead of work.
The document discusses designing for curiosity. It defines curiosity as being motivated by things that are novel, comprehensible, positively relevant, and safe. It suggests stoking curiosity by inviting people into experiences that are relevant, safe, and have a solvable unpredictability. Some ways to do this include providing safety so people don't feel dumb, making them care before telling them what to know, giving puzzles they can proudly solve, and gradually revealing content rather than all at once. Curiosity can be encouraged through novel experiences, surprises, hinting at hidden information, creating unresolved complexity, and offering rich possibility spaces to explore.
Player Rating Algorithms for Balancing Human Computation Games: Testing the E...Sebastian Deterding
This document discusses using player rating systems to balance task difficulty in human computation games. It proposes treating tasks as players and using player rating algorithms to sequence tasks based on a player's changing skill level over time. The study tests whether a bipartite graph structure between players and tasks negatively impacts prediction accuracy of player rating algorithms. It finds that bipartiteness does not affect accuracy, and unbalanced graphs with "super vertices" may improve accuracy by providing more information. The approach shows promise for difficulty balancing, but requires further testing on retention and with different games.
The Mechanic is not the (whole) message: Procedural rhetoric meets framing in...Sebastian Deterding
1) Procedural rhetoric uses in-game processes to persuade players, but different players can come to different understandings of the same in-game logic.
2) The games Train and Playing History 2 used procedural rhetoric to address controversial topics like the JFK assassination and slave trade, but were received very differently by audiences.
3) This difference can be explained by three factors: the genres framed the content differently and set different expectations; the games traveled through different media contexts outside their intended frames; and their visual framing in shared media shaped varying audience perceptions.
The Great Escape from the Prison House of Language: Games, Production Studies...Sebastian Deterding
This document summarizes the journey of a young humanities scholar taught that all knowledge exists within texts and the library, and to avoid interacting with people outside. It discusses how different theories view meaning as existing solely within the text itself or through other surrounding texts and contexts. It argues that solely reading and writing isolated in the library may not be enough to fully understand cultural meaning-making, and that speaking with authors and understanding different contexts can provide new insights.
Progress Wars: Idle Games and the Demarcation of "Real Games"Sebastian Deterding
My talk from DiGRA FDG 2016: Analyzing idle games through the theoretical lenses of “game aesthetics” and “boundary work”, I explore how game makers intentionally or unintentionally partake in working the boundaries of “real” games.
Desperately Seeking Theory: Gamification, Theory, and the Promise of a Data/A...Sebastian Deterding
Gamification promises a new, data-driven take at a science of design: establishing what design features cause what psychological and behavioural effects. But to realise this promise, it needs theory.
1. The presenter discusses a scholarly book project on role-playing game (RPG) studies that analyzes RPGs across different forms including tabletop, computer, live-action, and online games.
2. Larps can benefit from RPG studies by learning about solutions to common problems, innovative designs, and gaining new perspectives to better understand their own practices.
3. While flexibility is an asset that allows larps to borrow ideas, designers must also be aware of cognitive biases from their personal experiences that could limit understanding differences across RPG forms.
Who Killed Alaska? #22: The Adventures: "A NIGHT AT JEREMY'S" TRANSCRIPT.pdfOptimistic18
Boo and the crew are back! A bizarre and eerie online livestream catches the attention and fear of our heroes. To seek safety, the gang hunkers down together in the basement of Logan-- er, Jeremy-- Goldberg. After all, it's those strangers online we have to worry about-- right?
Day 2 - Enzyme Structure and Function.pptxashsandhu2116
I. Nucleic Acids & Nucleotides
1. Review of the Cell
Cells are the basic structural and functional units of life. Within cells, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) serve as essential biomolecules responsible for storing, transmitting, and expressing genetic information.
2. Structure of Nucleic Acids
Nucleic acids are long chains of nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of three components:
A nitrogenous base (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine in DNA; uracil replaces thymine in RNA)
A five-carbon sugar (deoxyribose in DNA, ribose in RNA)
A phosphate group
3. Chemistry of Nucleic Acids
Nucleotides in nucleic acids are joined by phosphodiester bonds between the 3'-hydroxyl group of one sugar and the 5'-phosphate of the next, creating a sugar-phosphate backbone.
