———————–  Notes ————————-

Gamers are totally focused on the task at hand; willing to tackle anything with optimism. They’re willing to fail and learn from our mistakes. Gamers fail 80% of the time. It’s good to be in a place where failure is safe but still linked to reality. It can create change. They are willing to hang there till they are successful. Last Sept we reached 1 billion playing a game a day. We are already at 7 billion hours that’s 1 hour a day for over half the planet.

Gameful explores the idea that gamers aren’t really playful but strategic.

Top 10 Emotions Gamers Feel
Creativity
Surprise
Excitement
Content
Awe
Wonder
Curiousity
Pride
Love
Joy

No one has ever done a 3 level grand thumb wrestling game. Yet we paused the talk to do a level 3 thumb wrestling game.  We are the first in history to do so. Oxytoxin is created within the room with hand holding. The effect lasts for an hour.

How does this translate into digital?

1. Most time now its being played with people we know in real life. Moat game play use to be single player. So that helps build relationships. So if you play a game I play we share a mutual experience together.
2. World Without Oil… Simulation experience to see into the future to figure out how we can survive or avoid an experience like that. Could you survive? Provoke an experience. Challenging experience. Can you surviving? Then make a community. Figure out how you’re going to cope if you can’t get food in a grocery store. Once you get thousands you get collective experience. Here’s how people who couldn’t. Communte to work or pastors get thier people to church etc. There’s a blog of where that OS. Players were earily close to reality when gas prices got high.

Game Examples:

• Foldit game: Game solves the need for a biological solution to aids/medicine. ”Bio proteins are like a Rubix cubes with 100 sides like tetris.” Gamers have already deciphered the crystal structure of a protein that causes Aids in monkeys and were published in a journel of medicine. Perhaps as Jane points out they will win a Nobel Prize.
• Now Galaxy Zoo lets you discover items in the universe.
• April is a game challenge on social entrepreneurship in Brazil w/collaboration around the world.
• Tetris forced to play until you lose. There’s no solution. Golf has a spectrum of getting better. If you keep playing you get better

The Next Generation:

• Engaged or enraged us is this up and coming generation. They aren’t getting engagement in clases now. They are playing games as Mich as they are in the classroom 10k hours)
• In NYC, they are now allowing kids to take and retake tests till they get a score they like. Studies show we learn better that way. Similarly, we tend to collaborate more in games by taking the roles were better at.

Create an Epic Win:

• Don’t trying to make everything a game (in conversation about gamification). Think about what it feels like to play a game and what that means.
• What would it feel like to have an epic win at the library? If you play the game at the library you can make a real book and publish the book and leave it in the library. Mystery game based on searching for things in the library. You begin to realize that those who made history were willing to stand up. So then they had to make a declaration and get 56 signatures. 1100 stories written by the players. Library science meets night at the museum.
• What super power would this give gamers. Focus on these outcomes for gamification. Make games that give people more hope and optimism about what they want to so.

Effects of Games on Humans:

• Jane the concussion healer… Super better as now named  Symptoms were bad characters etc.
• Playing games treat depression better then drugs. In fact games are shown to treat personal issues more then anything.
• Gamers are a really critical crowd. Call of duty created a community online. If you are playing against people you don’t know tends to create the worst in people better to kill people you know. They are being really nice to each I’m the elite collective mission. If they can be of service to each other and part of something bigger then thy can be nice to each other. You like and respect people more after you play a game with them. It is better to kill your friends though then it is to kill people you don’t know.
• Studies show that if we choose stress then we are more likely to grow.
• Women prefer collaboration over leaderboards unlike men. But leaderboards can make men less happy. Personal self besting is a bigger motivator and sharing with others.

