Josh Lee, Sifteo

Problem Statement

This paper is not about how to make games more fun.

There are a lot of games out there.  Each day they come, and each week, they go.

As an industry, our success in creating meaningful, long-term experiences is tied to our ability to keep players coming back to our games - but how fun or not fun these games are in short term bursts of play does not always correlate to how well they will succeed in holding the game-playing audience’s attention over the long term.

Many games that manage to hold a seemingly iron-clad grip on the long term retention of players do so by showcasing a variety of meta-structural mechanisms that drive re-engagement, revisiting, and replay. At their best, these mechanisms are organically “bolted in” to the core of the game’s play experience and narrative context, they are soldered into the core game loop or circuit and enhance play experience as the player advances.  More often, these mechanisms are secondary to the core of the game’s story, play mechanics and goals. They are instead “bolted on” and sit atop of the game adding a layer of artificiality and inauthenticity.

This team set out to explore this topic with an eye toward offering game makers new possibilities in meta-structural mechanisms which might change the current landscape and help us migrate toward more authentically integrated long term play experiences.

Caveats

1. The black box: Many games are fun with no metastructural component. Evergreen games like Solitaire or Dominoes do not showcase much metastructure. But neither do they thrive on x-box or facebook. Even games like Chess and Bingo often work best within the metastructural armature of tournaments.  But for the purposes of this paper, we do not care about how fun or addictive the core game mechanic is - rather we are focused here on the meta game mechanisms that support long term reengagement.
2. Disruptors.  For this exercise we focused our efforts around the current slate of anticipated changes in the games and media ecosystem. In particular we tried to tether our efforts to current and upcoming “game changers” that might shape the landscape in the next few years and consequently, force new ideas and new definitions for the parameters of these for long term engagement mechanisms.

Methodology

1. Define problem (Kenny, Troy)
1. definitions (e.g., black box, bolted in/on)
2. Survey of Current Mechanisms (Naomi, Coray)
1. Taxonomy in video games (suits & ranks)
2. Other media types (TV) and industries (airline FF-programs) (Josh)
3. Toolkit for Innovation (Josh)
1. Incremental improvements (e.g., make Daily Bonus better)
2. Mash-up
4. Disruptors (John)
1. List them
2. Discuss how they will diminish, change, enhance or make room for new things
5. Toolkit Examples
1. Use the toolkit to create Mechanism mash-ups with Disruptors to improve long-term engagement
6. Conclusion (Troy, Kenny)

To clarify, here is what we’re not doing (black box caveat)

Survey of Current Mechanisms

Taxonomy of Current Mechanisms in Games

We engaged in an exercise in which we developed a taxonomy of mechanisms that games use to engage with players over a long period of time.

COLLECTIBLES

Dollhousing - Giving players the ability to position their collectible items in a virtual space provides additional reasons to acquire collectibles, and a visual display of what you've collected.

Completionism - "Gotta catch 'em all!" Collections shown to be of a finite size provide an implicit goal of completing the entire collection.

Checklists - A collection of finite size made visible can be represented as a checklist, making more explicit the drive to collect every single one and complete the checklist.

Character Squads - A set of game characters that the player can choose from to assemble a squad can function much like a collection: gather more of the available characters, and you have more choices for squad composition. (For example, Pokemon.)

Limited Time Availability - Limited - time collectibles create an extremely compelling sense of urgency that's been effectively leveraged by many "collectible" products outside the game industry: act now, or your collection will never include this particular collectible item!

Scarcity - Releasing only a small number of particular collectible items can drive strong demand as players who want to increase the size of their collection, or maintain a complete collection, must act quickly to acquire one of the limited quantity of the item.

Collectibles - Sets of similar items which can be collected. Often small, cute, and visually or functionally slightly distinct from one another, playing on the human instinct to "gather a variety of objects."

Collection Sets - A smaller quantity of collectibles (2 - 10 collectibles in a set) that provides some kind of mechanical bonus ("set bonus" on RPG armor) or economic reward for completion or "turning in a set."