4. Nucleosides and Nucleotides
Nucleoside: Nitrogenous base + sugar
Nucleotide: Nucleoside + phosphate groupNucleotides are key components in DNA/RNA synthesis and cellular energy transfer.
5. Functions of Nucleic Acids
DNA: Stores genetic information
RNA: Involved in protein synthesis, gene regulation, and as catalytic RNA (ribozymes)
6. Biological Importance of Nucleotides
Energy carriers: e.g., ATP, GTP
Signaling molecules: e.g., cAMP
Components of coenzymes: e.g., NAD⁺, FAD, Coenzyme A
II. Enzymology
1. Importance of Enzymes
Enzymes act as biological catalysts, accelerating chemical reactions essential for cellular functions such as metabolism, DNA replication, and signal transduction.
2. Enzyme as Proteins
Most enzymes are globular proteins composed of specific amino acid sequences that fold into unique 3D conformations, determining the shape and specificity of the active site.
3. Properties of Enzymes
Catalytic efficiency
Specificity
Regulation
Reversibility
Sensitivity to environmental conditions (temperature, pH, etc.)
4. Enzyme Specificity
Enzymes demonstrate substrate specificity due to the geometric and chemical complementarity between the substrate and the eny denature enzymes.
pH: Each enzyme has an optimal pH range; deviations
Robin Capehart_ Unlocking the Mysteries of Ancient Civilizations .pdfRobin Capehart
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Just add points? What UX can (and cannot) learn from games
1. Just add points?
what ux designers can
(and cannot) learn from games
Sebastian Deterding
UXCamp Europe
Berlin, May 30, 2010
cbn
2. The Fun
Theory Problems...
1 3
2 4
Why games What we
are fun can learn
There‘s a meme currently circulating in the UX community that the best way to motivate user behaviour is to make it fun – and the best
way to make it fun is game mechanics. Today, I‘d like to (1) present this meme, (2) summarise the research on why games are fun, (3)
show some problems with applying game design in other contexts, and (4) point out what we can actually learn from game design.
4. Can we get more people to use the
bottle bank by making it fun to do?
The most articulate version of »The Fun Theory« is a recent viral video campaign by Volkswagen Sweden that runs by that name.
Here‘s one example how they use game mechanics to motivate users to use the bottle bank.
6. »Fun is the easiest way to
change people‘s behaviour.«
Thefuntheory.com
On the campaign website, you‘ll find more videos, a (now closed) competition and the core idea: »Fun is the easiest way to change
people‘s behaviour.« (One thing I always wonder is: What happens on day 2? What is the »replay value« of these designs? But more on
that later.)
7. 1982: Thomas Malone
To wit, the idea that we can deduce heuristics for designing more enjoyable applications from video games is nothing new. If you look
up the scholarly HCI databases, you‘ll already find papers on this in the early 1980s, the first heydays of video games (http://bit.ly/
csscek.)
8. Work made
fun gets done!
1994: The Fish! Strategy
In the 1990s, there was a business bible craze around »The FISH! strategy«. Briefly, it states that for employees to be productive and
creative, they have to be intrinsically motivated, which is best achieved by a playful attitude towards their work. (In a sense, Dan H.
Pink‘s recent business bible »Drive« is just a reiteration of this focus on intrinsic motivation.)
9. Research Design Application
Yet there is also a growing amount of serious research (especially within the learning sciences) on creating more motivating work and
learning environments by leveraging game design. Within the design community, you find no shortage of presentations and blog posts
on the topic, and there are already some applications explicitly using game mechanics (links at the end of this presentation).
10. Games With A Purpose
Maybe the most well-known application are the »Games With A Purpose« by re:captcha inventor Luis von Ahn, like the »ESP Game«:
On the surface, players earn points by guessing which word comes to mind of an anonymous counterpart when seeing a picture. In the
background, the inputs are used as highly accurate image tags.
11. Book Oven
Another example is »Book Oven«, a web platform for book publishing. The platform crowdsources the otherwise tedious act of proof
reading by presenting users with small snippets of text. Users earn points for every snippet checked, and can compare themselves with
other users on a leader board – to apparently amazing effects:
12. »One editor told me: Your
bite-sized edits is Crack
Cocaine for proof readers.«
Hugh McGuire
cofounder, bookoven.com
According to co-founder Hugh McGuire, a lot of professional proof readers who do this kind of thing for a living during daytime log into
Bookoven in the evening to do it for free.