I first learned about Glitch through my friend, Shelly Bowman, after sign up I immediately fell in love with this cute little browser based massive multi-player game. You can get a feel for the game from the trailer above  but some of the stuff the trailer doesn’t show is the intricate details such as the count down to the end of a skill training:

I enjoy it is it’s “sense of humor” and quirkiness. You can pet trees (which I swear must be a take from the fact this company is based near Berkeley, California), talk to yoga frogs, nibble on pigs, massage butterflies, and they may even want to discuss things of this world with you (see below). In order to increase skill training time you can get “Rock” to speed read. They say the devil is in the details. In this case, the joy of the game is in the details and all those details help tell the story. Tiny Speck has gone so far to make their site a joy to use on mobile. I believe Glitch has a lot of potential to be a run away success when it goes public.

Update:
Tiny Speck Closes $10.7 Million Second Round on Social MMO Glitch, Entering Closed Beta Also of note, in the article, it’s mentioned that Tiny Speck will release an API for the Glitch animation to be utilized in other projects.

Tiny Speck Expects Glitch but No Glitches in Launch: User will be able to grow the game in their own way by using the API to add streets and other sections of the game. A truly customizable experience.

Tiny Speck Founder, Stewart Butterfield, Talks Glitch

Turntable.fm is a music streaming & sharing application that allows users to create rooms with up to 5 DJ’s to rotate songs within their own particular music genre(s) of choice. It was recently featured in TechCruch as the latest early adopter addiction.

Words cannot do justice to explain just how addicting this app is especially when you’re at the tables in a room full of people. You find yourself feeling that anticipation a DJ must feel when they are up on the tables, beat matching song after song, hoping to see the floor moving. “Will they like my song? Will they hate it? Oh no, they aren’t dancing! They must hate it. Oh wait, there’s one person dancing now, now another… Ok, ok, this is going to be ok.” Now you may wonder “but how do people ‘dance’ virtually?” I’m glad you asked for Turntable.fm has thought of that. Users dance when they click the awesome button on the application. DJ’s can get booted if the audience clicks lame enough times. Awesome clicks win you DJ points which allow you to get bigger and bigger advatars.

Like most things social, human behavior factors into the enjoyment of the app. In this case, users have created their own rules for some rooms. One of the most popular rooms “80′s Play 3 & Step Down”, was started by one user with the rule that you can only play 3 songs then you must step down. The moderation of the room passes from one person to the next to ensure the queue stays constant and consistent with new users stepping up and stepping down based on whether or not they have already played 3 songs. This rule started because users found that many of the DJs would just stay on the tables even long after rooms would fill up, never giving others a chance to step up and spin.

On the flip side it was interesting to step into some of the other rooms which were less considerate. I stepped into the country room and watched as one DJ got “lamed” out of their seat at the tables including chants from the crowd, “Lame her out. Click lame! Do it. This is miserable. Lame! Lame! Lame!” Crowds can be brutal. But I imagine it to be no different in some ways to being a real DJ in a real club. All you can hope for is that people like what you play.

Turntable runs on the Amazon EC2 servers and occasionally has trouble with lag, songs won’t play or will play a different song then the user has queued, and could use some way of customizing rooms a bit more by adding rules around how many songs you can play so more users get a turn. I’d also like to see other ways of integrating my music to the DJ queues (uploads don’t always work so perhaps a partnership with iTunes &/or Youtube. In fact, might be fun to have a Video DJ in the same room spinning video). Private messaging would be nice too if they can also create a way to block a user from communicating with you. A random button would also be quite nice so when you add your songs in you can click random and they will shuffle.

Much like Guitar Hero played to our dreams of being rock stars, Turntable, plays into our dreams of being a DJ, and it does it really well. I’d love to see it affect the real world with DJ spin offs in the clubs. Would be quite fun I think.

—————————

.@cquarles “innovation will be more important and flattery less as time goes on”
.@mark_skaggs look at the long term for engagement. 30, 60, 90 days. We get scared when day 1 is not at 60. Long term 30% is great!
Meaure: high teens as a benchmark, it’s not natural to bring people back regularly in some genre’s

Measure engagement: DAU, MAU (what are these again? Is there a workshop on game metrics?)
.@mark_skaggs “striking the balance between marketing and spam” Can Z not send me emails about games I don’t play anymore?