Decorating - Decoration activity often overlaps with collectible content as players strive to maximize their palette of expressive decorating opportunity.

Badges/Trophies/Achievements - Badges function as a finite set of collectible items which can be completed, especially when they have an iconic representation (making them into "objects" rather than a set of tasks) and are displayed in a way which makes it clear which badges have not yet been acquired.

Unlocked Collectibles - Progressing to a new section of a game can also unlock the ability to finish more or all of a collection, creating a strong incentive to progress and continue playing for players who are motivated to collect.

Breeding (chance and player deterministic) - Breeding mechanics allow the player to "combine" two existing game objects, creating a third object that shares properties of either or both of the parents, and can  serve as a meaningful way to "create" collectible items rather than "finding" them.

Crafting (chance and player deterministic) - Crafting mechanics allow the player to execute a "recipe" using acquired objects and gameplay processes to create a new item, and can serve as a meaningful way to "create" collectible items rather than "finding" them.

CONTENT

Dollhousing - A special category of decorative free - play that involves positioning game objects (functional or non - functional) in a virtual space.

Randomness and Variance - Gameplay content changes across multiple sessions of play or levels through a semi - random procedural process, such as shuffling a card deck. The changes can be minor (positions of things on a map change) or larger (the entire map is generated on a random seed).

New Content - Delivering new content (levels, challenges, enemies) to players extends engagement using existing mechanics.

Challenge of the Day - With robust and developer - tunable mechanics in the core game, different challenges can be offered to players on a regular basis, either with or without new content. (Example: complete a particular race track with a particular car, while performing five drifts, in under a certain time limit.)

Squads - Coordinating teams of other players to collaborate on tackling a content - driven problem (like a "raid") can extend content playtime significantly by requiring players to optimize collaboration.

Unlocking Character - Introducing new playable characters not only extends narrative possibilities but also lets players see the game world from a different point of view, or with a variation / extension of existing mechanics.

New Items - "Items" are objects in your game which use can vary in terms of appearance or statistics, for instance a sword that's faster but less damaging, vs. an axe which is slower and more damaging, and a better sword which supercedes the first sword's stats. Your game may have many classes of items to extend.

New Abilities - "Abilities" (aka tools, skills, etc) are components of a game which extend the player's capabilities to interact with the game world or other players, introduce new game mechanics, or provide another axis of meaningful customization, progression, or play.

Level Unlocks - Levels can become more meaningful as a marker of player progression if reaching a new level allows access to new content, such as new abilities, levels, characters, etc.
Limited Time Availability - Making any kind of content available for a limited time creates a feeling of urgency and potentially missed opportunities for players, as well as a sense of a unique moment in a game's history.

Scarcity - A limited quantity of some kind of game object or content can artificially create high value, stimulate inter - player trading and hoarding behavior, and create a feeling of urgency and potentially missed opportunities. Many "interesting" economies rely in part on scarcity.

Combinatorial Choice Expansion - New abilities, features or items can interact in ways that produce emergent results, allowing for an exponential number of possible player strategies and choices.

Decorating - Items that the player acquires through gameplay can be used as elements in aesthetically - driven decoration of a space, object, or avatar. May or may not be viewable by other players (but it's more engaging if it is!) Decorating is intrinsically an activity that can be revisited and revised for many players, and can be refreshed with new content.

Maps - Positioning available content (levels, zones, challenges, or even just characters to encounter) on a map can provide players with a feeling of expansiveness, of a virtual world, provide a backdrop for story, and provide a linear OR non - linear structure for player progression. Maps can also reveal content gradually.

Content Unlocks - Providing a limited amount of content at the beginning of a game experience, then unlocking additional content over time. This technique can create a gradual ramp of complexity for a new player, prolong engagement by providing new content as the player progresses, and provide rewards for advancement.

Always New Always Familiar - Varying content that stays true to a game's central motifs, aesthetics, and "brand" can promote re - engagement by providing a reliable service: play this game again and you know what you're getting, a reliable set of emotional and entertaining experiences.

