>> Lili Cheng: Hi. It's my pleasure to introduce Amy Jo Kim. Amy and
I have known each other for a long time, back from Virtual World's
days. And Amy is the C.E.O. of a company called Shuffle Break, which
does a lot of games.
She's really known for the work that she's done thinking about, you
know, what elements make a good game, how to design games and really
how to encourage people to have a great experience in your game. She's
worked on a bunch of stuff that you guys are familiar with like Rock
Band and Ultima Online and There and probably a bunch of others that I
don't know about. But anyway, thanks so much for coming and looking
forward to a great talk.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Thank you. Thank you all.
today. Yeah, right there.
Thank you all for coming
So I'm going to take you on a little tour of some of the interesting
developments that are happening in the social gaming world and talk to
you in particular about the relationship between game mechanics and
virtual economies that are being driven by virtual goods.
Some of you may have seen me talk before about game mechanics. I have
a couple of talks that are on YouTube that are -- go into much more
detail about game mechanics than I'm going to do today. If you are
interested in this topic I'd encourage you to just go and search for me
on YouTube and I also uploaded -- I will upload this one, as well, all
my talks to Slide Share. So if you are interested in going deeper,
feel free.
And one of the things that I want to get across today is the reality of
virtual goods in that it's a business model that's driving a lot of the
newest and most popular games that are emerging in the social space.
And we're also seeing in the games industry we're seeing as you from
XBox Live probably know, we're seeing a lot of games shift from a
packaged good model or subscription model such as Wow into a virtual
goods model, where it is free to play and monetize the virtual goods.
So I want to really dig into what is going on there in terms of human
motivation in game mechanics and hopefully shed some light on that.
So, first a few definitions. So what exactly are virtual goods?
They're digital items that have contextual meaning. This is a screen
shot from Pet Society. How many of you have played Pet Society? Okay.
So one. This is a game on Facebook, made by Play Fish that have a
number of different types of virtual goods within it. There are
virtual goods where you can dress up your character, as well as
customize your character. You can fill your house with crap -- excuse
me, stuff, for your pet's house.
It might seem -- these digital items to many people seem strange, like
why would people -- and people pay real money for this stuff, that's
the other thing. You can earn coins in this game, up in the -- on the
left of the screen, you'll see how many coins my pet has earned. But
you can also speedup your game play by purchasing coins with cash, with
actual cash, PayPal or any other -- using credit cards, even using your
mobile phone. And this is one of the phenomena that is really changing
the games industry.
The thing about the digital items is that the contextual meaning is
what makes them socially relevant. So that is something I'm going to
be talking about through this whole talk. It's not just visual items
themselves, but it's all the associations that we as humans bring -all the meaning we bring to seeing pictures on the screen.
There's a couple of basic kinds of virtual goods. Decorative goods are
goods that don't affect your stats or your game play. So for example
in this screen there's a snow globe and a mirror and various things, an
outfit on the character. None of those have in-game meaning. They
don't change the way that my character progresses through the game,
they're just there for enjoyment, showing off, status, that kind of
things. Those are what decorative goods are.
Functional goods actually make a difference in your stats or game play.
This is an example from a game called Sorority Life on Facebook and
these -- this is basically a text RPG with a certain setting and scan
on it. And these are items that you can buy and dress your character
up and they basically change your stats. They change the likelihood
that you'll win a battle because there are battles at the core of this,
as there are with every RPG.
So if you purchase and dress your character up in these items, it
changes the -- your progression through the game and that is what a
functional good is.
So what are some of the activities that are enabled by virtual goods?
One, a very key one is socializing, which is enhancing your visual
identity. The constructed identity that you have in an environment by
dressing your character up or dressing your room up or otherwise
purchasing things. These are from Guya Online, which is an online
environment, that is highly social.
How many of you have ever gone into or played Guya? Okay. So a few of
you. These are -- you can really make an amazing variety of looks in
Guya. And these characters -- again, this is decorative, these do not
have functional elements. The people spend a lot of people dressing
their character up so that when they post messages in the message
boards or have other interactions in Guya, they can express what they
want to express and impress other people.
I should also say before I move on that this style of virtual economy
as a business model originated in Korea and started way back in the
late '90s and really took off in 2002, 2003. People would dress up
their characters and go into chat rooms and that got the attention of
people in the U.S. and it's really only been somewhat in the last five
years or so that this has really started to take off. It's a much more
mature market over there.
Another activity that virtual
either your character or your
Restaurant City. How many of
You're clearly playing along,
of games, which is great.
goods enable is shopping and decorating
room. These screen shots are from
you have played Restaurant City? Okay.
this gentleman is clearly playing a lot
And here a couple of examples. Those are some of the clothing items
that I can decorate my character with, dress my character up and then I
can also decorate my restaurant, Restaurant City is sort of a mash-up
between Diner Dash, the Sims and RPG. It's got elements of all of
those. I can also decorate my restaurant on the outside and the
inside, etcetera, etcetera.
I think this is something that a lot of game designers overlook.
Yes?
>> Question: What is RPG?
>> Lili Cheng: A role-playing game. So if you -- right now if you go
onto Facebook and look at the top 25 or the top 50 games, quite a few
of them are thinly disguised RPGs, role-playing games.
For those of you who don't know, it's a game where you basically level
up your character and usually through fighting, battling with others is
a core part of it and it is very much a stats-driven game, RPG. It's
about, you know, the stats that your character has and acquiring items
that boost your stats and performing battles and it's very statistical
and mathematical under the sheets. But a lot of social game designers,
people that are pioneering these new kind of games, use the
motivational and structural elements of RPGs as the backbone of their
game design partly because it works. It's proven mechanism for
motivating people. There's always a short-term goal for you to
achieve.
So shopping is just the fun of getting new stuff, browsing through
seeing what's new is something that a lot of game designers overlook,
but it's an extremely powerful mechanism and activity for having an
enjoyable experience online, particularly for women.
How many of you remember Diablo, or whoever played Diablo?
>> Question: (Inaudible) --
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah.
shopping and --
So exactly, thank you.
Diablo was so much about
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, exactly. And so this is in a sense that same fun
game playing mechanic and shopping and killing is what goes on -- or
shopping and battling is what goes on on Sorority Life, which is a girl
game, very, very popular and also very profitable on Facebook.
So if you have virtual items you can go shopping and you can do stuff
and particularly when there's a recession and people aren't shopping as
much in the physical world, to be able to go in, you know, for me after
I've gotten the kids to bed to go in to maybe go in and get a new
jacket for my avatar in a particular game is very pleasurable.
So -- excuse me.
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: Excuse me?
>> Question: (Inaudible)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yes, it is (inaudible) and it is a lot cheaper than
going and getting a new jacket at Macy's.
>> Question: Online retail therapy.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yes. Online retail therapy is a huge part. And I will
drill down on that with some very specific examples later in the talk.
By the way, thank you for responding and talking and asking questions,
keep doing that, I love it.
And another activity enabled by virtual goods is enhanced game play.
This is the basic time versus money trade-off. So people that don't
have money to spend, in most, but not all of these games, if you put in
enough time you can earn enough in game money to get through the game.
But it takes a lot of time. And if you have real-world money to spend,
you can move much more quickly through the game, level-up, etcetera.
Now this is not a new phenomenon, this has been happening certainly
since the late '90s in MMOs and it wasn't necessarily sanctioned by the
developers, but there have been auctions on e-bay to buy characters, to
buy weapons, to buy houses, to buy epic notes, to buy whatever in MMOs
for a long time. Sometimes the developers sanction it or even set up
an in-game auction situation like Wow, to let you actually do that.
But it's kind of taking on new life in some of the more recent Facebook
games. This is an example from a game called Mobsters on Facebook.
And you can buy these objects and they will increase your stats in
battles, which will help you go level-up even further. But today's new
social games are taking this old time versus money trade-off and
putting it right in the game and making it very, very easy to just buy
your way through the levels essentially.
Yes?
>> Question: So there's sort of two spaces here, the games that are
coming out of a social network, like Facebook, and there's like a
wealth of didn't really start with social network S. There a shift from
one to the other, do you think?
