Games are Listening
To continue the project of inviting other contributors, I asked Candice Chen to write a piece on gaming. What she illustrates here for me is that if you are working in the digital arena, you need to get close to gaming as it's getting closer to intuitive behavior. Candice is currently studying at UCLA and was an intern with us this year. She's one to watch in 2011.
New era of gaming:
The best games understand new technology
Seth Priebatsch, who runs a mobile-start up, says we are transitioning from the “Decade of Social” to the “Decade of Games.” Giving this decade a grand and exclusive title is somewhat misleading because it implies a collective burgeoning interest in games. Gaming has always satisfied a natural urge to make life more interesting. What differentiates this decade is that new gaming is enhanced, enabled, and dependent on new technological platforms.
Today’s best games capitalize on the nature of online technology. Let’s take Farmville—which I personally still do not find any appeal in, but will acknowledge its unusual popularity. Farmville’s beauty is that it functions as a Facebook game. People habitually check their Facebook consistently throughout the day, at the same pace that they could keep up their farm. The pace of the game corresponds with the already-established routine of Facebook. Had this game been on a CD-Rom 10 years ago, I reckon it would not have attracted the same audience in such great numbers. The game’s success is dependent on how well its rules fit into the already established nature of its platform.
Games can also capitalize on the benefits that drive us to social platforms. The result is a game that combines the benefits of games with the benefits of social networking. Foursquare plays into the powerful urge we have to share and project information about ourselves online. Creating a digital representation of yourself is an obvious key to the success of online social platforms. Foursquare offers two incentives that interact with each other: the incentive to compete and the incentive to share what you’re doing (without annoyingly posting statuses or Tweeting about each place you go to, which oddly people still do). The game is a co-mingling of the benefits of gaming with the benefits of technology (i.e. location-based technology) and of social networking (the lovechild of online technology).
For decades, games have offered an altered state of reality where we concentrate on a short-term goal and are motivated by competition. This altered state has offered us enjoyable ways to learn, socialize, and relax. With new technology and social platforms, we have new ways to game. This can only lead to better ways of gaming to learn, socialize, and relax. However, saturation is inevitable and only the best games will survive—those that understand and take advantage of the nature and benefits of new technology.