Breeding - Breeding mechanics allow the player to "combine" two existing game objects, creating a third object that shares properties of either or both of the parents, but may also show entirely new or different properties (such as a "mutant" color) using a partly random algorithm to determine the child's properties. Complex breeding systems can provide the player with a feeling that they're creating a unique new being of their own "design."

Crafting - Crafting mechanics allow the player to execute a "recipe" using acquired objects and gameplay processes to create a new item. The results may be deterministic in simpler crafting systems and random or dependent on multiple factors (skill of execution, time of day, properties of ingredients) for more complex crafting systems.

Conditional Challenge - Additional challenges can be created for existing content and game mechanics by giving the player specific tasks or hurdles to achieve. For example, fight a dozen enemies while wearing no armor without getting hit, or use a particular car to race on a certain race track.

Changing Global State - Allowing players to change the shared (multiplayer / all players) state of a game world or game rules, either democratically (each player has one vote) or through completing mass - effort game goals (e.g. "Opening the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, WoW) or through some other process. Creates a feeling of investment and participation in the overall game state.

CHALLENGE

Team Organizing - Coordinating the skills, abilities, and tactics of a team of players can bring a new, more complex level of engagement and sociality to any competitive or collaborative challenge.

Glory & Showmanship - An activity which involves a display of prowess, skill, or dominance can engage players, opponents, and an audience to a more intense degree.

Performance - Gameplay which allow players to express a distinctive style, or which have other elements of performance (such as rhythm action games) can provide a forum for personal expression which, in front of an audience, can create a crowd - pleasing experience that also provides the performer the thrill of live audience feedback and attention.

Challenge of the Day - With robust and developer - tunable mechanics in the core game, distinct and novel tasks can be offered to players on a regular basis, refreshing the challenging feel of the game with a new hurdle to pass.

Throwdown - Allowing players to challenge each other to duels, "beat my score" challenges, or other player - vs - player confrontations can help fuel emotional and social connection to a game.

Leaderboard - Showing players their standing or progress in a game relative to other players (whether a list of friends, local, or global players, time - sliced or all - time) can fuel a player's desire to achieve or progress, and provide a feeling of "playing together" with others who are striving for the same goals.

Conditional Challenge - Additional challenges can be created for existing content and game mechanics by giving the player specific tasks or hurdles to achieve. For example, fight a dozen enemies while wearing no armor without getting hit, or use a particular car to race on a certain race track.

Tournaments - An organized structure for teams or individual players to compete with each other for accolades and/or prizes can create a strong competitive and spectator culture around a game.

Revenge (counter challenges) - "Getting back at" an opponent who bested you, whether a friend or a stranger, can give the defeated player a strong reason to jump back into a game and turn the tables. This can be further incentivized through "revenge bonuses" as a reward for victory or to help make victory more likely.

SOCIAL

Team Organizing - Coordinating a team of players to accomplish a goal, whether it's beating another team or overcoming content challenges which can't be overcome alone, skyrockets social gameplay to a new level of intense communication and joint strategizing, often requiring leadership and commitment as well.

Glory & Showmanship - An activity which involves a display of prowess, skill, or dominance can engage players, opponents, and an audience to a more intense degree.

Performance - Gameplay which allow players to express a distinctive style, or which have other elements of performance (such as rhythm action games) can provide a forum for personal expression which, in front of an audience, can create a crowd - pleasing experience that also provides the performer the thrill of live audience feedback and attention.

Completionism - Reaching "100% completion" of a set of tasks, a set of collectibles, or an entire game can be a strong mark of accomplishment in a social space.

Guilds and Clans - Social formations which give players a persistent "team identity" over many play sessions and a (theoretically) higher - reliability source of collaborators, assists, and information.

Leaderboard - Showing players their standing or progress in a game relative to other players (whether a list of friends, local, or global players, time - sliced or all - time) can fuel a player's desire to achieve or progress, and provide a feeling of "playing together" with others who are striving for the same goals.

Social Pressure - Forms of pressure employed to drive re - engagement with games include, but aren't limited to: asking friends or acquaintances to play a game with you, requesting their help to complete a game task, or providing assistance in a way that implies expected reciprocity.

