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David Barnes
February 27th, 12:04pm
1 comment
The 3 Pillars of Social Game Success: Play, Express, Invest (via @tadej)
According to Zynga's chief designer, there's 3 pillars to social game design success:
The pillars of success are play (having something fun to do), express (a way to share your success with others), and invest (to do things in the game that will pay off in the future). If a player is successful with a game, they gain social capital because their real friends will see how well they are doing.
The invest pillar is particularly interesting to me. Most traditional computer games are based around trying to get past obstacles. The main measure of success is putting obstacles behind you and getting closer to the final goal -- reaching the finish line. Think of all the coins or gold rings you collect in a platformer. Usually the purpose is simply to get them -- not to invest them in a way that affects the future.
This is about the opposite of investment based games, where a key purpose of each interaction is to give yourself more options and power in the future.
How do you make sure your social games are strong on all three pillars?
Read the full kaboodle: Zynga’s chief designer shares tips learned from social games | VentureBeat
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