13. twitter
In a very similar way, Twitter has recently crowdsourced its translation – again with small snippets, points earned per snippet, and
levels. Even these bare bones mechanics seem to work quite well: To achieve level 11, one has to translate 1484 snippets – and I know
quite a number of people in my twittersphere who are at level 10.
14. 2
Why games
are fun
So the obvious question is: Why? Why is this so motivating, so much fun? What exactly is at work here?
15. Just add points!
The answer I find reiterated over and over in most of the current debate in UX design is: »Just add points (and leaderboards)!« Points
are seen as a kind of monosodium glutamate you can spice up any interaction or product with.
16. Foursquare
Foursquare best exemplifies this approach: To motivate a desired user behaviour (check-ins), users earn points for performing it. The
points are then displayed on leaderboards to stimulate competition, and users can achieve levels or badges with a certain number of
points or combination of check-ins.
17. »Fun is just another word
for learning.«
Raph Koster
a theory of fun for game design
However, this approach is way too simplistic if seen in context of the wealth of thought and research in game studies and game design.
Personally, I think that Raph Koster most concisely summed up what we currently know about why games are fun when he said: »Fun is
just another word for learning.«
18. »Fun from games arises out of mastery.
It arises out of comprehension. It is the
act of solving puzzles that makes games
fun. With games, learning is the drug.«
Raph Koster
a theory of fun for game design
Now, »fun is learning« sounds quite counterintuitive at first. What Koster means (and what is backed up by research on intrinsic
motivation) is that the fun of games is the positive experience of mastering something: a new skill, a solved puzzle, a recognised
pattern. We win a game by noticing and then mastering the rule patterns – and this experience of competence creates fun.
19. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photonquantique/3364593945/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sulamith/1342528771/sizes/o/
We flee from We flee into
To give you an example: The same kind of mathematics that school kids usually despise in school is actively sought out and performed
by them with intense focus and joy in Trading Card Games like »Magic: The Gathering«, where mastery requires complex
multiplication, fractions, and statistic analysis of which card combinations form a winning deck. So what makes the difference?
20. »Fun is just another word
for learning.«
under optimal conditions
Raph Koster
a theory of fun for game design
What separates games from school (and what we have to add to Koster‘s definition) is that games create optimal conditions for
learning. Fun is learning – under optimal conditions. And games show us just what exactly those optimal conditions are.
21. »Reality is broken.
Games work better. …
Games are the ultimate
happiness machines.«
Jane McGonigal
ux week 2009
In a sense, this is the point researcher and game designer Jane McGonigal makes: Games take to heart many principles of positive
psychology, which is why they are far more enjoyable than everyday life. So – what are those principles? Let‘s return to the
crowdsourced twitter translation. Even this simple interface already shows many of the most important design principles.
22. S.M.A.R.T. goals
Principle #1: Games set specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timed short- and long-term goals (you might say they do time
management 101 for the user). Short-term: I am level 4 and want to get to level 5. Long-term: Level 11! In contrast, think of how often in
life (or school) we have no, unclear, vague or even conflicting goals? Not so in games.
23. Clear, bite-sized
actions and choices
Principle #2: The available actions to achieve our goals are made explicit – and prepackaged so that we can directly execute them.
Twitter presents the text we have to translate directly and in small doable portions: 1 Action = click & translate 1 sentence. Game menus
in point-and-click adventures are overviews of objects and verbs – we »just« have to decide which action is the right one (cf. designer
Sid Meier: »A game is a series of interesting decisions«). In everyday life, the actions and choices available to us are mostly unclear,
vague or not packaged into immediately doable steps, i.e. »lose weight«, »write that novel«, »get rich«, ...
24. Clear action–goal
relations
Principle #3: The relation between the available actions and choices and our goals are clear. It is uncertain whether we succeed in
performing the action (here: translate the text), but how success brings us closer to our goal is immediately visible with numerical
exactitude. Conversely, do we know in everyday life whether a chosen action will really bring us closer to our goals, and how much so?