>> Amy Jo Kim: How do you mean a shift?
>> Question: Well, a lot of this game play is coming out of social
networks. It's transitioning into social networks more than it was
before. Is that like a recent phenomenon or ->> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, it is a recent phenomenon. Yes. So a lot of
the -- so the games on social networks are evolving very, very rapidly.
They look very different than they did six months ago and they'll look
different in another six months. They're very different than Wow and
then MMOs.
They're different in really interesting ways, too. I would say they're
different threads. They both have virtual goods as a fundamental game
mechanism within them and it's one of the reasons that people keep
playing. They both have virtual economies that are engaging the
players. So the things they have in common, this is some of what is
really interesting about the social network games. If you look at the
most popular games, most interest games on social networks, they're
very different, but one of the threads you'll see in them is that the
ones that keep people playing or most all of them have a virtual
economy that they use to engage the players. Earn coins, spend coins.
Right? That is a virtual economy.
And same with MMOs, that's one of the most engaging aspects.
>> Question: I was wondering because you said that there is other
things that keep people there. Has any of this, you know, in some
sections they are transitioning the users to buy more and more virtual
goods because the cost of goods is typically very low, so it seems like
some type of conditioning. Is that ->> Amy Jo Kim: Absolutely. You -- ding-dong, you are absolutely right.
Basically these text RPGs are Skinner boxes, that really is what they
are. They are not actually that much fun, but they're skinner boxes.
They -- they put short-term -- dangle short-term goals in front of you.
A lot of mechanisms get you to keep playing and keep buying. Whether
that is morally right or not, we will not get into right now. But if
you strip away the details and just get at the structural mechanics,
which is something that I've been doing and that other folks that I
work with have been doing that you can really see it is very much
offered condition, it's a skinner box. And if you want to get people
to behave a certain way, that's a well-established way. And I'm going
to talk about reinforcement schedules and operative conditioning later.
But it is a huge part of game design.
>> Question: Do people spend money to advance a couple levels quickly
because it's more fun to play after five or they want to be on the top
of the ladder compared to their peers?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And people probably have
different motivations, too. People aren't all the same, but a lot of
people say it's more fun to play at a higher level.
You know, like in Wow, how much more fun is it to have an epic mount
than not. You know, it just is. So -- but also in these games it's
more -- people want to play at a higher level. Part of it is just
what's behind that door number two thing. They want to see what is at
the higher level. And a lot of these games use very manipulative, but
very successful mechanisms. For instance, look, you can unlock more
equipment after level four. You will see that sort of stuff scattered
everywhere. You know, dangling the carrot.
Yeah?
You, then you.
>> Question: So does game play change now because it used to be like
level one is training and then it would get harder and harder. Is
level 10 more fun to play or is it harder or is there any achievement
getting to level 10 or can you play at level 10 having never played the
level?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Well, you have to go through the levels.
go jump.
You can't just
>> Question: Oh, okay.
>> Amy Jo Kim: But what you can do is bistep levels you up faster. And
you can spend real money to not have to spend so much time in the game.
And then you just bistep. It's like with these RPGs, it's just -- it's
a stats thing. You can buy stuff that makes your stats, pumps your
stats, and then when you go do battles, you do better and that levels
you up faster. But they also, depending on the game, they also require
you to invite friends in order to level up. That is one of the other
manipulative tactics that you could argue for or against.
But the point is in regards to virtual goods and virtual economies is
that is the thread that is keeping people playing is that opportunity
to buy more stuff and if you buy more stuff you do better in the game.
You had a comment and then this gentleman.
>> Question: It's that you are talking about this MMO yesterday.
Basically in the hard-working game world there is reputation is really
important and if you spend money to get expensive stuff it doesn't go
over very well. In the casual meaning world, thank God, nobody cares
how much money you spend. Nobody is like going oh, you spent a bunch
of money, that means you didn't do a great job or you are just not a
good player. There is no social stigma attached to that.
>> Amy Jo Kim: That is a great point. Thank you for bringing that up.
It's true. It's really different. It's -- yeah.
>> Question: They might think you are silly for spending that much
money, but no social stigma.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Absolutely there is in the hard-core gaming world.
in most MMOs. Yeah?
And
>> Question: If I'm letting you write then if I would just design RPG
game that will advance the player more quickly so that he doesn't have
to go and just automatically advance or click through the levels or
signal items without paying cash. And then that game would not attract
or would not keep its players as much as those games where people are
actually (inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: I don't know that it wouldn't keep its players, but it
wouldn't monetize.
>> Question: Definitely. But the question is normally we think about
if people don't want to spend money. If I offer you (inaudible) for
$100, (inaudible). If I offer you two worlds where in one world
everything is free and the other one everything costs money, I think
you would choose the free world.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Maybe, maybe.
>> Question: My question is ->> Amy Jo Kim: Not necessarily.
>> Question: If the games -- it might be conversed that people actually
like this little thing where they keep spending more and lots of money
to -- if everything were free I couldn't imagine they would enjoy this
game.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Well, one of the things about spending money and this is
very true if you look at the dynamics of virtual gifting, which I I'll
go into a little bit later, is that people like to be able to have a
range of ways to express themselves or to express their feelings about
another person. And if you have -- for instance, if you had a virtual
gifting system where everything is free, it doesn't have as much
meaning as if it's $.01 and $.10 and $1 and $10. Then there is -- if
somebody sends you the $10 gift, it's very different. It holds a
different meaning for you. So that's part of the dynamic that's going
on.
You, then you and I think someone else back there.
>> Question: I think what you're missing is I mean imagine a world
where everything is free and (inaudible) reduce in value. So I think,
you know, it is like the phrase. You get out of it what you put in. I
think goods take on a certain amount of value, but you have some
expenditure involved. There is time involved in acquiring ->> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, exactly.
I think that's absolutely true.
This gentleman and that gentleman.
>> Question: (Inaudible) to get like (inaudible) you can do better.
This is both (inaudible) like sitting in the game and it gives
(inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah.
Absolutely.
>> Question: How do you balance this? What metrics do you follow as
you are looking from a game standpoint, obviously, it's balance that's
pretty important to not offend players and keep it fun. Are there
metrics you use in the design process so you can understand how to
balance this, too?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Absolutely. That's a topic that is big. I only touch
on that a little bit in this talk, but I can point you out a really
excellent presentation that goes into is great detail on the kinds of
metrics that I saw just last Tuesday and after this had I'll get you
guys the URL for that.
And the short answer is -- and I want to make a comment about you guys.
The short answer is that the game companies that are developing these
games have put probably more than 50% of their effort into metrics and
they are looking at -- looking at the metrics of how many people play
which quest, how much the quest costs. You know, it's -- these -- one
you develop a virtual economy like this, balancing it is an ongoing
thing. So you don't just -- so first is, you don't just balance it
once. You start it and then you're constantly measuring and tweaking
and looking and you have to keep changing things.
basically -- I forget the words for it.
And there's
There are inputs and outputs, pipes and flows, who remembers? In
economy, there is a certain language, there is money flowing into the
system and money coming out of the system. And when people buy stuff,
money is essentially coming out. If you have a house and you can
blowup someone's house and mobsters and they have to rebuild their
house, money is coming out.
There's all these different syncs and flows when you have this kind of
virtual economy. And you need to basically have your finger on all of
them and then look at what the players are doing and basically you want
to be -- the basic thing, like the rule of thumb is you want to start
tight and loosen up slowly. You want to start with your economy so it
is hard to make money, in particular, if you are trying to get people
to spend money on coins. It is better to start tight. Make it hard to
make money and then loosen up a little bit as you go to make it easier
and easier.
Many people start off with too loose an economy and then it's very hard
to go backward from there and tighten things down. But there's no
easy, simple way to say, this is how you balance it. You put huge
amount of effort into measuring and tweak nothing an ongoing way. And
if, you know, things are out of balance, a lot of times a company will
introduce a new feature because they need a sync to pull money out of
the economy. Those sorts of things, you see that all the time.
>> Question: Somewhat unrelated to (inaudible) real life you see the
abuser (inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: What?