Social Entanglement - A player who has started collaborating or competing with friends or other players may feel a sense of expectation from other participants to "finish what they started" or play another round to extend or repeat a fun experience for all participants.

Barn Raising - A game task which requires the participation of multiple players to complete, and which usually requires one player (often the recipient of the finished reward) to rally the other participants. May or may not require much time commitment or skill from the participants. (A single click may suffice.)

Staffing - A game task which requires a player to "recruit" other players or friends to "play roles" in their game, for instance as employees of the first player. Staffing

Collaborative Storytelling

Make New Friends

Showing off created objects

Keeping up with the Jones’s

Communicating Challenge

Recognition by peers  -  global and local

Tournaments

Changing Global State

Revenge (counter challenges)

ACHIEVING

Glory & Showmanship - Displaying or summarizing progress or accomplishment via a celebratory medium allowing for player self - expression.

Performance - Providing a forum for players to show off their achievements and an audience by creating mechanics and structures for players to watch other player performances.

Completionism - Aspirational goals communicated to the player and rewards for completing those goals. Key is for players to always see that there is more to accomplish.

Checklists - Specific binary actions for the player to complete.

Guilds and Clans - Social structures that create meaningful relationships between players and provide opportunities for players to collaborate in - game.

Personal Achievement - Structures, mechanics or content that allows the player to create intrinsic aspirational goals that they can achieve on their own time.

Multisession Goal - Goals that can only be achieved over numerous play sessions, due to time, content or other requirements.

Badges/Trophies/Achievements - Visual indicators of notable player achievements. Can be permanently visible to the player to provide aspirational goals, or be obscured from the player to provide surprise moments of positive feedback.

Skill Improvements - Improving the player's skill, proficiency and eventual mastery of the game (as opposed to the player's character's skill progression).

Tuning/Optimization - The ability of the player to tune, tweak and optimize their character, vehicle, weapon or other in - game content to perform exactly to their specifications. Often derived from acquired content and gated by player progression.

REWARDS

Professionalization - The ability for players to make a career out of playing the game.

Fear of Loss - The fear of one's valued in - games possessions, progress or content being lost, ruined or stolen. Creates a powerful attachment to the game that runs the danger of creating player resentment and community backlash.

Appointment Gaming - Events that reward the player with content, currency or other rewards for playing at a specific time. Creates strong play habits that keeps players coming back to the game.

Shopping - Economies of scarcity, where rare, powerful items can be found at different times, locations or shopping paradigms, prompting users to keep coming back to the game to find a rare item, great value or specific piece of content.

Daily Rewards - Rewards given to the player for starting the application at least once per day. Currency, item or other content rewards often increase over the course of the week.

Profit Potential - Players can earn money or possibly make a living off of playing the game.

Jackpots/Gambling - Players have a chance to earn vastly more than the average payout for a given incentivized activity. Creates a sense of fun, suspense and tension around the moment of the reward reveal.

Incentivized Reactivation - Rewards players for coming back to the game (or bringing another player back to the game) after a period of inactivity.

Narrative

Character Growth in Story - Changes in a character's outlook, behavior or mannerisms that suggest an uncertain but interesting journey that the player will find ultimately rewarding.

Mystery Reveals - Chapters, episodes, questions, reveals, characters, information or clues that drive the plot forward, opening up new possibilities for narrative growth within characters or plot expansion, ultimately moving the story forward.

Collaborative Storytelling - Features or content that allows players to collaboratively create narrative structures, affect the core plot, or further explore the game world.

Story Branches - Unique plots, events or other linear narrative content that can be unlocked or accessed by player actions.

