Social mobile game design principles
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This document outlines social mobile game design principles presented by Duke Wong. It discusses using friends through connecting on Facebook and helping friends progress. It also covers using ranking systems like leaderboards and leagues to motivate players. Competition principles include matchmaking, emotes, and reputation systems. Donation allows helping other players directly or as a community. Creating an in-game society can replicate politics and alliances. Case studies show how education games have used these principles for worldwide adoption and teaching business concepts. In conclusion, these social principles from mobile games could be applied to serious games as well.
Social mobile game design principles
- 1. Social Mobile Game Design Principles Presented by Duke Wong
- 2. Agenda Principle #1: Friends Principle #2: Ranking Principle #3: Competition Principle #4: Donation Principle #5: Society Principle #6: Case study
- 3. Social mobile games studied
- 4. Friends (1/3)- connecting with Facebook (Candy Crush)1 • Posts Facebook updates on player’s behalf when progressing in levels • Shows the progress and score of players of Facebook friends on level map
- 5. Friends (2/3)- helping online friends (Puzzle & Dragon)1 • Pal point system drives retention by encouraging several logins per day • Further, it drives players to progress, as the better the helper they have to offer, the more often it will be used
- 6. Friends (3/3): meeting new friends (Pokemon Go)1 “The lure was supposed to bring more Pokemon. Instead it brought together people who would've never met otherwise.” -Top Reddit post
- 7. Ranking (1/2)- leaderboard (Clash Royale)2 • Relevant leaderboard- global and local; clans and friends • Leaderboard spotlight- bringing streaming to the masses
- 8. Ranking (2/2)- leagues and badges (Clash of Clans)2 • Leagues incremental milestone as players climb the leaderboard • Games constantly add in new leagues to fill in gaps when players drop off
- 9. Competition (1/3): matchmaking (Hearthstone)3 • The system tries to balance the precision of the match with the length of time to find • When there is not enough live players, some companies use “shadow players”, which is a pre-recorded gameplay action of another real player, but not in real time
- 10. Competition (2/3): emotes (Hearthstone, CR)3 • Hearthstone has removed the “Sorry” emote likely due to the spam frequency it is used • Clash Royale has insisted to not implement a mute emote option to “evoke strong emotions”
- 11. Competition (3/3): reputation (Vainglory)3 • In team-based competition, reputation system encourages better sportsmanship • “All you have to do is finish your matches—in victory, defeat or surrender—and you’ll progress into higher and higher Karma tiers.” -SEMC
- 12. Donation (1/2)- 1 to 1 (Hay Day)4 “It means that on our platform not only can you visit other players, but you can help them.” - Hay Day Game Product Manager
- 13. Donation (2/2)- 1 to all (Game of War)4 • Alliance city in Game of War is a super empire to be build by all members • “I feel a sense of achieving something bigger than myself together with my alliance”
- 14. Society (1/2)- alliance politics (Clash of King)5 • Alliance replicate an in-game political system and features leadership, diplomacy, loyalty, spies, etc. • Clash of Kings built in real-time language translation to promote global interaction
- 15. Society (2/2)- clan wars (Clash of Clans)5 • Clan wars incorporate both the element of collaboration and competition together • The tie-in with Youtube recap has brought mobile games to the social media spotlight for the first time
- 16. Case study (1/2)- Brain Wars6 • One of the few education games receiving world-wide adoption • BrainWars relies mainly on individual users for marketing; the app incorporates features such as sharing and inviting to take advantage of social network
- 17. Case study (2/2)- Magitech6 • Magitech is a mobile fantasy game that teaches business analytics and management • Magitech incorporates leaderboard for single-player mode, a multiplayer competition mode, and social sharing of learning progress
- 18. Recap of social mobile game principles Social mobile principles could be applied to serious games Games could bring in existing friends and enable new friendship in both online and offline world Make leaderboard relevant to the players (e.g., among friends, local) and institute incremental steps Multiplayer mode itself is not enough- designers need to consider matchmaking, emotes, and reputation Donation is one of the warm spots of social gaming and could be leveraged in 1 to 1 and 1 to all fashion Society is the most complex form of social gaming but if done right could boost games to wide adoption