>> Question: You see stuff like shoplifting in the real world.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Oh, fraud is a huge deal, absolutely. The social game
companies like Zynga and Playfish have staff devoted to handling fraud
and the more successful you are, the more fraud there is. The biggest
source, the biggest problems come if you can convert your end-game
money into is real-world money. So most of these companies don't do
that.
I think Project Intropea is a company that did that and got into a lot
of trouble around that. But there is still a lot of fraud and some
companies just decide not to go into this at all because they don't
want to handle the fraud. But you have to be prepared to have -- to
manage that and to deal with that and to have a policy around that.
>> Question: (Inaudible) --
>> Amy Jo Kim: I actually don't know.
You shook your head.
Go ahead.
>> Question: There's a billion dollar industry in China for finding
worlds with -- it's a billion dollars from the ->> Amy Jo Kim: That's not exactly fraud, that's an interesting gray
area.
>> Question: That's actually what I want to mention.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Uh-huh.
>> Question: So there are two aspects in terms of fees limited. One
was it used to be -- somebody said you can't jump ahead by paying real
money. Actually you could. You could level up to level 60. Get
(inaudible). Stick it on e-bay and quite literally these were going
for $10,000 bucks real money a pop. You had enough money and didn't
want to level up to that level. And I went back to e-bay and said, can
you now make it illegal to sell these things on e-bay, which they
agreed to do. You can no longer buy characters and if they catch you
buying a character, they ban you and ban your credit card.
So it still happens, but in general -- then there was a question of
reputation. People don't know you by your character most of the time.
You suddenly show up in a new realm. You can do realm transfers and
nobody knows it and nobody cares.
But in the most recent expansion, they did this as an expansion, you
can't use epic flying mounts until later in the game. This step is
actually an economic reason. If I can fly anywhere and do collecting
of goods to get money, then I basically destroy the economy immediately
by having a low-level character simply running around and gathering
stuff to make gold.
So to protect the economy and actually prevent fast gathering by not
letting you get your mount (inaudible) interesting solution to the
problem.
>> Question: So not (inaudible) ->> Question: There's lots of things that it can't handle -- - being one
of them.
(Laughter)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, these are -- this is great.
issues.
Those are both big
I also wanted to mention something really interesting about the way
that most of these social games I'm talking about today are being
develop and iterated once they are launched and the way that MMOs such
as Wow are developed.
So if you talk to the designers at Wow, what you find is that it's
really much more of a trust-your-gut development. They hire people who
are in their core demographic and they have -- they're used to players,
any of you have ever built an MMO, you know you will have a bunch of
players telling you they hate everything you are building. You know,
they just will. If you were to listen to that, you wouldn't design the
game you know you want to design.
So during game design and this goes for all of Blizzard's games, they
hire people that they know are in their core demographic and they
listen to them and they have great designers and they build these
experiences and they certainly listen to their fans, but they don't do
what the fans tell them. They don't measure every little thing the
fans are doing. They measure a lot about the economy to balance it and
manage it once it's out there, but the game -- the style of game
development is much more about having a vision and then executing on
that vision, which is more what I call traditional game development.
The social games, which is really fascinating and very new to me as a
game developer, the way they develop this game is very audience driven.
Usually they'll release a game very early and then iterate, iterate,
iterate, change, change, change and what they measure is everything,
especially with Facebook, all the viral channels. They'll try to do AB
testing up the wazoo of notifications and the ones that get better
responses, they'll go with that and they will just do it with every
little thing about the game.
You know, they'll try different quests. The ones that get the best
response, do more of those, etcetera, etcetera. So it is very much
metrics driven and audience driven and what ends up happening, often
but not always you get pretty low-quality games that are very
successful at manipulating people. And it's -- to me it's a really
interesting dynamic if you look at the results of both of these styles
of games.
And I think there is probably something in the middle that's going to
be more of the style that people develop. Absolutely you want to know
what your audience is doing, you want to respond to it. But if you
take that to it's extreme, you get Gambling Emporium. Because that,
you know, it kind of sinks.
(laughter)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Well, it's true.
>> Question: It's true.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Don't you think?
there's the pyramid, right?
You are going lower and lower and
So -- so I just -- I don't really have a big, like this is what you
should do or not do, but having talked to developers at both of these
companies about how they deal with games, I find this bifurcation of
style really interesting and so it's just something to think about, you
know, moving forward.
So, let's move on.
So let's get into games and game mechanics a bit.
So first definitions. What do I mean by game? The formal definition
taken from Rules of Play, which is a great book, is a system in which
players engage in an artificial conflict defined by rules with a
quantifiable outcome, like Chess or Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Those
are all formal games that fall into that.
My informal definition, which is much broader is a structured
experience that has rules and goals that's fun. So for instance, the
Sims would not fall into a formal definition of games because it
doesn't really have a quantifiable outcome, but it certainly is within
my informal definition.
And YouTube could be called a game within my informal definition if you
wanted to. It certainly has a lot of game mechanics, leader boards,
all kinds of things. This is the definition I'm using today, which is,
you know, a big 10 for what a game is. Again, if you look at Facebook
games or social network games many more of them fall into this
category.
Games are as we know very, very powerful. They tap into very primal
response patterns that humans have. The gentleman was talking about
operate conditioning. These are schedules of reinforcement taken from
operate conditioning. And this chart shows you how effective they are
essentially. The red one being the most effective, that is the
variable ratio one.
How many of you are familiar with this kind of thing, this operate
conditioning schedule? Not very many. So I'll just take you through
it really quickly.
This kind of data came from studies that were done on rats and pigeons
and it turns out they apply to humans, too. This is the skinner box
that I eluded to earlier.
If you -- if you -- the long story short, if you give pellets of food
to a rat at very fixed intervals, the rat will just not show that much
interest in the foods like, yeah, food is coming, great.
If you give pellets of food at variable intervals, it's like, might be
a minute, might be an hour when the food comes out, and you give
different amounts of food, sometimes it's one pellet, sometimes it's no
pellet, sometimes it's 100 pellets, you will get the most addictive
behavior. The rat will sit there and push the lever continuously. You
can basically program addiction in this way and this is where knowledge
about reinforcement schedules, a lot of game designers use these
tactics.
And the variable ratio is exactly the reinforcement schedule that a
slot machine uses in Vegas or anywhere else a slot machine is to be
found.
And so I'm not saying, oh, go out and use the slot machine mechanisms
to manipulate your players. But these are tools in the toolkit of
really interest designer who's designing interactive experiences and
that completely predictable experience is not nearly as interesting and
compelling as an experience that has certain amounts of
unpredictability to it. This is revealing human nature to us. We are
most compelled when there's -- when there's a sense of mystery, a sense
of I don't understand this.
If you have read Ralph Costar's Theory of Fun, which is a really great,
fun, easy read, he talks about this. He talks about mastering a
system. A lot of playing a game is about mastering a system, trying to
understand what is going on here, what's the system? If you can master
it immediately, you lose interest F. It takes a while and you are like,
I'm not sure what is going on, maybe I'll try this, try that, that is a
lot of what keeps people engaged and keeps your brain engaged.
>> Question: (Inaudible) understand pattern and while understanding the
pattern keeps people engaged.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Exactly. That's a really good way of putting it.
games tap into these response patterns.
And
Games also are -- good games are very, very good at engaging us in
flow, which is a basic concept where you're balances challenging your
skill level. Basically if you are -- if your skill level is too good
for your challenge, you're bored. If you don't really have the skill
to take on a challenge, you're frustrated, you're anxious. If
approximate you are right there in the middle where your skill and the
challenge being presented to you are balanced correctly, then you're in
flow and time seems to stand still, etcetera, etcetera.
This is the goal of most games. And it's part of why games change over
time is because you need to change the amount of challenge based on the
growing skill of the player. And this basic concept applies to again
any interactive experience.
So game mechanics are the systems and features that make games fun,
compelling and addictive. Not the eye candy, not the great sound
design, not the story, but the underlying mechanics.