Metrics drive the knowledge of the user. Get the user to trust you to drive monetize.
Tap into social desire. (Buying virtual roses for a love on Facebook for V. Day.) Understand emotions. Tap into them.

Use special events. (Superberries only available for a certain time.) Create urgency call to action.
How do you surprise and delight business users in business systems when the goal is often get in and get out?
Super berries and AMA award related items in Farmville and Sorrority Life drew users in.
Adding on cities added “segments” to mafia wars and drew more users back in.
Surprise and delight users.
Its time for casual social games to look beyond the point and click for engaging content. (Absolutely!!)
Facebook photo is like your brand or your friend’s brand.
More and more mobile developers are looking to go cross platform

@davemcclure zynga growth evidence of success in harvesting CPA/cpc land grab strat last year, IMHO. Timing’s everything.
@chasnote is that a lot? Seems light if Job’s estimates on connected devices are right considering Tv’s $7.3bn upfront. Just sayin…
Re: future of social gaming panel. Think if they play cards right they can pull a Jobs & do to Hollywood what web has done to print.
Panel of Social Gaming experts respond to question “what’s prediction of growth for space?” W/request to define the space. Broad definition.
More social gaming predictions: more vertical vs horizontal/everyone plays hits; FB still dominates; mobile convergence
If you want to understand where FB will go you need to understand the mind of an ambitious 26-year old w/comprehensive vision.
Some context to FB changes for game developers: invest a lot of money in game features, fb changes, throw app in trash.
Lyng @playdom predicts: international market growth; deeper, maybe hardcore gamer hits & massive changes on fb platform (again)
Jonathan @zynga predicts: farmville-like blockbuster coming, possibly from indie; international market growth in next year.
Zynga & playdom–big stakes players in FB ecosystem–say they believe changes that benefit users offer long-term success potential for dev.
Discussion about FB socialgraph changes impacting game develpers. Cautious responses from panel ranging from light jabs to endorsement.
“Future of Social Gaming” panel incl VC ThinkPink, Zynga, Playdom & others (pic) http://twitgoo.com/z5wg9
Nooman, COO of 25-person PeanutLabs showing some smart tactics to increase in-game monetiaztion that marketers can apply irl.
DeLoura invites app developers for launch. No in app payment systems but coming. Email mdeloura at gmail dot com for deck/more inf.
DeLoura wrote 14 lines of script, loaded a flash game into store & ready to sell in the store. Demoed Goog Pacman as example.
Chrome webstore will be in browser, one-click install & buy for web apps (for starters, right?)
DeLoura extolling virtues of Chrome for gaming. Says browser went frm 30-70mm users in past 9-months.
First up: Mark DeLoura of Google/Chrome–1st gaming hire at Google. Begins talk w/sober stats on trad gaming biz in decline.
“Future of Social Gaming Panel” @ Googleplex in Mtn Vw. Healthy presence of geeks in crowd. Good sign.
VC trends over 7 years: web investments less cap intensive. 20% volume of investments; 10% of dollars. http://bit.ly/9GFj70 via @shervin
Pepsi’s tapping valley talent the way they’ve sourced relevance from Hollywood & Madison Avenue. Smart (client): http://adage.com/u/DxwwRa
FB launches new data dashboard around Like function: http://bit.ly/ch5aM3

Games are invading the real world — and the runaway popularity of Farmville and Guitar Hero is just the beginning, says Jesse Schell. At the DICE Summit, he makes a startling prediction: a future full of points in the making. While brushing our teeth, getting enough sleep, everything we do we collect points for tax breaks, special incentives by companies. In one case there are points for the amount of soda we drink because we are not that far from every can of soda having a CPU and small camera to monitor our behaviour.

