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Perform or Else! Why (and how) to include extroverted play design in your game

Perform or Else! Why (and how) to include extroverted play design in your game. Katherine Isbister, Ph.D. Rensselaer (RPI). Who I am. GDC 2004 ‘10 Tricks from Psychology for Better Game Character Design’ (best of show dvd, now a book) http://www.katherineinterface.com/isbister_gdc_2004.htm

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Perform or Else! Why (and how) to include extroverted play design in your game

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  1. Perform or Else!Why (and how) to include extroverted play design in your game Katherine Isbister, Ph.D. Rensselaer (RPI)

  2. Who I am • GDC 2004 ‘10 Tricks from Psychology for Better Game Character Design’(best of show dvd, now a book) http://www.katherineinterface.com/isbister_gdc_2004.htm • Today, turning away from the screen toward the players, with the social psychological approach.

  3. Who I am • Was at Stanford University(teaching game character design in the HCI program) • now at Rensselaer (RPI)founded Games Research Lab (social, emotional, and physical gaming, new evaluation techniques)Game Studies Minor (Major coming)http://www.rpi.edu/~isbisk/

  4. No (wo)man is an island… • Lots of contributors to this talk: • Conceptual • Practical/Tactical

  5. Conceptual contributors Henry Lowood, Stanford University Jane McGonigal, UC Berkeley and 42 Entertainment Jon McKenzie’s book (by way of Jane)Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance No (wo)man is an island…

  6. Tactical contributors Georgina Corzine and company (Supergroop studios) Rensselaer Games Research Group and DDR Club Henry Lowood No (wo)man is an island…

  7. The next 50 minutes… • Defining terms: What is extroverted play? • Motivations: Why should I care? • Tactics: How to design for extroverted play • Q and A

  8. Defining terms: What’s extroverted play?

  9. What’s extroverted play? • (EK-struh-vurt) A term introduced by the psychologist Carl Jung to describe a person whose motives and actions are directed outward. Extroverts are more prone to action than contemplation, make friends readily, adjust easily to social situations, and generally show warm interest in their surroundings. (Compare introvert.) - from Bartleby online

  10. What’s extroverted play? • (IN-truh-vurt) A term introduced by the psychologist Carl Jung to describe a person whose motives and actions are directed inward. Introverts tend to be preoccupied with their own thoughts and feelings and minimize their contact with other people. (Compare extrovert.) - from Bartleby online

  11. What’s extroverted play? • What do games evoke in players?

  12. What’s extroverted play? • Jung believed we all have both sides. • Games can bring out extroverted aspects of players, and this can be good for your game.

  13. What’s extroverted play? • Symptoms… • Groups gathering around game play, egging a player on or giving them tips • Visible emotion and physical engagement • Players showing off for others • Storytelling around the game play, about legendary personalities or moments • A culture of fan sites and game play stories and movies

  14. Motivations: Why should I care?

  15. Why should I care? Extroverted play can extend game reach and shelf life, without necessarily costing more. Extroverted play can be the seed of new genres of play (e.g. Pervasive games)

  16. How does this work? Beginners are more likely to jump in. Players have more fun and play longer. More people will see your game and decide to play themselves. (Essentially, you’re using people’s extroversion to propagate your game…)

  17. Tactics: How to Design for Extroverted Play

  18. Tactics: How to Design for Extroverted Play • Helps to think like a social psychologist… leveraging people’s social tendencies.

  19. Tactics: How to Design for Extroverted Play • Five principles I’ll share today: • Monkey see, monkey do. • Shake your @#$ and your mind will follow. • Contact high: fun is contagious. • Watch one, do one, teach one. • Remember when?