And so I want to talk about five game mechanics and then show you how
that connects into what is going on with virtual economies in today's
social games. The first one is collecting, which is a very, very basic
game mechanic. This is a screen shot from Sorority Life that shows you
a variety of things you can collect. There's achievements which are
just like XBox Live achievements, with badges. By the way, XBox Live,
Kudos actually pioneered this and everybody and their brother now has
badges to mark various achievements within the game and it's great,
there is nothing wrong with that. It's just a way to say, here's -again, it's one of those little carrots dangled in front of you, part
of the overall skinner box.
But there's more you can collect in Sorority Life. Where it says
"outfits," this particular person, who is a very experienced player has
over 100 outfits, just listed under there. And then besides outfits
there's accessories and then there's all these accessories you can
collect. And I talked to the folks who developed this game and they
said that a lot of the people that play and that spend a lot of money
don't even necessarily wear the outfits that they buy. They're just
collecting them because they want to have them. They like them.
And, you know, it's a little mystifying to me because that's certainly
not what motivates me, but this is really working for a lot of people.
Part of it again, it comes down to that collecting thing. You want to
have it. Some of it is showing off. Part is showing people how much
stuff you have. And some is of it is just again going back to that fun
of shopping. You know, it is that buzz that you get, that little
dopamine burst in your brain when you get a new outfit.
Yes?
>> Question: In something like this, when you said everybody and their
brother plays this, I was thinking, do you think demographics relative
to the sex plays a role in terms of this? Like I'm not guessing you
will see a lot of guys ->> Amy Jo Kim: Well, this is explicitly a girl game.
>> Question: Do you see there is demographics, is the use of the
economy or the issue surrounding the economy driven differently by
whether men or women are playing the game?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Um, so I can't answer that with data because I don't
actually -- I had some data on this game, but I think there are
probably plenty of men who collect weapons and mobsters, you know, as
well as women that collect outfits here.
Part of the game design issue is picking a setting and picking a
structure for your game that has a lot of stuff to collect. But for
instance there's a game called Pack Rat that's very, very different on
Facebook that you collect cards and one of the powers of collecting is
the notion of completing a set. And that -- you really arbitrarily
saying, this is a set. Anyone who collected baseball cards or Pokemon
cards or any of those things knows about this. Part of what Pack Rat
does, it has lots of different sets that you can complete. That works
on that -- their demographics are split 50/50 or pretty close.
So I think it does cross across gender. I think with girls and
shopping there's definitely a social familiarity and comfort that you
don't have as much with men or certainly not as much social acceptance.
But I think that people like to collect stuff and I think it's not just
girls.
So I would encourage you if you are interested in this to log on to
Facebook and check out Sorority Life. They have leader boards. If you
go to -- they call it the In Crowd. If you go to the leader board,
click on the top people and look at the stuff, just look at their
stuff. It just blows your mind.
>> Question: (Inaudible) -- like browse team level search for more
items, I mean is there a maximum, you can't just keep it on scan and
(inaudible) same attached.
>> Amy Jo Kim: I think you can, so I don't know -- the short answer is
I don't know. From the game developers, I don't know if there is some
like you can't collect more than X outfits. I'm pretty darn sure that
the game developers have made it so that is not the case because they
are very, very focused on this kind of mechanics and on enabling it.
So you can have just -- if you page through it, there is no reason to
limit it, other than the slow loading times, right, if you have a lot
of items.
But I mean people do get burned out on these games and just stop
playing, but again, one of the powers of this kind of structure, it
goes way back to building out your mud character. You know, the more
that you develop your character and your stuff and -- the harder it is
to leave because you spent all that time and invested all that time and
you're sort of -- you have risen up through the ranks as it were and it
make its harder and harder to leave.
So -- anyway.
>> Question: (Inaudible) limited edition and stuff you can't get only a
certain amount of time to get it so for the super collector ->> Amy Jo Kim: Just like QVC.
(laughter)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, so part of the balancing of these game system
figuring out what items to create. I'm going to give you guys a list
of kind of best practices for what people are doing for those
interested in implementing this stuff.
But there you always are having to introduce new stuff and one of the
question system how do you price it? How many are there? You know, is
it limited edition? Is there a limited time, etcetera? And these are
tricks of marketing. These are things that QVC does. These are things
that direct marketing does.
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, and it is just being reinvented in the context of
virtual goods.
>> Question: Question about collecting. So I mean to my mind I'm
thinking, okay, so if you look at little items there, you know there's
points and some set -- design parameters, right, like color and shape.
I mean, there's -- I guess the way I'm thinking of it is how far apart
do you -- if you think of all the different parameters that can vary on
something, how far apart do the two different items have to be in the
designs for them to ->> Amy Jo Kim: Have meaning?
>> Question: Yeah. Because I can imagine, you just call up
similar-looking items, slightly different, you know, I don't know what
dress is, but let's say dress (inaudible) eight and nine, like some
software pumped out and people would be like why am I upgrading?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Right. I'm sure there are some things that have pretty
small differences. What this particular game, what they do is that
they evoke the names of designers. So you don't just buy pumps. You
buy Jimmy Chu pumps, right? And so -(laughter)
>> Question: Okay.
In reality you can't afford a Jimmy Chu.
>> Amy Jo Kim: But in Sorority Life, go to town, baby.
(laughter)
>> Question: Buy a handbag even though you can't afford one.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Definitely. Definitely. So I don't have like a
statistical answer, you know, what -- how far they have to be. I would
say that the design space is pretty darn big with clothing. But I mean
there's not that many pixels, right? They're not that big. So there's
a lot of creativity involved in that and they definitely take one
design and then skin it with lots of colors. That's step one. Lots of
different colors, but they can't be too close together. And then
they -- I think they also have slight differences, but they name them.
The thing is there is metadata associated with it so you can also
differentiate with metadata that has social meaning to the people
buying it. That's another trick.
Did you have a question or comment back there?
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: Sure.
>> Question: There are certain things that are tough to get, can't be
bought in social status that is outside the realm of anything else. So
for example there is a crown that is seasonal. You can only get it at
the summer festival and will be gotten if you get all of the four
(inaudible) and you somehow manage to get your way through and survive
it. So just having it indicates what you have done and where you've
been, but need to be recognized I get where you have been if it implies
a certain social status. Other people couldn't care.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Absolutely. You will see things like this in most of
these games. In Pet Society, believe it or not, there is something
called golden poo.
(laughter)
>> Amy Jo Kim: And because sometimes pets -- your pet will poo, you
know. And sometimes I think it is like -- I think they from talking to
developers there's some magical statistical thing where it doesn't
happen very often. There's apparently also even rare is rainbow poo.
So that is the equivalent of that in Wow, which pretty much sums up the
tenor and tone of social gaming right there.
>> Question: (Inaudible) -- back in the '90s when you (inaudible) in
software and it was very (inaudible) and have to show somebody an
Easter egg, you know. Look, I've got 12 fingers on the keyboard doing
this random foundation and it shows up on Microsoft Word or something
like that, that sort of thing.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Exactly. Any time you have a virtual economy, you need
to have rare items or the whole thing doesn't work smoothly. So the
notion of rare items that have social meaning is really central to
building any kind of interesting or virtual economy.
That is kind of the punch line of all of this.
Okay. So collecting. Yeah. So collecting. The point here is that
collecting is a basic game mechanic and a very basic human activity
that's enabled by virtual goods and that's very powerful means of
getting people to keep playing a game or keep staying engaged in
software. For instance, Hunch, which is a newly launched -- what do
you call it, exactly? What would you call it? A decision support
system. Has badges. You collect your badges just like everything
else.
So it's pervasive, powerful, goes far beyond games. There's just Show
Me Your Stuff. You know, friends, collecting friends, obviously, but
you know it is something that people do on social networks on Twitter,
etcetera, except they are not called friends there. And there is your
inventory from Wow.
So another one is earning points. Earning points is probably the
basic game mechanic. If you can't earn points it's basically not
game. And this is a screen from Farm Town, which is actually one
the most popular, if not the most popular game on Facebook. It's
little simulation game where you pretend you are running a farm.
most
a
of
this
When you see your friends, what you see is their points, their level,
the amount of points or XP that they've learned and also the amount of
coins that they have. This is a really key thing about sorting out who
is doing what.
