Game Utilities – Introduction – Chapter 1

This is blog post/audio book post…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/game-utilities-chapter-1-podcast.mp3

Or listen to it here…

It’s been a while since the last post. I’ve been busy working on various things.

This book was written a while ago but never got released…until now. It is a long book and I think it’s best to release parts of it.

This book is also an experiment since I may make audio versions to listen to for various parts of the book.

I thought it would be nice to have game design/development books in audio form to listen to when doing other things.

Let’s begin…

Game Utilities – Introduction

Game utilities are play experiences that are a useful and additive part of a person’s normal life/needs/desires. As the world gets more interactive and playful, Game utilities will increasingly play a larger role as the set of redesigned playful activities that people use to satisfy their core needs and desires.

If we look at the current game utility paradigm, let’s treat it like a new computing shift. Let’s compare it to previous shifts like the desktop pc and the web revolution and even the mobile compute shift.

let’s draw parallels from those spaces…

Netscape helped to catalyze the web revolution.
Facebook gave more reasons for the Web 2.0 revolution
Apple also came in and helped to catalyze the mobile revolution.

Each of these revolutions came from “Moore’s catalysts.” In relation to Moore’s Law, these “Moore’s Catalysts” are catalysts or valuables where the costs went down to zero and then people were able to build value on top of it.

For example, with desktop computers, it was computing cost that went to zero. It went from an hourly billing for compute times at computing terminals to something that could be used at anytime for just the cost of electricity.

Each paradigm shift had it’s own new/unique design space. The proper leverage of these new design spaces helped to create the outstanding value within each of these mediums.

For the PC, it was the GUI that was the new/unique design space that unlocked the value. For the Web, it was websites/information. For Web 2.0, it was photos, comments, newsfeed, etc.

Game utilities will need to tap into new design spaces that leverage the new useful/fun elements/concepts/systems that “Moore’s catalysts” have made them zero cost. This may include sensor data, mobile computing, location-context compute and other elements.

The important thing about these utilities is that they become accelerators of new types of value, experiences, and activities. These utilities are games that can accelerate real-life experiences by orchestrating, directing, amplifying, and socializing experiences that are necessary for people to have fun and satisfying lives.

The design space for game utilities uses a few new design dimensions that are different than traditional games. These include user-generated content and advanced game interaction systems built on user-generated content. This content can be manifested in the form of photos, GPS data, or other types of user-data streams. In a way, game utilities are a powerful subcategory of the game genre of user-generated games.

These user-generated games can be perceived as providing an automated service for the game because the game utilities have systems that use user-generated data to provide the gameplay.

Even with the advent of “Games as a service”, the designers would still have to provide the daily content for the game. With the user-generated games, the players are creating the value and content for the game. The role of the game designer is to provide structures and systems to make the user-generated content added to the game more useful, fun, interactive, and playful.

Some people might ask about the difference between user-generated apps and user-generated games. User-generated apps focus more on the user-generated content. User-generated games apply advanced game and interaction systems to the user-generated content to make it more fun and engaging and useful for players and may even allow new types of user-generated content.

For example, in the Fun Friends game – a game utility that revolves around dating – the game leverages user-generated content in the form of photos.

In the Fun Friends game, players buy and sell each other in the game. When a player buys someone, that other person becomes a “pet.” The owner can then do various activities to the pet. Additionally, each player has a set of “fun pics” that can only be viewed by the person that buys them. The owner can add comments to these photos amongst other things.

The fact that these photos are hidden and only available to the owner that buys the other player as a pet is a reflection of how a designer would design mechanics to revolve around user-generated content. The mechanics and designs for user-generated content really revolve around making the content more valuable and compelling to the other players in the game. This means, providing new content structures and systems to do this.

In the case of these “fun pics” that are secret, it adds value to a player in the game. If a person is browsing people’s photos to see who to buy and notices that someone has 20 “fun pics” that can be seen if the person buys them, it adds more fun, value, and interactions to the game and adds to the gameplay. The player unlocks more fun for themselves by getting to see these fun pics.