25. Clear status
Principle #4: Our current status ist absolutely clear. In games, we always know »where« we stand – spatially (via map displays), in
terms of our skills and possessions (listed in menus, inventories and character sheets), in relation to our goals (points and mission
stats) and in our relation to other players (visualised in leaderboards or social graphs).
26. Excessive positive feedback
Principle #5: Games give instant, unambiguous, excessively strong positive (and negative) feedback. My favourite example is the
Pachinko-like game »Peggle« by Popcap Games. The goal is to shoot all orange pellets from a screen with a bouncing metal ball.
Here‘s what happens if you clear the last orange pellet of a level:
28. Scaffolded challenges
That‘s the kind of feedback I‘d like to get for a successful project. But on to principle #6: The challenges we face, the goals we strive for
get a little more difficult with each step. On twitter, we have to translate a little more each level to reach the next one. Why is this
important?
29. anxiety
lo w«
»f
Difficulty
boredom
Skill/time
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
flow: the psychology of optimal experience
The answer comes from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: We usually feel best when the challenges we face perfectly match our
skills. More, and we are stressed, less, and we‘re bored. Since we constantly learn and improve our skills, the challenges must grow
with our skills – otherwise, boredom ensues.
30. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1524/the_chemistry_of_game_design.php
Chunking
And this is where twitter partly fails: Harder challenges are not just »more of the same« (i.e. earn more points), but different and more
complex ones. Good games let you master one simple thing, then another one, and then they chunk both into a more complex
combination of the two which you have to master, and so on. (Above is a skill atom and the complete chunking chain for Tetris.)
31. Social comparison
Game designers test and balance this difficulty curve of their game until it perfectly matches the learning curve of their audience; often,
the difficulty dynamically adjusts to player performance. Now to the seventh and last principle: Games create social comparison to
facilitate both social learning and motivating competition. Twitter does this subtly by displaying who‘s in the game and at what level.
32. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30279269@N04/3946300019/
The well-formed action
Personally, I call these the principles of well-formed action, as they not only apply to games, but capture part of what makes any
everyday action satisfying and motivating – »optimal experiences« in the terms of Csikszentmihalyi or Jane McGonigal. Games provide
a kind of crutches purpose-built to facilitate and guide well-formed action.
33. Quick recap
• Clear status, goals, actions, decisions,
goal-action relations
• Excessive feedback
• Scaffolded challenges matched
to the users‘ growing skills
• Chunking
• Social comparison
So if we just follow these principles when designing our applications, they will be just as much fun as games – correct?
34. Problems...
3
Well, yes and no. These are certainly generally valid and valuable principles for the design of any interaction. But I see three broad
problems with the direct transfer of game design to software or websites.
35. bl em
ro 1
P #
game design
Difficulty
usability
Ability/Time
The first problem is a conflict of cultures and goals: Usability and UX come from the world of tasks and productivity. Our primary goal
has always been to make applications as easy as possible, to keep the learning curve as flat as possible – boring, but simple. If you‘d
ask a usability engineer to optimize a video game, this is what probably would come out:
37. Ticket
Drag point through
maze to receive ticket
Imagine the engaging suspense of this game with the added time pressure when you see that your train will arrive in just a minute …
And to ensure that this doesn‘t get boring once you figured out the labyrinth ...
38. Ticket
Level 2
Drag point through
maze to receive ticket
… there‘s level 2!
39. game work
Emotion Conflict of Tasks
Intensity interest Efficiency
Duration Speed
Behind these different cultures of thinking and design is a manifest conflict of interest: The whole point of games is to create intense
emotions, and to prolong their experience as much as possible. By contrast, productivity software is all about getting your work done as
efficiently and quickly as possible. How you feel is at best a secondary consideration.
40. game work
Only Emotion Tasks
sometimes Intensity Efficiency
Duration Speed
Only sometimes, ensuring intrinsic user motivation is so essential that emotion becomes conducive to or even a prerequisite for task
completion – say, in creative work or unremunerated user work. Another case are end-user products where the quality of experience is
part of the selling proposition or market differentiator. In those cases, we have to ensure usability and fun/emotion.
41. bl em
ro 2
P #
Game Designers are mightier
Problem number two: Game designers are far more powerful than designers of software or websites. What do I mean with that?