First I want to state that for 2010 I think I will be talking about User Experience in a more generalized way.  I find I put too much pressure on myself to say something profound in my blog. Like every blogger in the blog-o-sphere must say something profound that has massive universal impact rather than simply saying, “I think this about that.” Thus in order to take the pressure off and to encourage more blogging, I will blog about anything I think impacts experience or technology. I’ll ask more questions. I’ll talk about stuff that inspires my thinking. Speaking of, my biggest inspiration lately has been gaming.

Girls and Games.

Ask most females and they would tell you they are either 1) not a gamer or 2) there aren’t enough “girl games” out there for them. What does that really mean though?

Let’s start with point one: “I’m not a gamer”

Any girl who tells you this is simply lying. Truth is they have probably played several games as a kids. As a member of the female gender, they play games with their friends, lovers, and others they come across. They are just not the “normal” type of game we might think of. Girls are competitive in nature.  If you don’t believe me, watch females play soccer or volleyball. (Or fight over a man.)

That brings me to point two: “The games out there aren’t interesting to me.”

I had an interesting conversation with the people at Playdom during an interview a few weeks back. It turns out the game, “Sorority Life“, has a strong appeal to women in their 30/40/50′s whom have the desire at the end of the day to “kill”. (In other words they love the fight feature where they can challenge other women and win battles for money, power, status, or game items.) It is a release of stress for them.

While I was not a fan of Sorority Life (because it felt too girly),  ”Mafia Wars” (by Zynga) appealed to me for much of the same reason. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Why then aren’t more games built for girls that allow us to play to our competitive natures? The game industry is missing a key component to the type of experience girls would want in games. Perhaps there would be more peace in the world if we could take out our aggression within games?

Then again, probably not.

There is something fun in the experience of being a Mafioso and going out on jobs doing what you. I partially enjoyed the aspect of living this double life as my character grew and I was able to take out other families (hitlist) or rough up a local “gang” (robbing). For a period the challenge of getting to that next level (street thug to hitman to capo and so on) was an incredible thrill. If I mastered a level then I got a bonus and even going after that seemed like an interesting challenge. However, with most games there comes a point when you find yourself losing interest.

What’s interesting about Mafia Wars is not only the role playing aspect but how they used that in relation to a casual game. It is literally a game you can pick up and put down whenever the mood strikes (unless you are out of energy and/or health). However this is also a problem for the game. As one starts to lose interest they stop going to visit the game as much thus energy or health builds faster (seemingly) and they eventually find themselves in a place where they need to invest in the game (to buy Godfather points) or invite other friends to play with them. The first creates a problem for the recently unemployed and the second creates a problem with friends whom don’t care to add extra apps. Leaving customers to feel “put upon” to spend money or invite friends (who will probably grumble at the invite). Lou Carbone said in his talk, “Creating Customer Loyalty”, (at MX West 2007) we need to concern ourselves about with customers feel. User experience and (for games) “fun” is only one aspect of creating a system (games or otherwise) but really how does the customer feel?

I understand that companies need to make money in order to thrive but a customer feeling “put upon” is really only going to walk away. Thus how about an added solution to the game of Mafia Wars? Add an extra element to the game to allow users to make more Godfather points because as it stands now it takes weeks to get enough to do anything (unless you pay) and I feel there should be a balance that encourages me as a user to come back.

Give users an opportunity to win Godfather points through a shooting game (learning to be a hitman) or a “grand theft auto” casual game that teaches about other aspects of being a Mafioso. They must gain a certain number of points in the game to get a certain number of Godfather points and perhaps they can only play so many times a day.

All this does is add another level of rewards to help keep users engaged. If they still don’t feel like they are making enough and still want to invest in the game then definitely give them that option but adding this adds a balance that doesn’t exist right now.

——

Steve Portigal was up first to walk us through his sold out workshop called, “Well, we did all this research … now what?”

My Twitter Feeds on SP:

“Who cares about terminology. Examine, infer and apply to business or design.” I’d say apply to both. Why should they be different.