  20. 1. Monkey see, Monkey do. • Social Learning: Albert Bandura

  21. 1. Monkey see, Monkey do. • Physical games with simple interfaces • Donkey Konga • DDR • Party games with simple control structures and quick feedback loops • Katamari Damacy • Super Smash Brothers Melee • Multi-player FPS play • Quake, Halo, and the like. • Replays and sites for complex games • Warcraft 3

  22. 1. Monkey see, Monkey do. • <Footage> http://www.supergroop.com/START.html

  23. 1.Monkey see, Monkey do. • Design principles • Make it easy to see what a player is doing and understand the connection between actions and game play effects. • Allow players to make shareable replays to leverage one another’s knowledge easily. • Build observational learning checks into play-testing cycles.

  24. 2.Shake your @#$ and your mind will follow • Facial feedback hypothesis • The pencil test: Strack, Martin & Stepper, 1988 • Works for posture, too (why mom always told you to stand up straight)

  25. 2.Shake your @#$ and your mind will follow • Physical games • DDR • Donkey Konga • EyeToy games • Pervasive games • Games with really physically fun avatars • Original Devil May Cry • Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and other fighters • Tony Hawk, SSX, other extreme sports • Link, Mario, and the like.

  26. 2.Shake your @#$ and your mind will follow • <footage> http://www.supergroop.com/START.html • Jak and Daxter, Super Monkey Ball 2

  27. 2.Shake your @#$ and your mind will follow • Design principles • Make player characters physically bouncy and fun (physical feedback loop for player) • Get a person’s face and body moving as part of game play

  28. 3. Contact high: Fun is contagious • Emotional Contagion: Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J.T., and Rapson, R.L.

  29. 3. Contact high: Fun is contagious • Any game that allows for more than one player (or has over-the-shoulder appeal) in which people start to get really involved • Donkey Konga • Katamari Damacy • Pervasive games • Multi-player games that work to build player excitement and momentum and support fan sites. • World of Warcraft • Halo 2 • Games with NPCs that are clearly having fun • Sports games (e.g. NBA Live)

  30. 3. Contact high: Fun is contagious • <footage> http://www.supergroop.com/START.html • NBA Live 2004

  31. 3. Contact high: Fun is contagious • Design principles • Make it easy for people to see each other perform. • Offer ways for players to perform when they are in the mood or on form. • Make it easy to witness performance events and know when cool moments will happen.

  32. 3. Contact high: Fun is contagious • Design principles • Highlight players’s greatest hits and explose new players to these. • Provide NPC performers to ‘beat’ or to up the impression of energy and crowd. • Test in groups to make affordances best possible.

  33. 4. Watch one, do one, teach one • J.P. Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy ‘communities of learners’

  34. 4. Watch one, do one, teach one • Many games allow for teaching, few explicitly afford and reward player teaching. • MMORPGs are the cutting edge in this area.

  35. 4. Watch one, do one, teach one • <footage> http://www.supergroop.com/START.html

  36. 4. Watch one, do one, teach one • Design principles • Make clear to players ways they can step up and perform to show others what to do. • Offer incentives to do so. • Think about making the teaching process easy and fun (coaching tools).

  37. 5. Remember when? • Hero’s Journey (J. Campbell)--myths and stories act as freeze-dried social interaction.

  38. 5. Remember when? • Game examples • Quake and other FPS tribes • Events and happenings in MMORPG games • Pervasive game mementos on sites • Events even in single player games (Animal Crossing seasons and parties) • Sims Family Albums • Machinima and other player story-making

  39. 5. Remember when? • <footage> http://www.supergroop.com/START.html • World of warcraft dance

  40. 5. Remember when? • Design principles • Make it easy for players to share their performance stories online and in other venues--think about this kind of support for your game (replays, albums, movies). • Let people personalize their avatars and create images and ‘handles’ that can have a reputation that precedes them. Make it easy to move these personas around. • Use a camera to record expressions and runs together (EyeToy, etc)?

  41. Recap: the 5 principles • Monkey see, monkey do. • Shake your @#$ and your mind will follow. • Contact high: fun is contagious. • Watch one, do one, teach one. • Remember when?

  42. Help your players find the extrovert within…

  43. Thanks! • For more info: • http://www.rpi.edu/~isbisk/ • Isbisk@rpi.edu

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