Procedural Engine - A living game ecology, economy and/or world that adapts to the actions of the player, encouraging the player to experiment, explore

Multiple Endings

Player Progression

Glory & Showmanship

Completionism

Checklists

Barometer of Progress

Levels/Player

Maps

Visual DIsplay of Mastery

Global Progression Across Multiple Levels

Stars and Rating (Player performance)

Morality Compass

Disruptors

Mobile devices

Always on mobile devices

Location savvy mobile devices

Mobile Device App Store (Apple, Google, Amazon)

Wireless transactions (near - field) / ubiquitous micro - X’s

Social Graph (Facebook)

Customer Relationship / E - Commerce (Amazon)

Streaming (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube)

Smart TV

TVs will soon have App Store (s) (Google, Apple, ???)

“Moore’s Law of the living room”  -  increasing power of computation, connectivity, storage, display in your
living room 

The Cloud (Amazon EC2, Google Docs, Apple iCloud)

Voice Recognition (Apple Siri)

Gesture Recognition (Microsoft Kinect)

Face - recognition

Home / Lifestyle of the future?  - Coming soon...

Mobile device as a hub for your life (iOS, Android)

“Internet of things” with constant connectivity / communication

Privacy backlash?

Embedded computing systems in humans?

Examples of Mechanisms from Other Media & Industries

Games are hardly the only industry to think about long-term engagement with customers. Other media and industries have been engaging with customers for years, and CRM outside of games is a rich field. These are only a few of the means by which companies engage with their customers over extended periods of time:

• Frequent flyer points
• McDonald's Monopoly
• Sandwich cards
• Trading cards
• Brand licensing and merchandising
• Disney pins
• Buybacks (at a bar)
• Quarters down on a pool table or arcade machine
• Opening a tab
• Amazon Prime (discount programs)
• MS Points (remainders)
• Finales and premieres, cliffhangers
• Travel - passport stamps
• DeviantArt - competitions, ratings
• College - stacked achievement system
• Boy Scout badges
• Sports - leagues, tournaments
• Rereleases, remasters, remixes
• Commentary tracks

A Toolkit for Innovation (Josh)

As a byproduct of defining the problem and surveying the current state of the art, the group developed a list of nearly one hundred mechanisms that are used to encourage players to remain engaged with a game over time. Our next step was to turn this taxonomy of existing mechanisms into a conceptual framework that could be used to generate new mechanisms.

To sort the large pool of mechanisms, we filed them under a set of broad categories:

• Collectibles: Players engage with a game by acquiring objects that may or may not have value within core gameplay.
• Content: A game remains fresh in players' eyes via more and varied gameplay content.
• Challenge: Players engage with a game over time to overcome difficult challenges. Challenges may be intrinsic to the gameplay or imposed from an external source.
• Social: Players engage with other players in or over a game.
• Achieving: Players engage with a game over time to achieve a specific goal. The process of building towards achievement is (ideally) as engaging and satisfying as the moment of achievement.
• Rewards: A game offers rewards to players for engaging with it, or threatens penalties for failing to do so.
• Narrative: Players engage with stories in or around a game.
• Player Progression: Over time, player characters exhibit growth along various axes.

A number of mechanisms fall into multiple categories. For instance, badges are a marker of achievement, but are also collectible items in their own right. A mechanism that falls under multiple categories will have different utility depending on the lens it is viewed through, so there is no need to restrict the categorization.

We used the categorized list to do some brainstorming around ways to improve engagement mechanisms or to come up with new ones. Thinking of incremental improvements to existing mechanisms (e.g., better integration of point rewards with core gameplay) felt useful but not very innovative. Taking pairs of mechanisms from multiple categories and creating mash-ups (e.g., time restriction + player leveling) was more fruitful.

After brainstorming around single incremental and mash-ups, we printed the full set of mechanisms onto a stack of cards in order to create a deck of cards that could be played with. Turning the long list into a compact deck, we were able to play with the mechanisms in various ways, splitting and combining them to create even more mash-ups than could be imagined while staring at sheets of paper on the wall.

Our most successful ideation came about by picking three random cards from the deck and quickly imagining what situations they could be applied to and how. Rapidly creating these three-way mash-ups quickly led to more innovative ideas, excited discussion, and general rejoicing. (More on these ideas below.)

