Mobile Social Play (kars@leapfrog.nl)

“What I mean by mobile/social/games”

The pleasure of play comes from rigid rules and structure

[eg: how gamers feel about system-oriented games: beat-em-ups, shmups]

• play is more than games (obv.)
• RTS games – the game-layer drops away and you start managing the system, the stats; the characters are a transparent layer over that (look at the WoW huds that people make.)
• Playful things
• Flavonoid (Julian Bleecker) – offline/passive gaming. cf PMOG
• “Keyhole games” – games overlaid onto world eg cameraphone type stuff, eyetoy, etc.
• Now we’re into controller-stuff – Guitar Hero/Wii/Dance Dance Revolution/etc.
• Tangible games – gesture-based interfaces are more sociable. They are “readable”.
• LARPing.

Part the second

• Theory can help design.
• Rules of Play – Game Design Fundamentals. [book sounds fab. Must buy this.]

“The magic circle”

The space and time in which a game is played. (More the space, but space/time is a nice idea)

Lusory attitude

“The willingness to play the game and subject yourself to its rules.”

Mobile games can be played

• anywhere
• anytime – mobile games are in this everywhere-space – mobile entertainment has a tough time competing with other time-killing activities
• with anyone

Where is the game?

• If it’s everywhere, can I escape it? When do I start, when do I stop? [YOU JUST LOST THE GAME]
• Who are the players? Who aren’t?
• The assassination game is a good point – very strict on its rules about non-players.

Part the third

Five guidelines for designing mobile/social/games

Design for different levels of player engagement.

• Matt Jones/Tom Hume – Twitcher, the one-button casual game that can be played hardcore (or not)
• make it easy to step into the game
• keep them there – this is about flow

Provide for player roles

• Enhances social communication
• [Eg TeamFortress, CTF, Battlefield]

Encourage meta-gaming

• stuff to do outside the game world that’s still related to it.

Support implicit rule creation

• players coming to agreement on unwritten rules, for instance.
• eg street-football – (yard cricket, yard rugby)

Play with the game’s existence

• [this is what I call metagaming]
• Is the game real? Is the rest of the world the game?

Serious applications for MSGs?

• Cultural resistance – Banksy hacking the Paris Hilton album, for instance.
• Behavioural change – incentivising actions (eg: safe driving, carbon-neutral activity)
• Insight – using playful things to offer insight into complex systems (eg: Sim City)