The game also has a shared virtual economy that is overlaid on top of the user-generated photos to help make the browsing of content more fun and engaging. The virtual economy helps to also filter out the relevant and most valuable user-generated content.

The way the virtual economy in the game works is that as people buy other players in the game, it raises up the price of the person that got bought in the game. So then another person has to come in and buy that person off the owner for a higher price. When they buy that person from the owners, the owner earns a profit in the game. So there is a tycoon aspect to the Fun Friends game utility.

It is like a bid/auction system.

Contrast this with traditional utility design where the designer would find a way to make the photos easier to see or more accessible to people. The game utility designer, however, has to make the user-generated content feel like a reward or part of the fun flow of the game.

User-generated photos are a main driver of the Fun Friends game. The game takes these photos and uses them to power advanced game and interactions systems within the game that are fun.

We call these advanced game and interaction systems “Fun Generators.” Much like the electricity generators generated electrical power for people to use, Fun Generators are advanced systems that provide fun for players within the game. We will discuss these fun generators in more detail later on in the book.

It should also be noted that the virtual economy of Fun Friends, while making monetization much more easy given the current level of game monetization understanding, is one of the more primitive and not-so-great types of “Fun Generators” mainly because it involves zero-sum mechanics where you bid agains other people to buy a pet.

The other design dimension used in the Fun Friends game is the concept of utility. While other games focus on providing entertainment, these game utilities are meant to be both playful and purposeful. A game utility amplifies the emotions and motivations for utilitarian activities people engage in including shopping, daily routines, collaboration, and social interactions.

Additionally, game utilities are different than traditional games because game utilities are meant to amplify/accelerate/funify real-life whereas traditional games focus on being a diversion from real-life.

A game utility designer is working on designing data systems that can provide emotions and utility on a consistent basis to the player. Unlike other art mediums such as stories and cartooning, these utilities are services and the proper designs offer fun systems that have variation within a system/structure/context.

The data stream flowing into the fun generators should allow for varied repetition and advanced fun. We will discuss these data streams in a later chapter.

The variation of data/user-generated content can give a sense of newness to the player even though the actual fun generator systems overlaid on top of the data are fixed.

For example, we could consider Digg or Reddit their own game utilities. Their point system for news could be considered a fun generator. The Digg/Reddit fun generator offers a system that allows for players to constantly peruse the latest news. With their news rank point system, the data variation of the news content and user comments help to inspire people to keep using the system.

This goes to show that finding the unique fun generator overlaid on top of the data can keep people engaged with the service even though the actual fun system does not change much. The content underneath the system varies enough to keep people engaged.

Unlike traditional games, these game systems need to offer fun in a way that works with the user-generated content or data. The game designer cannot be necessarily focused on the content, but the systems that make the content engaging, fun, and addictive.

With Fun Friends, the social favor generator is a system where players can post little jobs, gigs, or favor requests for other players to do. It is constantly updated. Players can check the favor stream to find other players that want to interact and play.

Ultimately, effective game utilities will give players strong, compelling emotions that avoid boredom while also giving them utilitarian value. This utilitarian value can be social interaction, news, information, learning, understanding, and other core desires and needs found within the human psyche.

Good game utilities have powerful core data loops that can create fun and useful interactions. One example of this would be the Digg/Reddit news system. Bad game utilities can lead to boredom, unclarity, and lack of emotions.

Game utility designers are working on building addictive and fun games that satisfy/amplify/accelerates a person’s real-world desires and needs.

Unlike traditional games, that are meant to be diversions from real-life. These game utilities amplify/accelerate/funify immersion in real-life.

A properly designed game utility can be a new form of distribution. The game utility is so fun and compelling that it is the preferred and new way of doing things.

In the next chapter, we will look at the different types of data streams that can be used for game utilities.