It is important to note that the deck of cards is not an exhaustive, be-all-end-all set of mechanisms for engaging players. The deck is a framework that helps designers to imagine metagame structures that can be organically integrated (“bolted in”) with games. Designers are encouraged to add cards to the deck in whatever way that applies to their own work.

Enter the Disruptors (John)

While there are plenty of opportunities to improve upon long-term engagement structures in today’s games, “today” is not static. Our industry is disrupting itself and being disrupted at a quickening pace by new services, devices, payment models, etc. - inviting an ever-increasing barrage of media impressions vying for consumer attention.

Today you get away with primitive mechanisms to retain your customers. But standing still isn’t an option; it means losing ground. Techniques that work today will become irrelevant, especially the less authentic mechanisms used to lure customers back.  At the same time, ideas that were ahead of their time a few years ago are becoming relevant. Just as they will diminish, they will also change, enhance and make room for new approaches.

The Disruptors

The following are “disruptors” because they have achieved a critical mass in shifting some paradigm relevant to gaming or more broadly media consumption. We expanded our toolkit to include special “Disruptor Cards” to allow designers to inject disruption into the creative process.

• Mobile devices
  • Always on
  • Location savvy
  • App Store (Apple, Google, Amazon)
  • Wireless transactions (near-field) / ubiquitous micro-X’s
• Social Graph (Facebook)
• Customer Relationship / E-Commerce (Amazon)
• Streaming (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube)
• Smart TV
  • TVs will soon have App Store (s) (Google, Apple, ???)
  • “Moore’s Law of the living room” - increasing power of computation, connectivity, storage, display in your living room
• The Cloud (Amazon EC2, Google Docs, Apple iCloud)
• Voice Recognition (Apple Siri)
• Gesture Recognition (Microsoft Kinect)
• Face-recognition
• Home / Lifestyle of the future?
  • Mobile device as a hub for your life (iOS, Android)
  • “Internet of things” with constant connectivity / communication
  • Privacy backlash?
  • Embedded computing systems in humans

The Challenge

A short, short time from now in a galaxy not far away...

You rub the sleep out of your eyes as you pour cereal from the box, when your TV suddenly announces: “Congratulations! This is your tenth bowl of Tastey Crunchies this month! You leveled up in cereal consumption and win the “Crunch-crunch-munch-munch doohickey” badge!”

The world will over-gamify itself. it is our fault for showing them how to do it. If you think there is a lot of crazy gamification today (in/around/out of games), then wait until everything is connected. All media - not just games - will be competing for your attention at a more frenzied pace. Many of today’s successful gimmicks will fail in this environment. The body will reject the intrusion.

How can we better engage users in such a media-saturated near future?

An Approach

We must create more AUTHENTIC long-term engagement around our IPs so customers will seek us out through the noise, so they will bring their friends, return frequently and monetize - all of the things we strive to deliver today.

Strive for bolted “in”, not bolted “on”. Connect INTO the black box, touching the same mechanisms used for engagement for RE-engagement:

1. Narrative context
2. Gameplay loop
3. Real social engagement

For example, today’s Facebook game “social engagement” takes little or no more than a warm body pressing a key. A more authentic social engagement might depends on the target person’s skills, knowledge, inventory, character class, decisions they have made, achievements they have reached, (scarce) relationships, …

Taking this further, how can disparate media types be conceived and developed more intimately together such that IPs more cleverly cut through the clutter by leveraging the best of their separate worlds?

Games and Hollywood have been trying to work together in various innovative fashions for decades, generally with disappointing results. The main forms of successful partnership remain creating movies then licensing the IPs for games after-the-fact, and to a lesser extent creating a game IP first and then licensing for a movie. But Hollywood is also being disrupted, and also needs to find new ways to cut through the clutter, monetize, retain, remain relevant, and innovate in order to continue to prosper. It is not crazy to start thinking about co-creation and co-management of IP across multiple platforms and media types, such as a game and television series that wrap around one another like two strands of DNA.

Some mechanisms of engagement are more durable than others in a highly saturated media notification environment. Game Developers have a unique range of experiences that should give them an edge. There will be a disproportionate reward for brands who can acquire critical mass among the chaos.