So the whole earned points and level up game mechanic is pervasive and
is very much part of what is driving virtual goods. And a lot of these
games make it so that you have to buy certain goods before you can
level up. Again, you can either put in the time to buy them or you can
spend some money and buy them and level up faster, as I mentioned
early.
So here this is a Pet Society screen. Where it says One to Watch up
there, that's the amount of points that I've earned so far.
This is my character.
And it shows me what level I'm at, as well. I'm at level seven. And,
you know, there is always another level to achieve, just like in Wow,
just like in any RPG.
This is something -- the point I want to make is that this goes way
beyond games. The idea of -- levels are just arbitrary marks on a
continuum, right? They're not anything magic about levels. When you
sit down and build a game, where do you put the levels? You know, you
just decide. You decide based on different things.
way of measuring your progress.
But points are a
This is something that you could use in any interactive software, the
notion of being able to measure progress and levels really give you a
shorthand. Instead of saying I have 7396 points, you say, I'm level
36, and then you have shorthand.
What's interesting about a lot of the games including Virtual Economy,
there is at least two and often more point systems. I have my regular
point systems, where it says one to watch, that is my actual progress
through the game. But I also have how much coin I have, how much money
I've earned and that's a parallel point system. That's the point
system that actually let's me get stuff within the game.
Some virtual economies have dual currency systems, as well. This is an
example of a -- actually this one is a dual currency system. See where
there is that little fish up there in the zero? That's a different
kind of coin. That is cash. And there's some items in the game that
you can only buy with cash. You cannot buy it with the coins that
you've earned. And the reason that developers introduce this and you
see this in many games, Guya has the same thing, a dual currency
system.
The reason? Every time you see this, it is purely about them making
money. There is no end-game reason for this. There is no reason you
shouldn't be able to buy things with your coins. It is they want there
to be certain things that either have magical powers or are just
decorative and show status that can only be bought with money because
they want their game to be -- to make money.
>> Question: ->> Amy Jo Kim: It's very successful.
>> Question: Bad design.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Very successful.
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: And your pocketbook shows it?
Okay.
(Laughter)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, when I first ran into this, I did work for Guya
and I ran into this, right when they were introducing their dual
currency system. I was like, why are you doing this? It is more
complicated and etcetera, etcetera. They are like, we need to make
money. This is free to play.
All this is assuming a free-to-play model. That is the other thing,
you don't have to do this sort of thing if you have a subscription
model or a packaged good. If you have a free-to-play model, you
basically need to stay in business.
When you have this kind of system, unless you are constantly balancing,
tweaking and pumping new goods into the system, it doesn't work. So it
costs quite a bit of money to actually run these games. They're trying
to figure out how to make the whole thing work and that is why they
introduce this kind of dual currency system.
>> Question: (Inaudible) -- adding additional mini-games inside Pet
Society and allow you to not just, you know, you can play the game
while earning points. The (inaudible) inside Pet Society that also
make its more appealing to just -- not just buying some (inaudible)
doing more things, right?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Right.
>> Question: There's ->> Amy Jo Kim: Right. Yeah. They've introduced a lot of other
activities that keep it interesting, but the activities also give you
another reason to buy goods. I'm trying to remember, does Pet Society,
I think in their arena, how well your pet does in the race depends on
your level and on -- no?
>> Question: You can bet with -- you can have auto play for you and bet
who is going to win.
>> Amy Jo Kim: And what determines who win?
>> Question: Who gets to the finish line first.
>> Amy Jo Kim: I mean, if it's ->> Question: Primarily ->> Amy Jo Kim: I'm just wondering if it is something about your stats?
About the character's stats? It is not tied to that at all?
>> Question: The more you bet.
>> Amy Jo Kim: I see.
>> Question: You can also race, you can physically use your character
to race against other people. The better you are at playing the game,
the better your points are.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah. Yeah. In Sorority Life, the more -- if you buy
fancier clothes, your character is more likely to win battles in that
particular -- but Pet Society is different. Yes? Excuse me.
>> Question: Not yet.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Not yet.
>> Question: The deal is like in Pet Society, people collect for status
and they have limited edition rare items that you can only get
seasonally and some of them probably will never come back and because
of that, there's a whole economy built on rare items. And then like if
you join later there is no way for you to get those items. So if you
hold forth those and they have recycling mode, you can sidewalk and get
special items so that encouraging you to buy more stuff and the only
way to get special item system to recycle things and it will do that by
buying things.
You don't have to buy stuff, the more things you add and more people
you get involved and the more you visit them, the more points you get,
you can actually get pretty far in the game without ever spending money
if you wanted, but you have to dedicate that time and like I have 50
friends that play and it will take me a good hour to get through all
those, right? Friends are visiting them.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Right.
Yeah.
>> Question: Want to be my friend on Facebook?
for you. (Laughter)
I will set it up here
>> Amy Jo Kim: Right. And so they also have a cash shop where you can
only buy stuff with that -- with Playfish cash.
>> Question: Yeah. You put that stuff around and gift it to people.
If you buy something and want to send it to somebody else, you can't
send it out of inventory, when you buy it, you have to get that and
give them that.
>> Amy Jo Kim: So back to the sort of the main thing. I'm talking
about game mechanics and points. Points, levels, leader boards, all
those sorts of things. I want to make a differentiation between points
that are granted by the game and all the 964 points there level seven,
that is game points. I've interacted with the game and I've earned
those points.
There is another kind of points which reputation, rating systems, all
of those are what I call social points. Those are points given by
other players. In Restaurant City, which is a game by the same people
that made Pet Society, your restaurant can get rated. See those stars
there, those five stars? That is a rating that was accumulation of
ratings by other players. You see the rating systems not just in games
but broadly on the internet on all kinds of different sites, on
YouTube, etcetera.
This is called Gourmet Street in Restaurant City.
This is a collection of the highest rated restaurants, rated by other
players. They put them all together in one place. And showcase them.
It is a way like a leader board, but more interactive.
And if you are trying to build social experience, if you're trying to
develop a system and you want it to have social elements to it,
thinking about social point systems is a really great thing. It gets
people more engaged.
It can also be very easily gamed. A lot of special point systems can
be gamed and you have to deal with them, try and design it so that it's
not so gamed.
An interesting example of social points is how many of you have used
Flickr? Okay. So Flickr has a metric called "Interestingness," that's
an amalgamation of all of the interactions around a particular photo.
How many people have come in, how many people viewed it, how many
people referenced it, put it into a group. All of that activity
cumulatively is measured by "interestingness." That is a social point
system because it is other people interacting with your photo. But
it's very hard to gain because of the way that it's structured and I
think that is a particularly brilliant system and it works very well.
If you click on Show Me the Most Interesting Photos. You see great
photos. You don't see crap showing up there. And it is because the
system was designed to really be smart and to beat against that.
Yes?
>> Question: Is that the (inaudible) algorithm or the complexity of it
is the bigger factor? Clearly ->> Amy Jo Kim: That's a great question.
>> Question: You have the same problem.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Um, I think it's both. I think that it's -- I think if
they said exactly how they did it, that would let people gain it. That
is always a double-edged sword.
Transparency in algorithms is you can decide, you know, it is context
dependent. Should you be transparent about how you are measuring
things. Sometimes it is a really good idea. Other time its makes
people get into the system. This is a side. As a designer, making
your algorithm transparent make its much harder to tweak. So a lot of
times it's better to just tell people at a high level what you're doing
and then you can mess with it and tweak it and tune it and do all those
things under the sheets.
Sure.
>> Question: You mentioned early on that Asia was the originator of a
lot of this. Are you ->> Amy Jo Kim: I'm sorry, what?
>> Question: Asia was originator.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yes.
>> Question: Everything I've seen so far is an American take on that.
Are you going to cover any of the ->> Amy Jo Kim: Not today. One of the problems with covering the Asian
stuff is that I don't read Korean or Chinese. So for me to actually go
in and grab screen shots, I can talk about -- and if you want to ask me
questions, I can talk about large-scale things that are going on in
terms of trends. But I don't have very particular examples, I just
don't play those games. But if you have any knowledge about that or
anyone wants to share that ->> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: You mean between -- oh, okay.
