Soren Johnson on “Fear and Loathing in Farmville”
I didn’t attend GDC this year, and I was glad to be able to see this post. I found it most useful to explore why, aside from the business angle, so many developers are enthusiastic about social media games. The “dinosaur panel” sounds like it’s something I should like to have seen. The four points at the end that describe things social media games have that are genuinely exciting — true friends list, free-to-play business model, persistent asynchronous play, and metrics-based iteration — very true, I admire those things in social media games. However, I also agree with virtually every criticism given of social media games in the post, comments, and links.
In my Freshman year at DigiPen, Christopher Erhardt said something to the effect that everyone in the room (all programmers) would have a choice between those who will consume player’s lives with additive games like MMOs, or settle for less money with less intrusive games. Since then the choice seems to have become more stark.
I didn’t choose to become a programmer, or game designer, to make things that customers would spend time playing. I chose this career because I wanted to make things that would improve people’s lives and give them something that they would take joy in. As much as I like that social media games engage players in games against their real world friends and have the potential to be low-impact and enjoyable diversions, the inclusion of mechanics like crop rot are the result of what seems like a perverse incentive system for designers. AAA may be a clunky and high risk business model by comparison, but at least it doesn’t involve compromising the principles that drew me into game development.
I have two further take-aways from reflecting on this debate. First, I’m heartened to see the moral backlash against Zynga and social media games in general building in intensity. I have strong feelings about this and I’m glad I’m not alone here. Second, through this lens my respect for Blizzard’s new Battlenet 2.0 system (to be fully introduced with Starcraft 2) is increased: They are combining real friends and social space tools, persistent asynchronous play through meaningful scores and ladders, and metrics-based iteration as demonstrated through their current closed beta process. The beta is also free-to-play, for now, and they’re helping players to invite friends to the beta so they will be able to play with others they know. They’re cracking a lot of the benefits that Soren Johnson ascribes to social media games in a AAA title, without selling their souls in the process.
Preparing for the Apocalypse 
I still side with Zynga and their ilk in this delimma. Maybe I might be those sympathizing with companies wanting to produce profitable games (because basic ECN101 talks about “supply and demand” and that people want to have fun; there should be no hiearchy for ‘fun’)…but that isn’t something that would appease the indies, etc. How about a different method.
I had a terrible experience with most MMORPGs. Their stupid grinding for PvE, the pointless grudes in PvP, the OOC ranting and drama in the game boards, the mini-maxing Spades, etc. But these social gaming MMORPGs are different…even illumanting. They are simple and easy to conduct. They are easy to level up in. There is no grind; you click a button and you finish the quest. You get access to pretty houses…and you’re glad about that, not because the house gives you a +2 to battling zombies, but because the house is pretty. You see all the game content at the begining, you don’t need to level up to reach the ‘endgame’. You can unilaterally declare victory and quit. It starts quickly…and ends quickly.
And the clones, the clones are self-aware, knowing their stupidity! They has to be…how else could my mob boss ask me to do a colonspocy for extra points, or how else could the CIA tell me to kill a human being just so that I can retrive his Rolex? That humor, however unintentionally, is something that I miss.
I don’t know if that’s really the “perfect MMORPG” everyone is looking for, but I honestly would prefer it rather than WoW 2. It’s not the friends that appeal to me in Zynga…it’s the MMORPG design itself.
I still side with Zynga and their ilk in this delimma. Maybe I might be those sympathizing with companies wanting to produce profitable games (because basic ECN101 talks about “supply and demand” and that people want to have fun; there should be no hiearchy for ‘fun’)…but that isn’t something that would appease the indies, etc. How about a different method.
This seems incredibly dismissive of the arguments against Zynga and disrespectful in tone to those who object to their practices. Zynga has paid out millions for copyright infringement, and faced a class action lawsuit for serving scams to users in exchange for in-game currency. They include mechanics in their games that are downright abusive, whose sole purpose is to cause addiction and punish players who are unable to play regularly. I respect that you enjoy social media games (though none of the things you cite as reasons are actually unique to them), but profitability does not shield Zynga against the charge of abusive and sometimes illegal business practices.