42. Let‘s assume for a minute that Microsoft Word would be Super Mario Bros.
=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Super_Mario_Bros_box.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Word_Icon.svg
43. Image: Joshua J. Sloan http://bit.ly/2R4KHx, purestylin http://bit.ly/3gkXMb
If this screen would be a typical screen of a user typing a document on Microsoft Word, which elements of this screen would an
interaction designer be able to design?
44. What we design
(the tool)
Answer: The interaction designer would only be able to design Mario: the tool the user uses to affect his/her world.
45. What the user/manager designs
(goals)
What we design
(the tool)
The goals the user has to achieve with said tool are not set by the designer, but by the user her/himself (or a third party – like his/her
supervising manager): Write a report of X pages about Y until Z.
46. What the user/manager also designs
(objects and environments)
Likewise, the objects that the user works on with his/her tools and the broader environment of his/her task is set by the user or a
supervising manager: the texts to be referred to, the colleagues who can be asked, etc.
47. game design
(HR) Management!
Difficulty
Skill/Time
Yet the difficulty curve emerges from the relation of skills, tools, objects, environment and goals: How difficult something is depends
on what I try to achieve with which tools in which environment. In games, this complex whole is designed by the game designer. In
work life, it is »designed« by our supervisors and HR people (a.k.a. »job rotation«, »job enrichment«, etc.).
48. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3225718
Business Process Reengineering?
Put differently, if we as designers wish to craft a fun, engaging difficulty curve in productivity contexts, we have to step away from
designing the application in isolation and tackle the whole work context – which isn‘t interaction design anymore – it‘s business
process reengineering.
49. How might we ...
let users easily integrate
their environments and
goals into our systems?
One middle step might be to ask ourselves who we might help users to integrate their environments and goals into our rule systems –
just like a GTD time management application helps users to organise their life by offering a structure and workflow that they then
populate with their own tasks.
50. Two examples for this approach are the time management application RescueTime, which essentially tracks the amount of time you
spend with different applications (and on different websites) and allows you to set goals (e.g. »no more than two hours of YouTube per
day«), or Chore Wars, which allows you to make household chores a part of an Online Roleplaying Game.
51. bl em
ro 3
P #
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musebrarian/443103590/sizes/o
The third and last problem I like to call the »Tom Sawyer problem«: In the famous novel by Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer has to paint a
fence white and is derided by some passing friends who go fishing. By insisting that he‘d rather paint the fence than go fishing, Tom is
able to persuade his friends that painting is actually fun – and has them pay for the privilege of painting the fence for him.
52. »Tom ... had discovered a great
law of human action, without
knowing it – namely, that in order
to make a man or a boy covet a
thing, it is only necessary to make
the thing difficult to attain.«
Mark Twain
the adventures of tom sawyer (1876)
There are two things happening in this story. One is the psychological mechanism known as the »hard-to-get« phenomenon: If
something is hard to get (e.g. expensive, almost sold out, etc.), we usually conclude that it must be very valuable.
53. »If he had been a great and wise
philosopher, like the writer of this
book, he would now have
comprehended that Work consists
of whatever a body is obliged to do,
and that Play consists of whatever
a body is not obliged to do.«
Mark Twain
the adventures of tom sawyer (1876)
The second (and in our context, more relevant) thing is a core psychological and social difference between work and play: We usually
experience as work what we have to do by some external force, whereas to experience something as play, we must feel that we have
chosen to do it voluntarily. (kthx @stephenanderson for pointing me to Twain‘s story.)
54. »First and foremost, then, all play is a
voluntary activity. … It is done at leisure,
during ›free time‹. Every child knows
perfectly well that he is ›just pretending‹,
or that it was ›just for fun‹.«
Johan Huizinga
homo ludens (1938)
This actually goes back to the earliest definitions of play. According to the doyen of game studies, Johan Huizinga, the two core features
of play are: (1) It is done voluntarily, and (2) it is a »make-believe« activity without serious consequences. (There‘s a rich discussion on
how games often do have consequences – think Russian Roulette – but we don‘t have the time to dive into the scholarly details here.)
55. voluntary
no serious
consequence
Now if you take a second look at all the examples where game mechanics work just fine – ESP Game, Bookoven, twitter translations –
you‘ll find that they are all voluntary »leisure« activities that don‘t have any serious consequence for the user. They are indeed »just a
game«.