“Stay out of solution land. Try different methods”

When stuck come up with really bad ideas to encourage creativity.

——-

Second was Kumi Akiyoshi with “Feeling: What Makes an Engaging Product?“.  The slides from the presentation are below:

Third was Ian Swinson with “Postcard Patterns”.

Postcards = simple straight forward messaging

——-

Fourth was Nadya Direkova with “What’s in a game? A look at game design best practices as prime influencers of interaction design.”  The slides from the presentation are below:

Twitter:

Is google a single player or multiplayer game? How many of us get to design apps in 3d?

This is review so far. It’s all about the same from my game design class at Parsons.

Simply controls. Friend invites to play with friends. (AdverGames)

Create a reward in health. Physical Therapy… Doing # of exercises = whatever

——

Kim Goodwin “each one teach one” – people are now saying I experienced good design. This is easier than that.

Twitter:

“Nothing special about the iPhone. Technology is simple. It’s design they are selling. And we’re paying a lot of money for good design.”

“Corporate Americas new found belief in design is fragile.”

A lot of good ideas end up collecting dust. “It’s someone else’s fault. We need to take responsibility.”

Sales people understand progressive commitment. Get people involved in the research and so on to understand reasoning. Pushes commitment.

Even those who are use to rational decisions can be susceptable to emotion. (Ie the Mini Cooper)

Bargaining a normal part of Change Management. “I’ll have the salad with the cake.”

Ixd = generation creation

——

In summary -

Personal gripe: Another thing about less is more on presentation slides… Less information focuses the audience on you and what you are saying. Avoids info overload

At the bar afterwards: “We’re designing behaviour”

This slide opened my eyes to how vital it is that we define user experience. After all if we do not define what we do then we risk not being heard, understood, or taken seriously. With standards and definitions then we can pass down our knowledge to younger practitioners and build credibility in the marketplace.

Other images from the IXDA Redux are found here

Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry demonstrate a “Minority Report” type of interactive gaming. How would this change the way we interact with the web and games in general. User experience of the future goes 3D?

In process my computer crashed and on reload Firefox reloaded all my open tabs. Then as if from no where, there was music filling the air on a constant loop. I started going through each tab scrolling up and down frantically looking for the off switch. It was no where to be found. Instead I find myself reminded of Eddie Izzard’s skit about trying to get the printer to work:

No matter where I turn. I cannot find the off switch. Finally after 10 minutes of this frustration, I find the switch at the bottom of the home page!

Don’t get me wrong, there are definite distinct advantages to using sound in the right places at the right time. Jakob Nielsen points out that sound can “enhance the user experience substantially”. He adds that testing within a game environment using the same graphics but higher and lower quality sound led users to believe that the game had better graphics when better sound was utilized. However that was a game environment not a website.

When exploring the web most users are looking for information. In this case, I was looking for the amenities, price, and any reviews on the hotel. I didn’t care whether or not the hotel had a good atmosphere. After all in a hotel you mainly sleep. You aren’t looking for a home. Thus the music only frustrated me when I couldn’t locate the module to turn it off.

If you would like to use sound to create an experience than use it wisely and place it where the user can find it. The top right or even the right rail work beautifully for this purpose. The worst thing you can do to your user is frustrate them because you will lose them as a customer. Remember you never get a second chance to make a good first impression and on the web that is even more vital.

A large scale urban game utilizing the pacman game framework.

—————–More———————–

Blast Theory – UK
Cloud Walkers
Alternate Reality Game – What is it?
Augumented reality game is a game which auguments reality.

Article: “This is not a game”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT – news) on Monday will announce the availability of software tools aimed at encouraging independent and hobbyist video game makers to create titles for its new Xbox 360 console.

The move from Microsoft, which kicks off its two-day Gamefest video game development conference in Seattle on Monday, comes as the popularity of user-created content on the Internet grows and as the software giant builds a large audience for its Web-connected Xbox Live online service.