The problem is that Zygna is one company. You can’t just attack Zygna all the time, while ignore the tons of other companies just copying the same tried and true method (SGN). I can understand why you object to their business practices, but I always thought most objections is based on their actual game design and not on the business practices. I apologize for any disrespect I may have caused in my post though.
I admit that the mechanics I enjoy are not something unique to ‘social media games’, true. But the combination of mechanics, and the ability to quickly play the game without waiting too long does work in their favor.
There are two related issues, really — Zynga has a unique set of problems that set them apart, but many social media games are designed using principles similar to Zynga’s mechanics. So let’s set Zynga itself aside.
The two keys to building a successful social media game are virality and monetization.
Virality is how effective the game is at getting players to market to one another. The tactics to maximize virality exist to maximize profit at the expense of getting players to spam their friends. It’s not unlike Amway and other multi-level marketing techniques, only the point is simply to recruit players and maximize views. It’s benign, relatively, but annoys a lot of people.
Monetization is how effectively they can convert players into money. Part of this is microtransactions, where they sell benefits to players, but a lot of it is advertising. This isn’t itself a problem, but in order to maximize these two parts, they need to do two things.
First, they need to maximize page views. This means they need players to play as frequently and religiously as possible. If that meant just making a great game, that would be fine; but in fact that’s not what it means. It means they use behavioral training to get players to mechanically play through repeated activities that are the very definition of grind.
You mention one click quests eliminating grind; quite the opposite, the mechanics in Mafia Wars, for example, strip out all “gameplay” in favor of making Progress Quest with button pushing. The quests are just mathematical functions that convert one type of currency into another, and you press it repeatedly until you have enough experience to refill your energy and press more buttons, or go to the buy tab and buy new items, which will unlock new buttons.
The challenge level is near zero — you make choices, but they aren’t meaningful. This kind of activity is “fun” because it gives artificial rewards every time you press the button; it’s an addiction machine. Yet the exercise still feels meaningful because people are driven to prove they’re better at pushing the buttons than their friends. In some games, like Cafe World and FarmVille, you’re blessed with the chance to engage in creativity to display for your friends, which is great, but the ability to arrange your farm or restaurant is still earned through rote work whose only justification is another jolt of dopamine when stuff flashes on the screen and your points go up.
There is an idea behind all this is that by stripping down the crazy dressing that hardcore gamers put on their games, they make their games more accessible, and the success of companies like Zynga means that they’ve made games that are incredibly fun for vast numbers of people who wouldn’t otherwise play games. But any psychologist will be able to tell you that people wanting to do something in a game doesn’t mean it’s fun. They’ve stripped games down to the mechanics that make people play even when they’re bored, and amped them up to ensure players keep coming back and feel an insatiable need to advance, so they buy energy refills, unique items, and other advantages.
There are a lot of things I respect in the social media game space. My problem with the games that currently dominate the social media space is that they purify games to their most addictive elements, push them on masses of people, and call it a revolution because they’re able to turn a profit. Most games are about giving players a great experience; these games are about giving players a quick and easy sense of accomplishment, then luring them back for a second hit of meaningless advancement.
Lest you think that this is another form of idle distraction like any other game, consider two points.
First, many of these games are specifically designed to make it difficult to stop playing, or to play less frequently. FarmVille, for example, the single most successful social media game today, has crop rot — if you plant crops, then don’t return soon enough, your crops are lost. Not only that, but every one of your friends who looks at your farm will see rotting, ugly plants marring its appearance. This generates a very powerful feeling of obligation in the player to return as soon as possible after the crops grow. There is no other purpose for crop rot except to inflict stress on players who don’t return to FarmVille soon enough, and to get other players to comment to them about the rotting plants in their farm, obligating players to come back to the game. It is all about monetizing their player base by maximizing the frequency of their visits. They are sacrificing the well-being of their players, and the enjoyability of their game, to make it more addictive.