56. Work Play
This explains why one and the same activity – analysing spreadsheets – is experienced as work (and people demand payment for it) in
one case, and in another case (like the Online Roleplaying Game »Eve Online«), it is experienced as fun (and people pay for it). In the
game, analysing spreadsheets is done voluntarily and has few serious consequences (the same is true for Trading Cards vs. school).
57. http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliandibbell/234192868/sizes/o/in/set-72157594279649151/
Chinese Gold Farming
Another example: In China and elsewhere, there are employed professional players who earn virtual items in Online Roleplaying Games
that are then resold for real money on platforms like ebay. Although these players definitely play a game, they experience this as work.–
It is not done voluntarily (they have to sit their 8 hours), and they get into trouble if they don‘t achieve their daily quota of virtual gold.
58. »Just pretending«
So how we experience a situation very much depends on how we and the people around us frame it. Think of the movie »Life is
beautiful«, where a Jewish son and father are held in a concentration camp. The father is able to present this situation of utmost
consequence and involuntariness as a game of hide-and-seek to his son – hence the son experiences the situation very differently.
59. Games With A Purpose
And this is not just a matter of fiction. Take the ESP Game. Google was so fond of the concept and its success that it bought the idea
and rebranded it as the »Gooogle Image Labeler«.
60. Google Image Labeler
What was presented as a fun game of mind reading is now presented as work for Google. The game mechanics stay the same, but the
framing is different – and the user stats tell us that the Image Labeler is much less successful than the ESP Game in engaging users.
62. Who decides whether this is play
(or playing is allowed)
However, whether the interaction with that tool is experienced as fun, engaging play or not depends on the user and his/her social
context. Together, they define whether what they currently do is »just a game«, voluntary and without consequence, or a serious matter,
no joking around. I can say for myself that meeting XYZ is »just a game«. But if my colleagues don‘t play along, I won‘t succeed.
63. How might we...
induce a playful
attitude?
This means that if we want to create the experience of play, the design challenge is not how to include game mechanics, but how to
induce a playful stance in the user towards the activity they are engaging in – what game philosopher Bernhard Suits called »the lusory
attitude«.
64. http://www.flickr.com/photos/indy138/2852103473/sizes/o/
Easter Eggs
One possible way to achieve this are easter eggs – small, surprising, delightful details that the user will only discover by chance and that
have no functional value at all (like this lawn gnome in Half-Life 2). There is something about such intentional non-functional excess
that signals a momentary license be non-serious, non-instrumental.
65. http://www.flickr.com/photos/titanas/1051688629/sizes/o
Easter Eggs
The business card printing service moo.com does a good job in this: Not only is their copywriting and design with little drop characters
consistently playful, but there are many lovingly-crafted-yet-nonfunctional details that surprise and delight – like this imprint inside the
cardboard box around a set of cards that you only discover when you take the box apart before throwing it away.
66. Quick recap
Tutorials
Social
Productivity
Networks
»Leisure«
software
Music etc.
To summarise again, game mechanics and inducing a playful attitude to create »fun« experiences usually works best where (1) the
designer can craft the goals and environment as well (e.g. tutorials), and (2) the usage context is one of voluntary, consequence-free
leisure time, like social networks, music recommendation sites, etc. Game and play are less suitable for hardcore productivity contexts.
67. Ribbon Hero
Microsoft‘s Office tutorial game »Ribbon Hero« for instance is a good application of game mechanics in productivity contexts. The
game sets the goals and the materials to work on. Also, learning a new tool usually happens under less supervision and is a more self-
structured activity than other work tasks.
68. Attent
On the other hand, I assume that the e-mail management application »Attent« by Seriosity, which adds a virtual currency to e-mail, will
likely clash with instrumental attitudes and demands in the workplace and hence not produce a similarly engaging experience (though I
have no data to prove that and am happy to be disproven).
69. 4
What we
can learn
But all is not lost: As I said, there are contexts where game design can help in designing engaging applications, and there are general
design principles to be learned from game design. More specifically, I think that UX designers can take three things from game design.