Microsoft said its tool kit, called XNA Game Studio Express, will make it easier for enthusiasts to create games to run on Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox 360 console or personal computers running its Windows operating system.

A test version of the tool kit will be out by August 30. The final product will be available this holiday season for an annual subscription of $99 per year for Xbox 360 game development. The software will be free to people making games to run on Windows.

Microsoft said more than 10 universities, including the University of Southern California and Southern Methodist University, will include XNA Game Studio Express and Xbox 360 development in their fall curricula.

YouTube is a wildly popular Web site featuring videos from ordinary people around the world. Its star has risen as Internet giants Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO – news) and Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG – news) have been investing in user-generated content such as Web logs, known as blogs, and video.

Peter Moore, vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, said individuals will own the games they create using the tools and that the company will do revenue sharing deals with people who create games for the Xbox 360.

“I’d love to send a royalty check to a kid,” said Moore, who added that Microsoft hopes to get the tool kit into high schools.

Games on mobile phones have come a long way since Snake or endless knock-offs of arcade classics such as Asteroids and Space Invaders.

Now many of the big name titles first created for consoles and PCs are turning up in shrunken versions for handsets that an increasingly large section of the population own.

But, says Thor Gunnarson of British mobile game maker Ideaworks3D, the whole industry is just getting started.

Handsets, he says, are getting powerful enough to cope with what he dubs “console class” gaming, which means they are able to cope with 3D graphics that scroll past at a rate of at least 20 frames a second.

Speed kings

Before now many of the mobile gaming conventions we are used to, such as competing against “ghost” opponents rather than real people, have come about because of the limitations of phone networks.

Data transfer rates on second generation networks are too slow to play real people in real time.

But, said Mr Gunnarson, such limitations disappear with 3G networks simply because they can ship more data back and forth more quickly.

Console class games are coming to phones
Once latency or delay drops below 3.5 milliseconds it becomes invisible to users, said Mr Gunnarson, and 3G networks will definitely ship data between handsets fast enough for that.

“That’s good enough for multi-player gaming and real time racing,” he said.

But what will also make a big difference is the way that people pay for the data they consume via their phone.

Currently most operators charge users for the megabytes they use. A pricing mechanism, said Mr Gunnarson, that does not encourage people to spend lots of time browsing the web or downloading extra levels for games.

Flat rate pricing transformed the net industry and drove a huge rise in the numbers of people going online.

In the US, Verizon’s VCast network uses flat rate pricing as does KDDI in Japan. Both have seen the numbers of mobile gamers increase rapidly.

If you can swap huge amounts of data in and out of a handset without incurring extra charges, it also changes the types of games you get on a handset. No longer do they have to be restricted to a file that the phone’s own memory can store.

Instead, extra parts can be added as they are needed. This also frees up game makers to think big, he said.

“Something like Need for Speed Underground 2 (NFSU2) would not be economically viable to deliver to the consumer before we saw flat rate data networks,” he said. “There are megabytes of data flowing back and forth.”

Flat rate pricing helps players and game makers
As a result, games can be much bigger. The mobile version of NFSU2 has about 40 hours of game play in it. All of it expected to be consumed in small chunks.

“It relies completely on network-based storage and only pulls down levels, cars and characters it needs at that point in time,” he said. “It’s constantly shuffling data back and forth.”

Another game that Mr Gunnarson expects to be big on handsets is Sims 2 Mobile – again which would be hard to do without the advent of 3G.

The key feature of this Ideaworks developed title is the connection with the PC version.

A Sim can be created for the PC version, converted to a mobile character and then uploaded to a handset.

Although the way the game is played has been changed for the handset, with floating menus and different modes for exploring or interacting, the experience is as close as possible to the full version, said Mr Gunnarson.

“It’s a big challenge to get a relatively complicated game like this on a mobile phone,” he said, “not least because you have to be able to play the game with one hand.”