>> Question: U.S. and Asia.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Sure.
>> Question: Because they have 10 years more experience at this than
us?
They are different culturally.
>> Amy Jo Kim: I can tell you right now there are a few really basic
things. Part of why Free to Play, microtransaction based virtual item
based games are so popular in Asia is because of piracy and he fraud.
Probably the number one reason. And it is different there than it is
here. There's huge amounts of piracy, no casual games make money
there. You at Microsoft probably know about these issues, right?
Right? Same thing with games.
It is not they dreamed up this brilliant mod and he will they were so
smart, it is because they were driven to it because of all the piracy
and I know that from multiple sources.
The -- and then Asia is not in and of itself the same. So the dynamics
of the Chinese market are different than the dynamics of the Korean
market and also the Japanese, they're all very different.
Right now in china a lot of people play in public, public things. They
are called PC bongs in Korea, they probably have a name for them in
China. People are playing on machines that aren't their own and that
really creates a very different dynamic.
Another thing about -- in particular about Korea is that as a culture,
Korea is much less celebratory of individualism and going against the
pack and expressing yourself in the culture itself. There is a lot of
emphasis on fitting in had, on doing the right thing. It's a much less
free for all.
You know, somebody from the gutter can rise up and be an entrepreneur
and that doesn't happen nearly as much, if at all, in Korea. It is
getting into a certain school is going to determine the rest of the
course of your life. You know. That leads to some really interesting
dynamics in education.
If you guys are interesting I will tell you about a fascinating, I will
tell you later, there is a company called MegaStudy that is this hugely
successful company in Korea that is really about test prep. But part
of why -- before I showed you avatar customization, part of why that
took off in Korea is there is much less opportunity for people to
express their individuality and even their craziness in the physical
world in real life.
It is not accepted, it is looked down on, it is just not there, the
opportunity is not there. It is much more homogenous society in
America. Just looking around the room, there is different colors of
skin and different -- America is much more of a melting pot and we
celebrate that, although obviously there is problems with that, that is
not always the case. Whereas in Korea, that is just not the case. It
is much more homogenous.
So the dynamics of playing a character that is different, that looks
different, that has -- you know, dressed different, plays a really
different role as an outlet for people in Asia than here and in
particular Korea. That is a short version of what's going on.
The other thing that is going on in those countries, particularly in
Korea, that is the one I know the most about, is that the mobile phone
is really pervasive and so people being able to put payments on their
mobile phone on their mobile phone bill started there and is incredibly
common. It's catching on here now, but it's different, it's much more
advanced there.
And it's just because partly because it's -- there isn't as much
competition and fragmentation as there is here in the mobile phone
industry. There's just a few providers, sometimes it's controlled by
the government. So it is much more simple in a way, the mobile phone
infrastructure and in particular the billing infrastructure.
>> Question: (Inaudible) -- also adds interesting spin ->> Amy Jo Kim: Wow, I didn't know that.
Where?
In Korea?
>> Question: No, Japan.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Oh, Japan.
>> Question: (Inaudible) I can be sitting on a train and see someone
across the west. You could for example sit in (inaudible) and say I'm
interested in (inaudible) and see what the response was, but you
couldn't do the same with us because there is no way of getting it.
>> Question: You wouldn't actually know who the person is, right? The
reason Facebook is not successful in Japan is there is a pride about
anonymity. There is someone else on this train playing this game.
It is not the person ->> Amy Jo Kim: That is really interesting.
>> Question: I'd like to add about why this mobile phone plans are so
popular. I don't know about Korea in particular, but in (inaudible)
countries, the (inaudible) cell phone is so popular because there is no
other way, in fact, credit cards are almost nobody has (inaudible)
payments are very rare. It's actually one way to pay cash and
(inaudible) and another way is to pay with (inaudible) simpler and
essentially the only way practical it can be used.
>> Amy Jo Kim: That is really interesting. Yeah, it's -- looks like
it's quickly becoming the payment method of choice worldwide.
The other thing about mobile phones is that if microtransaction showing
up on your mobile phone bill often are not so noticeable, especially to
your parents if you are a kid because there is already a bunch of
little microtransactions there.
Sure.
>> Question: I was told by a friend from Poland and in the good old
days people in Poland had more money to spend than (inaudible)
controlled economy problem (inaudible) people would lineup in lines not
knowing what they were lining up for, figuring at the end of the line
it was either a refrigerator or a TV or whatever.
>> Question: Are there still great opportunities in that sort of
environment to sell virtual goods?
>> Amy Jo Kim: I don't know, that is a really interesting questions.
>> Question: These studies are things called bags of crap -- like no,
no seriously, they have these like once a year on Christmas they have
this thing called bags of crap. So you pay $1 for each bag. They can
arrange everything for like a TV, HDTV to a bag of fresh air. You
don't actually know what you are getting, but people line up and buy
them. It seems to me a virtual economy would be especially compelling
if ->> Amy Jo Kim: There is limited goods.
>> Question: -- right now where you could spend real money on goods.
But I guess that (inaudible) ->> Question: That is not a realm right now given the world.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Exactly. Same idea. The bag of crap, the mystery box,
going back to reinforcement schedules, not knowing what you are going
to get, very compelling.
That is a really interesting question.
I don't know.
I do know that the companies running these games have had a harder time
overseas than in the U.S., they are far more monetizable and popular
here in the U.S. It may just be that the companies are based in the
U.S. I think the company that is most able -- probably poised and able
to do that is Playfish because they have offices all over the world.
But if I find out something I'll try to follow-up.
>> Question: I spent a year in (inaudible) -- I was shocked at the
crappiness of (inaudible) hugely popular. I think if amortizing
U.S.-based people have great software, it could (inaudible) try to have
the same game concept reported by Chinese companies.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Right.
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: What I've heard from everybody, it's the distribution
stranglehold that keep its from happening and a lot of American
companies have tried to do business in china and had problems getting
distribution because of the way that things work.
>> Question: Yeah.
Bear in mind (inaudible) --
>> Amy Jo Kim: Well, that's a Chinese company.
>> Question: But you can download the games.
(talking over each other) ->> Amy Jo Kim: So another game mechanic that I wanted to address is
feedback. And this is of course not just for games. Lots of software
uses feedback. What's different about games is they use feedback
particularly well, both real-time feedback to let you know what you are
doing and longer-term feedback to let you know how close you are to
mastering the environment.
Using feedback it basically accelerates mastery and makes anything more
fun, whether it's Google Maps or -- maybe I shouldn't say that here,
but these screens are -- these are my nephews playing Guitar Hero.
Yes, I have Korean, the reason I know about Korea is my husband is
Korean and we have been there before.
So in terms of engaging social games with feedback, a lot of examples
I've given you before are just constant ways of letting you know where
you are in the game, how much further you have to go and using virtual
goods is a convenient way to express that. Being able to collect stuff
and show off the things you collected is another form of feedback.
Exchanges are another game mechanic and an exchange is a structured
social interaction giving a gift, shaking hands, back and forth form of
social engagement. There's two kinds of exchanges. I'll move along
more quickly. We only have 20 minutes. Implicit and explicit.
This is something that is a little subtle, but is interesting and
important when you are designing this kind of software. An explicit
exchange is where the back-and-forth is explicitly built into the
system.
So on Facebook and MySpace, adding a friend is: Please be my friend, if
you say yes, you are both friends. That is an explicit exchange.
Playing chess is a series of explicit exchange. An implicit exchange
is when there is a one-way gesture and you can respond or not. It is
not built into the system that you have to respond.
For instance, a wall post.
other day.
I left a wall post on my friend's wall the
Facebook happens to make it really easing using the wall-to-wall
concept to respond back and forth. My friend doesn't need to respond,
but there is a social pressure to respond. Same with giving a gift.
It turns out that in the Virtual Gifting systems there's a great demand
for the thank-you gift. That's simply: Thank you for giving me a
gift. You gave me a gift, okay, I'm going to thank you.
A lot of companies have added that because players requested it.
an implicit exchange.