70. ss on
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Collecting Points Social comparison Narrativity
Intermittent Customization Real Money Trading Baroque visuals
reinforcement
Design Patterns (of course)
The first thing are design patterns like the principles of well-formed action. I won‘t go into detail here because (1) there are too many of
them and (2) other people have covered this area, so have a look at the resources referenced at the end of this presentation.
71. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8147452@N05/2913356030/sizes/o/
Configure, don‘t add
One caveat though: As with interaction design patterns, »more« does not equal »better«. Take Chess: Chess has a very unique
experiential quality of intense focus and ratiocination. If you add the game mechanic of time pressure (i.e. speed chess), the experience
does not just become better, it completely changes. Game design is about such configuration of mechanics, not mere addition.
72. ss on
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Rule Design
The second lesson to be taken from game design is rule design. If you are on facebook, you will undoubtedly have noticed these
recommendations displayed in the sidebar of your dashboard. There‘s a rule (and recommendation engine) deciding when and where
which recommendations are displayed in reaction to which user behaviours.
73. »In designing transactional and content-
rich web sites, rules provide an
underlying structure that governs the
experience: what is displayed, when it’s
displayed, and how it responds to user
actions.«
Daniel Brown
designing rules, ia summit 2009
As Daniel Brown pointed out in his talk at the 2009 IA Summit, more and more elements on websites and web applications become
dynamic in this sense. It is no longer one interface to every customer, but the interface dynamically adapts in reaction to user behaviour
– and this adaptation is governed by underlying rules.
74. Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
Marc LeBlanc
mda: a formal approach to game design
How do we design these rule systems so that we achieve an intended user experience? This is the core competence of game designers.
They offer us models to understand these relations, like Marc LeBlanc‘s MDA model. Put simply: The game rules (mechanics) afford
the interaction between user and system (dynamics), which affords the user experience (aesthetics).
75. mechanic dynamic aesthetic
+$ + Poverty Frustrating
-$ - Gap end game
Monopoly
One example: In Monopoly, you buy streets and houses with money, which earn you more money. Conversely, if you lose money, you
have to sell houses and streets and hence earn less money. In the game, this leads to a slowly growing but largely irreversible poverty
gap, which makes for a frustrating end game for the losing player. Other games have a more balanced and hence enjoyable end game.
76. Mafia Wars
Another example: On login, the facebook game Mafia Wars allows players to gift one virtual item to their friends on Mafia Wars, and
every item one receives can be reciprocated once. (Letting you gift another person first without any immediate benefit to yourself is a
smart use of the persuasive principle of reciprocity, by the way.)
77. mechanic dynamic aesthetic
Free gift Mutual Bond,
on login gifting obligation
Mafia Wars
Overall, what this game mechanic does is spur a dynamic of mutual gifting among players, which affords a mutual sense of bonding
and obligation among players that effectively binds the players to the platform itself.
78. Testing & Balancing
Again, a caveat: In its first version, this mechanic produced a very »spammy« dynamic and hence not the intended aesthetics, which is
why Mafia Wars recently redesigned it. The lesson here: Rule systems need just as much iterative testing and optimising like any other
design aspect, and this is what separates good game design from bad or mediocre.
79. Depth: Foursquare ...
Another important quality of rule design is depth. As game designer Sid Meier said, a good game is »easy to learn, difficult to master«.
This is why foursquare often becomes boring quickly: Once you understand the basic mechanic, there‘s nothing new to learn and
master. Whatever fun remains is derived from the social metagame of competing with peers for the mayorship of some place.
80. … vs. Foodspotting
Contrast this with Foodspotting, a kind of foursquare-meets-Yelp! where people recommend specific dishes in specific restaurants to
each other. Again, there‘s a desired behaviour (spotting foods), there‘s points and badges …
81. … vs. Foodspotting
… but if you take a look at their »About« page, you‘ll see that the rule system actually introduces two different kinds of points – »noms«
and »reputation« – that interact with each other. I haven‘t used Foodspotting enough to qualify how successful this system is, but it‘s
definitely a move in the right direction of »deeper« rule systems.
82. ss on
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FarmVille
The third and final lesson is that not all games and gamers are alike. Game design offers us a greater precision and clarity in speaking
about just what we mean when we say »fun«. FarmVille for instance is the most successful social game so far that definitely delivers
fun to tens of millions of users.
