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A virtual look at virtual goods and their potential
An existentialist would argue that it's all virtual, regardless of the medium: RL or SL. Given humanity's currently shifting paradigm, digital goods are becoming more relevant- thus Zynga's numbers. You can scrutinize the legitimacy of the numbers all day, the fact is that Zynga is successfully utilizing a newer formula.
There's an obvious division between "traditional" video games and the viral social games. The idea is that the viral model is in its early stages of good gaming- "good" being a subjective term relative to the thinker of the word. It may be safe to say that the current face of the world's most monetary and user base successful game medium is an infant, and that maturity in this medium will mandate creative and emergent gameplay.
The responsibility of a game designer has always been placing logical value on virtualized entities: God says Earth is home, Man turned checker board into a battle-field, and companies like Zynga and other Digital Content Creators tell consumers that their RGB pixels are relevant to their lives and worth money.
As a video-game designer, isn't our job about crafting the consumer's experience of logical relationships between virtual entities?
Apparently, the masses are defined as casual gamers, and apparently casual gamers like to purchase things like "Cute Brown Sheep". I didn't begin my journey as a game designer to create games with this model, frankly, social gaming isn't what I had in mind at all.
I guess if you're in it for the cash, the social gaming way seems good. State Farm Insurance thinks it's a good way to go, they offered to keep my crops safe until the 27th.
At the same time, the social gaming framework may allow for new methods of play that haven't been exploited yet.
Consider:
game hubs hosting access to various unrelated games: Facebook is doing this right now. Could other entities do it better?
role-playing for conflict and story structure: I don't know if there are other successful games doing this. The idea is to create social games which place it's players in opposing roles aiming to create conflict and encourage rl/sl perceptions of trust/priority/loyalty/deceit/etc.
RL stats quantified through site/app survey resulting in in-game characteristics: In real life, my interests are skydiving, painting, and knitting- so game options can be personalized through content access/acquisition. This would help DCC's to create more relevant content, assist in the player's intrinsic interest, create more authentic/original game scenarios.
trans-game stats and goods: entities which can exist in various games that have additive value. Consider universal items like containers, openers, destroyers, fixers, concealers. These type of items could be transferred between games (given that there usefulness economics would need to be normalized) in form or spirit to maintain association, ownership, identification, pride, etc.
virtual good time share: when the owner isn't using it, you can. Encourages experimentation, cross-breading of styles and assets, purchasing, play the plumber for a day
community developed/maintained goods: the community garden which reflects participatory levels. What if Farmville depicted everyone's farm (or a percentage of everyone's farm) is a whole? Do people have a sense of the collective energy that is being put into these games?
Monetizing ideas: registering concepts with games for totem ownership
Blending RL business goods with virtual ones; The RL town business center (comprised of 2 cafe's, a Chinese food restaurant, a grocery store, a sports equipment store, etc) has virtual space which promotes community events, enables online shopping, discounts on it's goods, socializing, getting consumer feedback.
In short, the social/viral game model seems a little cheap to me, but I think it is opening doors to some really exciting ways of designing games that will be mutually beneficial for the economy, the designers and the players.
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