It is
E-bay's reputation system. How many of you have ever used e-bay?
Okay. E-bay's reputation system, let me ask you, is the reputation
system implicit exchange or explicit exchange?
>> Question: Explicit.
People ask you to like respond sometimes.
>> Amy Jo Kim: That is right. Exactly right. But you don't have to.
The system doesn't require you to, but the fact that everybody asks you
to and the fact they will leave bad messages for you if you don't is
the power of an implicit exchange. It is probably more powerful than
if they had made it explicit because that was a design decision. They
could have made it explicit, could have required two way, but they
didn't. They just let it be implicit.
So that is just something to ponder as you are designing software is
think about structuring the exchanges in a system and leaving room for
there to be emergent behavior, like there is in the e-bay's reputation
system.
And the fifth one is customization. This is my character in Pet
Society with couple little outfits that I can dress up. Customization
is one of the foundations on which any virtual goods business model is
built, which is to be able to trick out your mount or your character or
your room or your restaurant or your whatever, is to be able to do that
is if you look at people's behavior in playing these games, a huge part
of why people spend money on virtual goods and engage with virtual
goods is customization.
So for character customization, that is an example from Wow, the
different kinds of characters you create. I would argue that anybody's
MySpace page is a form of character customization. And for better and
for worse, MySpace really made it very loose how you could make your
page look. It can be as ugly as you want, basically.
But, to allow your players to customize is something that's very
powerful and again it is one more reason to not leave the game, one
more reason to stick around is the amount of customization that you've
put into it. Another kind of customization that is not as relevant as
the games I'm talking about, but definitely relevant for software in
general is interface customization. You know, having your own
dashboard, having your own e-bay view. This is a mobile phone app that
let's you select the widgets just for you that you want.
So that was a brief overview of pretty basic and fundamental game
mechanics. Let's pull it all together and talk about how game
mechanics are driving virtual economies.
So collecting. I basically covered, which is collect stuff and show
off and get the pleasure of doing that.
So boosting your stats and leveling up through buying stuff. This
loop, buy stuff, boost your stats level up is driving virtually every
successful text RPG on Facebook. And it's also driving other games, as
well.
Feedback on your progress and mastery. We talked about this earlier.
Some of you brought up the point of being able to show simply through
the objects you have how good a player you are, what level you are.
Here is somebody on the mount in Wow, there you go, you know that
person is not new, unless they bought their way into it. That's very
explicit feedback.
It plays out similarly in had Pet cop society with rare items,
etcetera. It's part of what drives the whole economy around virtual
goods, it gives you that feedback that social feedback shows not just
you, but other people, where you are in the game.
This is another example from -- I guess this is also from Sorority
Life. You can -- I brought a Prias because I have one in real life and
there you go. But you know this enables me to do better in the game
and it enables everybody else to see how I'm doing.
Pardon?
>> Question: (Inaudible) Sorority Life.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Next slide.
>> Question: Same company as the other one?
>> Amy Jo Kim: Which other one?
>> Question: The other one ->> Amy Jo Kim: Not only is it the same company, it's the same engine.
Yeah. It's exactly the same. It's simply different skin on the same
engine. Why do you ask, just because it was looking sort of familiar?
>> Question: Yeah, just the mechanics.
>> Amy Jo Kim: The mechanics are identical, absolutely identical.
are actually cranking out more for better and for worse.
They
So I have to say, I have very mixed feelings about these games because
I find them manipulative and not that much fun. But I wanted to show
you guys partly because I figured it would be something a guilty
different and this is what is successful right now. This is really
very popular and a lot of people are playing. A lot of people are
engaged and manipulated by these mechanics. A lot of what is driving
them are the virtual goods loops we are talking about here and these
dangling carrots. You can unlock more glam after level three.
So they also play out in social exchanges. There is a really
interesting dynamic going on in a lot of Facebook games right now.
This is a good example. This is from Farm Town.
They innocently show you a screen that says, send your friend a tree
for their farm. Oh, okay, great, yeah. It's free. It's free, send it
to them. So you say, okay, I'll send it to them. Your friend gets a
thing that says, so-and-so has sent you a gift, send one back. It's
actually, it's kind of weird, but it's a big driver of recruitment in
particular in this case.
So gifting is probably the most important social exchange if you're
looking at social gaming. The ability to give.
This is from Catster, closely related to Dogster. How many of you know
about Catster or Dogster? You can see in the bottom this little gift
box. This particular cat has gone to heaven, you can see from the
wings they have gone to heaven.
And -- but people can actually, they don't give each other gifts. Your
cat gives the other cat a gift. That's how it works. This has been a
big revenue driver for them. People actually do this, a lot of people
do this.
So people that say, virtual goods, I don't get it.
Catster.
Take a look at
>> Question: (Inaudible) what you mean.
>> Amy Jo Kim: What I mean is that people are -- I don't know,
actually, Ted, the C.E.O., won't tell me numbers. But he said it's ->> Question: What's he talking about?
>> Amy Jo Kim: They -- so they introduced virtual gifts and I believe
it's around 20% of the revenues at this point. So I do know
percentages.
So -- and in terms of virtual goods, which is virtual goods are real
pleasure, which is the point I'm trying to get across. You know, this
has been a very popular feature. People are asking for more gifts.
They're asking for it to be expanded. What's going on socially is that
gift giving is really well understood social gesture.
So you know the fact it is picture of a cat and picture of a ribbon
isn't really what is going on. What is going on, there is this pent-up
energy people have to express how they feel in a relationship. And if
you, as a designer or a creator of an environment, can unlock that
pent-up energy, you're going to be -- that's going to be a good thing.
You're going to be successful.
But the important point is it is not that thing there. It is all the
context that is embedded in our brains and what that means. That is
what is going on. These are the enablers of that context in a virtual
environment.
>> Question: (Inaudible) ->> Amy Jo Kim: It's pretty universal, at least from what I've seen.
>> Question: So you mention the gifts and mutual exchanges, but I mean
what (inaudible) flip side to that.
Let's say I don't like someone, all right. How come these games don't
have some mechanism that allows me to say either -- I don't know, the
virtual (inaudible) or something and having -- that would still be an
exchange, but still ->> Amy Jo Kim: Well, there are things like that. I mean, on Facebook
there are all kinds of things like Throw Sheep Throw and lightweight
silly games like that. People basically don't pay attention to the
people they don't like. People pretty much give attention to the
people they want to engage with, as far as I can tell. When they throw
something at each other, they are not throwing it at their enemies,
they are throwing it at their friends.
>> Question: I mean, if you don't like somebody, you are not going to
add them to your friends list, right?
>> Question: Or you can battle them.
(Laughter)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Right.
>> Question: Sort of related to that point, social rating systems where
there is implicit or explicit sort of negative rating and there are
others where it is only positive. Are you seeing a trend in one
direction or the other or are you seeing one being more effective than
the other?
>> Amy Jo Kim: I'm seeing a lot more only positive special rating
systems, actually a big trend. And again, I mean -- I think part of it
is there are so many trolls online and negative people that hide behind
anonymity or persona that I think people are trying to route around
that.
I mean I've had experience with both of those systems and the basically
the positive ones, you know, if you take the positive-negative, right,
this is the mid-point and you shift the whole thing up, if you don't
have a positive rating it is equivalent of a negative rating.
>> Question: It is different than having the scales like five-star or
rating system. If you have two stars out of five, you know that is not
great, right? If you don't have as many points as anybody else, I
don't think it is viewed quite as negative.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Yeah, but I don't quite know why, but I'm definitely
seen a trend toward zero and up rating systems. You know, the pure
positive rating systems. Included in our own experience with our game,
we built a Facebook game called Photo Grab, that's a find the detailed
brain game. We started with a rating system that gave you a rating and
you could go up and down and as you played, if you didn't do well, it
would go down and up. We got this where people are saying I'm not
motivated to play, I don't like this. We revamped the system and made
it all positive and got a lot more good response from people.
So much goes into why people play games. People don't play games to
feel bad about themselves. You know, they play games to lose
themselves for a few minutes and to have an enjoyable experience. I
think that is part of why there's a trend toward the all positive
rating systems.