83. Fallout 3
Now look at Fallout 3, one of the most successful recent roleplaying games, which again most definitely delivers fun to its millions of
users. But is it the same kind of fun as with FarmVille? Most certainly not. So the question is: Which different kinds of fun are there?
What kind of fun appeals to which demographic? And which kinds of fun might not mix so well?
84. Hard Fun Easy Fun
Fiero Curiosity
emotion < choice < mechanic > choice > emotion
People Fun Serious
Amusement Fun
Relaxation
Nicole Lazzaro
four fun keys
Nicole Lazzaros »4 Fun Keys« are but one (good) answer to such questions (for another take, see Marc LeBlanc‘s 8 kinds of fun). Put
more generally, game design gives us models, theories, empirical data and vocabularies to better understand and thus design for the
different kinds of fun that exist.
85. Recap
1. The core fun in games is learning
under optimal conditions.
2.To create it, we must be able to design
goals and environments as well.
3. Play depends on voluntary contexts
without serious consequence.
4.Game design gives us patterns, models
and words for emotion and rule design.
86. If you read just one book ...
on Game Design, make it
Jesse Schell‘s The Art of
Game Design: A Book of
Lenses. Smart, inspiring,
comprehensive – even
beyond games.
Link: http://bit.ly/1GHeP5
Review: http://bit.ly/14Ieri
87. A close second ...
is Tracy Fullerton‘s Game
Design Workshop. Delivers
lots of interviews with
game designers and in-
depth methods for offline
game prototyping.
Link: amzn.to/dfRsyS
88. Read more books!
Raph Koster Johan Huizinga
A Theory of Fun Homo Ludens
for Game Design
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi David W. Shaffer
Flow: The psychology of How Computer Games
optimal experience Help Children Learn
James Paul Gee Byron Reeves & J. L. Reyd
What video games have to Total Engagement
teach us about learning ...
89. On Slideshare
Amy Jo Kim Jane McGonigal
Putting the Fun in Functional: The User Experience of
Applying Game Mechanics ... Reality
Dan Saffer Nicole Lazzaro
Gaming the Web: Using the The Four Keys to Fun
structure of games ...
Aki Järvinnen Stephen P. Anderson
Game Design for The Art and Science of
Social Networks Seductive Interactions
90. On Slideshare
Daniel Brown Holger Dieterich
Designing Rules What can we learn from
game design?
John Mark Josling Kars Alfrink
Playing On! Interface Playful IAs
lessons from games
Nadya Direkova Amy Jo Kim
Game Design for MetaGame Design
Web Designers
91. On Slideshare
Philip Fierlinger* Jonathan Boutelle
Designing a Game Changer Game-inspired
RIA Design
* with kind thanks for the cover »inspiration«
Aki Järvinnen
Workshop: Game Design
for Social Networks Want more?
You might follow me on Slideshare
to receive updates on slides I favorite.
Vily Lehdonvirta
Why do people buy
virtual goods?
92. Even more stuff
Daniel Cook Daniel Cook
The Princess Rescuing The Chemistry of
Application Game Design
Marc LeBlanc Jane McGonigal
Mechanics, Dynamics, The engagement economy
Aesthetics
Stephen Anderson John Ferrara
When data gets up close Playful design (book in
and personal progress)
93. Even more stuff
Jesse Schell Playful
Design Outside the Box Conference series
Jesse Schell David Carlton
Gamepocalypse blog Critical Compilation
94. You should follow them on twitter
aquito Whatsthehubbub
Aki Järvinnen Kars Alfrink
NicoleLazzaro amyjokim
Nicole Lazzaro Amy Jo Kim
avantgame getmentalnotes
Jane McGonigal Stephen P. Anderson
95. You should follow them on twitter
raphkoster jesseschell
Raph Koster Jesse Schell
danlockton ibogost
Dan Lockton Ian Bogost
96. If you liked this ...
persuasive design you can do better
Or: The Fine Art of Separating Lessons Learned from Government
People for their Bad Behaviours meets SNS
97. Thanks.
Short URL for this presentation: bit.ly/justadd
@dingstweets
sebastian@codingconduct.cc
codingconduct.cc
License: Creative Commons by-nc/3.0