Workshop:

Game Design for

Social Networks
@ MindTrek, Oct 2nd, 2009

Aki Järvinen, PhD

mygamestudies.com / IT University of Copenhagen
 Aki’s
Background
Resume at Prezi.com
The focus:
50 million
active
monthly
users
 Concept
design
process for
the day
 Idea
production:

Quantity
breeds
quality
From Idea
evaluation

to Concept
design &
iteration
 Design
template to
structure
your concept
design task
 Takeaway:
High level
documen-
tation to
communicate
your idea
 Concept
presentation:
Articulating
your design &
reflecting on
your
decisions
 •  10.00: Introduction to workshop and
participants
Programme •  10.15 Lecture: The Design and
Business of Networked Play
•  11.00 break
•  11.15 Exercise: Brainstorming social
network game mechanics
•  11.45 Exercise debrief & Introduction
to design templates
•  12.00 Lunch Break
 •  12.30 Introduction: Design Drivers & Patterns for
Programme Social Games

•  13.00 Exercise: Social Game Design

•  13.30 Exercise: Designing the Service Aspect

•  14.00 Coffee break

•  14.30 Iterating the Game Concept & Preparing

game concept presentations

•  15.00 Concept presentations & Evaluations

•  15.45 Workshop debrief & closing

 Concept
design
process for
the day
 Let’s get it
done

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhenry/3489717185/
The Design and
Business of
Networked Play
Focus of the
day •  Not: the ‘games people play’
in social networks
•  Yes: Game applications for
social networks
•  In particular: Facebook
Business of
‘social •  Zynga, the market leader in
social game development,
games’ aims at 1 million $ revenue
per day
•  Reportedly they are half way
there
Success •  For a social game, he said
success is driven by by
factors virality, engagement, and
monetization. “Each of these
variables you can effect over
time. None of them are fixed
[variables].”
- PlayFish COO
 Top
Applications
2009-09-30

http://www.appdata.com
 Top Games
Applications
2009-09-30

http://www.appdata.com
 Top Game
Application
Developers
2009-09-30

http://www.appdata.com
 Social
Networks

There are also other

big fish in the sea
 •  A company’s success on
Zynga’s Facebook revolves around
recipe for three factors:
success •  ability to maximize viral
channels (to drive new users),
•  the ability to create an
effective internal engagement
loop within an application, and
•  access to an open
communication channel with
Facebook’s platform people.
Networked Play
Motivations, Qualities, Design
 What is
•  ‘game design’ is ‘the process
of designing the content and
‘Game rules of a game.
Design’, •  also used to describe both the
anyway? game design embodied in an
actual game as well as
documentation that describes
such a design.
•  This is indeed what the
workshop is about, but...
 Social Game
Design goes •  Into the realm of Interaction
beyond game design:
design as we •  ‘Interaction design is the art of
know it facilitating interactions
between humans through
products and services.’ (Dan
Saffer)

•  And, furthermore...
 Social Game
Design goes
•  Into the realm of Service
Design:
beyond game
design as we •  ‘A service is a chain of activities
that form a process and have
know it value for the end user.’
•  service design focuses on
context, i.e. ‘the entire system
of use’.
Motivations •  Social connectedness,
for social •  Psychological well-being,
media use •  Gratification,
(Benkler)
•  Material gain
•  All these can be facilitated
through designing play, and
games
 Four •  Peter Kollock (1999) has
motivations defined four motivations for
contributing in online
for communities:
contributing
in online •  Reciprocity,
communities •  Reputation,
•  Increased sense of efficacy, and
•  Attachment to and need of a
group.
 Designing
opportunities
for players to •  = designing social game
mechanics as means of
express their interaction that allow players
motives to express their motives
 Playful •  Inherent Sociability
qualities of •  Spontaneity
network use
(adapted •  Symbolic Physicality
from Rao) •  Narrativity
•  Asynchronicity
 Inherent
sociability
Spontaneity
 Symbolic
Physicality
Narrativity
Asynch-
ronicity
Social Game
Design
Framework
 Designing
Networked,
Social Play:
Beyond
game design
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
Designing Social
Game Concepts
Getting it done
Exercise #1

Add description of
your game mechanic
here
 Design:
Breakdown
 Identifying
motivations->

designing
mechanics in a
way that allows
them to become
ways for players to
express and enact
their motivations
 http://gamelab.uta.fi/gamespacetool/
VNA gives
you starting
points for
designing
your
mechanics
 Social game
mechanics:

Designing interaction
loops where players
use verbs towards
goals, and the
network responds
Exercise #1

Add description of
your game mechanic
here
 Exercise #2

Designing for the

network, for the
casual mindset, and
how it is virally
engaged into play –
even how do you
copywrite your
notifications might
matter substantially
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 1-click
accessibility
to support Rescue Princess 
spontaneity

Press the bu*on to rescue 
the princess. 

Daniel Cook
http://www.lostgarden.com
 Compressing
complex
sequences of
events into 1
click

Daniel Cook
http://www.lostgarden.com
Social Game
Design
Patterns

Pattern:
Feed
propagation
Social Game
Design
Patterns

Feed
propagation,
case example
from Appealing to players’ empathy
FarmVille
 Feed
propagation
supports
discussion
Social Game
Design
Patterns

Pattern:
Chain letter
quests
 Service /
Propagation
Design
Patterns

Pattern:
Notifications
 Service /
Propagation
Design
Patterns:

Anti-Pattern:
Request
Flood
 LinkedIn:
The Quest
 Design:
Breakdown
Exercise #1 •  Activity is more important
than actual result
debrief
•  We aim at Quality through
quantity
Social Game
Design
Framework
 Exercise #3

Social networks shift

playtesting towards
metric-driven feature
optimization and
constant deployment
loop
 Design:
Breakdown
 Design:
Breakdown
 Day’s
process &
results
Feedback & •  Aki Järvinen, Ph.D.
Contact •  +358 40 504 1367
•  aki@mygamestudies.com
•  Twitter: @aquito
•  www.mygamestudies.com
•  games4networks.posterous.com