Toolkit Exercise: Output

Time to eat our own dog food!  We each selected three random Mechanisms and optionally a few Disruptors, then spent 5-10 minutes of quiet time heads-down on the keyboard. Our goal was to design new composite Mechanisms to drive long-term engagement in game IPs launched into a technology-disrupted, media-saturated near future.

Concept #1: Future Pets

Mechanism Cards:
Changing Global State (Content)
Limited Time Availability (Collectibles)
Revenge (Social)

In the home of the future, every family member has a stable of virtual pets available on any or all screens. Pets’ health, happiness, and accessibility are directly tied to the environment in the home through automation and telemetry (thermostat, lights, clocks). For example, certain pets only come out between 7PM and 11PM if the room temp is 72º or higher.

Now, family members can grief each other by programming the thermostat so that the temperature goes down at the time when another family member wants to play their pet, or set up conditions so that they can “steal” pets from each other.

Concept #2: Gamified TV / TV-ified Game

Mechanism Cards:
Character Growth in Story (Narrative)
Conditional Challenge (Social) – Social Conditional Challenge
Barometer of Progress (Player Progression)

Disruptor Cards:
Sensor-driven, voice-recognizing smart TV, mobile phone, PC

Media mashup:
A weekly 1-hr Sci-Fi drama meets tactical / RPG shooter game

I wake up, walk out of my bedroom heading towards the kitchen to receive coffee, which was brewed upon noticing I woke up. TV notices me passing says, “John, would you like to review something while you’re getting started on your day? How about the latest news and activity in your Media Worlds”

JW: Sure, TV, hit me hard while I caffeinate.

TV: Well, The big news is that your BugWorld clan has almost recruited the necessary strike team members to hit that outpost. Scouts report that it is perched atop a 25-degree slope, well shielded from cliffs on three sides. The one viable approach without heavy air support is… You need one more team member who can provide cover fire with long-range weapons. I suggest Billy, as he has…

TV: Intelligence suggests the Bugs are alert to our presence and the window for this attack will close in 24 hours. As we discussed, you are close to reaching that promotion to Captain-Major, which will allow you to equip with more radical comm devices and lead larger strikes. Now is the time to step up and nail it. Get that last team slot filled and hit it. Would you like me to ping Billy to see if he is willing to join your unit for the strike?

JW: Sure. I know he’s busy and low on ammo, but he wants an <item> so tell him I’ll craft it on the train if he’ll step up.

TV: Oh, and the next Homeworld Briefing will be available at 23:00. Shall I queue it up for you to review tomorrow?

JW (on train): uses mobile phone to craft <item>

[team gathers for successful strike, or maybe it was asynch play…]

The next day is Saturday, John wakes up a little later

TV: “John, Homeworld report, urgent status. Would you like to review?

JW: “Hang on, gotta grab caffeine.  OK, hit me.”

1-hr episode plays, introducing new plot twists: new Bug outpost discovered on planet near strategic resource deposit Homeworld intended to take that is necessary for some strategic reason, traitor defected to Renegade Faction and crippled supply line, series of new quests, not necessarily linear, unlocked to establish a base on this planet from which to dislodge Bugs, limited supplies available, urgency because NEXT weeks (real time, or 7 x 24 hours later if show in syndication), the invasion occurs on this base.

Concept #3: THE FLOWERS OF OLYMPUS

Cards drawn:
·      DOLLHOUSING
·      SHOWING OFF CREATED OBJECTS
·      VISUAL DISPLAY of gameplay MASTERY

Disruptor: Tie to a television brand.

This idea integrates a visual display of gameplay mastery with dollhousing and showing off created objects. (I went with the Greek gods, but this could work with the characters in Lost, The Simpsons or The Justice League…)

Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Hephaestus, Artemis; the legendary gods of Olympus have faded – defeated by Medusa, all that is left atop the fabled mount is a garden of frozen statuary and stone ruins and a watery pool of floating flowers.

