Saving the World Through Game Design

I was inspired by Jane McGonigal's New Yorker talk on Saving the World Through Game Design. Like Shufflebrain, Jane is designing and championing games that embrace the real world. I particularly like her thinking about the "economy of engagement":

• satisfying work to do
• the experience of being good at something
• time spent with people we like
• the chance to be part of something bigger

These ideas capture the mechanisms that keep people involved in MMOs -- and in a good work situation as well. It's no wonder so many people are intrigued with the idea of applying an MMO framework to getting work done.

However, MMOs and jobs -- and Jane's ARG games -- are time-intensive experiences. I'm VERY interested in how these ideas apply to lightweight social games that are quick to play and accessible to people with limited free time -- AKA a busy working Mom, like me. Or like the millions of casual game players who can take a few minutes a day to play a fun game.

Any thoughts about this? Do you know of any lightweight casual games that offer a satisfying "economy of engagment" without the overhead and grind of an MMO?

 

Comments

[Lilo]

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[Lyle]

Games can save the world! Seriously I think there is some truth to this. Most people enjoy games, there is definitely a case to be made for applying this for the greater good.

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They also improved upon the otherwise mundane task of flying from Point A to Point B, by making the task stimulating.

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[Nollind Whachell]

Amy, is it really a time-intensive issue or more of social / time coordination issue? Let me try to explain what I mean. In many MMOs like WoW, busy individuals still have fun by playing the game maybe a half hour or an hour at a time and leveling up their character slowly. Thus they have the opportunity to interact within the game environment at their own pace and still have fun.

Where the greater issue lies is in the ability for a bunch of busy friends to interact together socially. Most MMOs make this difficult due to social barriers like levels. In effect, if one friend has a bit more time and out levels their other friends, interaction between them, even when they do get together online at the same time becomes difficult. Buddy systems in MMOs that normalize levels, so that friends can still play together are helping to change this but it needs to go farther in my opinion. For example, I feel that reputation or faction systems within games today are extremely underutilized. Basically they have the potential to truly make large groups of people feel like they are contributing on a greater goal, yet doing so at the individual's pace and time. In effect, reputation and faction systems should "feel" more like Kiva.org or even more like Warcraft II, the RTS game, where individuals work to improve the community first and those improvements empower the individual in turn (i.e. peon improves the community and in turn he gets new abilities to build more things). Most MMOs work the opposite way though. The focus is primarily on empowering the individual and the community sees little or no improvements.

BTW your mention of the "grind" in MMOs is another issue for engagement as well. It would be amazing if games were built to utilize the existing traits, abilities, and behaviours of individuals already. No I don't mean using skills like web design or pipefitting but more the intangible knowledge that relates to these tangible skills. For example, if you look at the Myers Briggs personality types, each person is suited or attuned to certain types of activies. Some people are better as social leaders, while others are better suited behind the scenes as tinkers (fixing and maintaining things). What if games created "classes" that mirrored these personality types so that people could naturally utilize their own existing general knowledge and skills within the game. Joi Ito's mention of a head nurse being the perfect raid leader in WoW is a good example of this because she has the ability to handle and manage many things in very stressful situations, yet keep everyone calm and focused at the same time. BTW some Myers Briggs sites already have given names to these four general categories (i.e. Guardian, Idealist, Artisan, Rationalist), eight subcategories (i.e. Advocate, Mentor, etc), and sixteen specific categories (i.e. Healer, Champion, Mastermind, Field Marshal, etc).