Did you have something to say?
>> Question: No, I was just going to say e-bay switched ratings to
where buyers have positive and negative to just positive.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Did they?
Another comment?
Probably for a similar reason, I would guess.
>> Question: Yeah, virtual economies are getting much closer to the
real economy than what I'm used to from games five years ago. I
wonder, have any games reached the point where they have got so similar
to the real economy that it turns people off?
>> Amy Jo Kim: That's a great question.
>> Question: Particularly my question is for people that played these
games, when they play it is kind of because they have opted out of
doing stuff in the real world to go into this, I am not sure if it can
turn them off in that sense because it is turning into something they
have rejected already.
>> Amy Jo Kim: That's a good question. I can't think of an example of
that, there may be one that I don't know about and if there is it
probably if it is turning everybody off it is probably not popular
enough to reach, you know -- does anyone have other thoughts on it?
>> Question: (Inaudible) -- such a breadth of (inaudible) that it is
going to be hard to find transition moving from one title to the other
because of like say the economy and it is too real. You can take like
something that is foreign and like try and see who has moved from that
to (inaudible), but slightly less and that is with them, but I don't
think that is on the survey questions. Ultimately it is the individual
(inaudible) statistics and sharing.
>> Amy Jo Kim: A lot of what makes a game fun is that it's kind of
similar to things you are familiar with in the real world, but it is a
micro-world, it is simpler, it takes out the boring stuff, but it is
familiar enough that you like it and I think that is what you are
seeing in these examples. I'm glad it is showing you stuff that you
are not familiar with, that was my intent today was to give you a bit
of a survey of what is going on with today's virtual economy,
especially on today's social networks.
I think that is a danger and I think good game designers are very
careful to make it not too much like the real world, but make it a
simplified, fun version of the real world. So I just have a few more
slides. We have five more minutes and I want to make sure I get them.
So yeah, gifting is something that if you are interested in this stuff,
pay close attention to. It is getting bigger and bigger and showing up
in non-gaming environments. It's -- I could give you guys a whole talk
on that, but we don't have time today. But a couple other things.
One other thing I'm seeing a lot of on Facebook and there is a lot of
copying going on Facebook. One company presents another feature and
everybody else jumps on it. Gifting to recruit new players, but with a
twist.
So there is this game called Dog World and you pick -- the twist there
is the more you play, the more they will give to the SPCA, so you are
saving abandoned dog.
And again, it does this thing where it says give a free gift to your
dog, but your friends are told to give you a gift in return. And in
this case they don't have to pay for it. In this case they can just
pick one to give. But you may have to pay with coins and you have some
and you have to get more.
In Mafia Wars, which is just like Mobsters and Mob Wars, and all the
other ones, same thing, the energy is give a free gift to your friends.
So in this case I apologize if I don't have the details right, I don't
think you have to pay for it, really this is a recruiting tactic, the
idea of giving a gift.
Why this is interesting is that gift-giving again has got in our brains
we've got all this association with gift giving and what it means to
someone. They could say just it is not a gift and present it as here
is a thing. But they present it as a gift, it is just the wording of
it. Here is a gift. And gifting engenders a sense of obligation in
people, it just does. It is part of how it works. You feel obligated
to give a gift back and maybe play the game. It is a trick, part of
the bag of tricks people are using to manipulate people into enjoying
the game and playing.
Once you are in the game, if the game is not fun, you are not going to
keep playing, but it's increasingly popular tactic.
>> Question: Yeah, I remember reading a book about like these
manipulative tactics, like some kind of cult like they would hang out
in airports and give people free flowers and recruit them.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Hare Krishna.
>> Question: Yeah, and the thing is eventually people realize what they
are doing and it really, you know, burned out their audience from the
gifts. It was suspicious and they are offering gifts and these are
like, what do you want in return because I think that is unfortunate
because they are basically hijacking the social protocol for their
purposes.
>> Amy Jo Kim: That is really interesting. I think there is a fair
amount of burnout that goes on here and the reason the games stay
popular is there is a constant stream of new people coming in. So most
of the people playing the games are new.
You know statistically if you look at the charts developers put up at
conferences, the reason it works it works on newbies and then they
quickly get tired of it, but there are new newbies coming. And then
customization, I already talked about how customization drives virtual
goods. This is one of the key drivers.
This is not my house in Pet Society, but someone else's house and every
one of these items were purchased, all this crap. You see these people
and it is kind of weird because it is consumerist. You see the people
who are high-level players in the game, they have blinged out their
character and their apartments are filled with crap and patiently they
enjoy it. Again, it is a metric of how high are you in the game? How
much crap do you have in your apartment?
And whether it s good or bad, it is what is happening. And then that
is my character in Sorority Life and one of her new designer dresses.
>> Question: (Inaudible) -(laughter).
>> Amy Jo Kim: So here is a quickie on executing on a virtual goods
strategy. You have to start with a meaningful context or nothing
happens. And most -- most probably all of these games you prime the
pump by giving somebody free goods and/or currency just to get people
started.
Then you need to create a demand for premium (inaudible) no
differentiator and you have to pump ongoing fresh content at a range of
price points.
And again, I'll make these slides available, so don't worry if you
can't grab all this. You have to make it super easy to purchase
currency or the whole thing falls apart. That is a little bit of a
primer.
So a few closing remarks. Virtual goods absolutely evoke real emotion
in people. This is a person who staged a picnic in Pet Society and I
found out this wasn't the only one. If you go online and search for
Pet Society picnic, a whole bunch of pictures come up. People are
really engaging in these worlds and the virtual goods are what make it
seem good to them, as you can see here.
But that only happen fist there is well understood social context
around the goods. This was a gift that my friend Jeremy sent me for my
birthday and why does this work? Because I understand a birthday gift.
What is weird, I have to say what is weird, it says how much the gift
was. So, you know, maybe that will change. It seems pretty tacky to
me.
What?
>> Question: Take the sticker of.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Exactly. It is like leaving the price tag on. That is
the way gifting works on Facebook, so that's interesting. Pardon?
>> Question: It is done in Asia, it will say how valuable the gift was
that your boyfriend gave you. It leaves the price tag on so then you
know if I give a gift to my girlfriend, she will know how much it is
like no matter what. I can't turn that off.
>> Question: What is weirder in real life in Japan when you go to a
wedding you know the gift in approximate price and who gave it to you,
so when you go to their kid's wedding you return an equivalent amount
of money to that thing.
of it until the next --
(Inaudible) they read all that and keep track
>> Question: The U.S. does that.
>> Question: Everyone does that at some level.
>> Question: Literally they almost return dollar for dollar the same
amount.
>> Amy Jo Kim: Amazing. So another key takeaway here is just a virtual
economy absolutely drives ongoing use.
You know, coins to earn, stuff to spend it on that is relevant in the
context of the game is the basis of pretty much all of today's really
popular games.
And once you have done that your gamesters, so a lot of, you know, here
is a shop that shows you, this just arrived. This is this week's
special. That means ongoing stuff has to be pumped into the economy to
make it keep working. Then you get into all the issues of rare items
and seasonal items and all of that. It's a different breed them,
different kind of experience than a packaged good or a packaged game.
Game mechanics such as the ones I talked about today, plus others, give
you the goals and rewards. They are the next piece of the puzzle in
making all this work together. They provide the rewards that keep you
playing, but they need careful balance to work properly. And that's a
whole talk in and of itself.
This is just an example. Many, many games now give you a bonus for
logging in each day. You get some sort of log-in bonus that again will
be variable. The smart ones do a variable bonus. It is that variable
reinforcement schedule that I showed you earlier in the talk again.
However, that is pumping money into the economy. You will need to have
a sync somewhere else to pull it out. And it is nontrivial to build
that, but what we're find nothing social games is that this is a lot of
what keeps people coming back and a lot of what sort of the next
frontier of gaming is starting to look like.
So thank you for your attention and all your great questions and
feedback and comments. It made it really fun for me. Here is my
contact information if you want to get in touch, feel free, and I hope
this was useful.
(applause)
>> Amy Jo Kim: Okie-dokie.