In this game you are assembling a living dollhouse – of the temple on Olympus – in order to do that you must revive the gods, one at a time, depending on whom you revive first, that god will enable power ups and buildings etc in your Olympus.

The gods you revive will only come back to life if you power them completely. Until they are fully powered, they stand as statues, mostly in stone, only halfway or 1/3 of the way colored in.

These gods are revivified by the player, but only as a reward for mastery of the core game/grind.

So…you play a match three game with colored objects each pertaining to one of the starting statues/gods. As you make matches you create that color dissolved and becomes god paint, as you get enough of that particular paint, you are able revive that god with the paint.

You choose Poseidon.

Once you successfully save him, you unlock the week’s episode - but you get the poseidon episode, a different episode than your friends.

On your friends ‘Olympus, they can see an array of their friends Olypuses and can visit. As friends visit your Olympus, they can interact with your temples and gods, and see your progress.

Concept #4: DING! Sign My Yearbook?

Cards: Levels/Player, Checklists, Social Pressure

When you level up -- possibly only at “major level milestones” (5, 10, 15, 20 as opposed to 5, 6, 7, 8) -- you have a chance of earning additional “customization points” if you accomplish a special tasks. These customization points depend on the game, but may be skill points for a RPG character, special add-ons for a vehicle game, etc -- something that the player is using to build their strategy, character, or world. The task is similar to "getting all of your friends to sign your yearbook" at the end of a school year. The game has captured all the previous social activities that you did with each of your friends during the last level (or five levels) -- every time you got their help in a quest, did something together, or battled is represented as a little icon / snapshot representing your interaction. You've got to track down THAT particular friend and get them to "sign" this snapshot to complete your little leveling yearbook. The more friends you get on the list, the greater the rewards go (curving up steeply in an exponent as you reach 100% checklist completion. Every player has to go through this process if they want to unlock their max customization points, so much like yearbook signing it becomes a ritual of leveling up and congratulations that players reciprocate for each other.

Concept #5: Team Building

Cards: Squads, Barn Raising, Skill Improvements

Assemble a squad of friends/teammates with variable skills (for example, an architect, interior designer, general contractor and electrician), to build a high-value, high cost item.  The relative level of each character’s skill determines the relative output/performance of the item, and all players involved increase the skill that they brought to the table (i.e. my architecture skill) and the player (all players) gain access to the constructed item.

Concept #6: THE STAGE

Cards:
Collaborative Storytelling
Un-locked collectibles
Decorating

Using the above an augmented reality activity can be created through the use of a connected TV and camera. Participants check in with their own profiles bringing their own items into play. Each participant then helps decorate the room creating a set that is only seen in the TV.

Once the set has been create the players can then play out either a pre selected narrative or one of their own. Each session can then be recorded and played back for personal use or shared on-line.

Each participant has the opportunity to un-lock further items through either contribution and achievements. With contribution each participant could have a slightly unique set of items that they have purchased or earned which when used with other participants allows the others to un-lock and add to their collection.

Concept #7: The Dollhouse Shop

Cards: Dollhousing+Shopping+Social Entanglement

• Player can acquire items through gameplay or in game store front
• Player makes unique combinations/customization of their home, pet, etc
• Friends of players can rate their friends' item or pet.
• Player gets currency to shop or new shopping options
• Friends creating a custom store front together for other players?
• Social Entanglement - involves the idea of a shared goal
• Players can take shifts running the store
• Players create their own store or combine their goods with their social circle
• Idea of a shift

Conclusion

By happy accident our team did not solve the problem.   Instead, our exploration and discussions naturally led us to the development of a toolkit. It is our hope that this toolkit will be a help to game-makers as we seek to innovate within the current landscape of long term play mechanisms and anticipate the changes to come.

Outcome

• Completed report for publications
• Competed card deck for distribution

section 5

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1. Introduction
2. Workgroup Reports Overview
3. Practical Psychological Manifesto
4. How to Reinvent a Genre
5. Topics, Tactics and Tools for Building Authentic Long-term Engagement Mechanisms
6. Emotions Through Rules And Systems
7. Location-Based Games
8. Schedule & Sponsors