Second, the social media space and online games in general are already dangerously addictive, without stripping them down to only their most addictive elements as many of these games do. Just last Thursday, I attended a talk by Dr. Hilarie Cash from the Internet Addiction Recovery Program, in which she discussed the kinds of games that people are using to destroy their own lives. Almost without exception, it was online social games (including MMORPGs) where these behavioral rewards and grinding for prizes were a core mechanic. The most successful Facebook games work by carrying this to its ultimate expression.
Finally, players will defend their engagement in these games because they need to feel that their time spent in it is meaningful. That is how the rewards work. They give you some numbers that simulate progress and make you feel like you achieved something. You are smarter, more successful. You have more points than your roommate Bob. But just because many players will insist they are good and meaningful ways to compete with their friends doesn’t mean that the state of social media games today isn’t corrupt and broken. The genre is redeemable, but with Zynga as the poster child of successful entry into the social media games space, I am not hopeful that things will improve in the immediate future.
The problem with “Virality” for these ‘social media games’ is that players don’t get beniefts for actually referring people to play the game (as opposed to, say, the “eRepublik” thread). Instead, players only get the beniefts if you receive a ‘friend code’ from somebody already playing the game. That could include somebody who you convince to play the game, but frequently, it is someone already committed to playing the game, but wants your Friend Code (so he can receive beniefts too).
In essence, the game is rewarding you for finding people playing the game, rather than actually getting new people to play. These incentives are absolutely terrible for creating “virality”, as instead of players spamming non-players, players try to reach other players, in the hopes of receiving their Friend Codes in the process. The logical end result is that some sites have a huge list of Friend Codes, which you just type into the game to gain automatic friends. There is just no real connection to these ‘friends’ that makes the game viral.
Secondly, Monetization. It is true that the game gives out “rewards” when you play it (in the hopes of maxamizing their value), but I think you’re confusing the value of these “rewards”, as well as the “costs”.
Many games can be reduced to its most basic form of ‘resource managment’. For example, when you are completing a quest to kill an enemy, you spend bullets and HP to kill that enemy. Bullets because you have to kill the enemy, and HP to soak up the damage that enemy is doing to you. The so-called ‘fun’ comes in the “process of conversion”. You have a chance of spending 5 bullets and 3 HP one time, and 7 bullets and 0 HP the next time, or maybe only one bullet and 13 HP the third time.
Gameplay usually influences the ‘process of conversion’, and usually attempts are made to try and make this gameplay better…but the fact is, this gameplay takes some time to do. If done poorly, it can be seen as ‘grind’…and even if it is done well, it is still wasting the time of a player. There is no real ‘challenge’ associated in the ‘process of conversion’, since one can always re-attempt the quest if they fail. Sooner or later, that quest will get completed.
All the gameplay is really doing is delaying a person from completing the quest, just wasting a person’s time. The delimma becomes even worse when resources aren’t automatically re-generated; he has to do new quests in order to re-acquire those resources, and that would be grindy.
Removing the grind and the ‘gameplay’, and just keeping the ‘process of conversion’ seems better for those not having the time or the patience to actually go through the grind and gameplay.
I also mention another revelant example: converting money into income-producing properties. Most strategy games in fact have this sort of mechanic, however, gameplay does exist in the positioning of buildings and creating effective build orders. I do actually enjoy this gameplay, but many others may see it as too complex and pointless. Again, removing the ‘gameplay’, and keeping the ‘process of conversion’ seems like a better option. Except that some games like Farmville and Cafe World still keeps this positioning of buildings…so I’m pretty glad for that.
As for the reason to play the game, it seems that we view these ‘rewards’ differently. To you, the rewards make sense in terms of “relativeness”: you feel happy because you have more money than Bob. To me, the rewards make sense in terms of “absolutness”: you feel happy because you have $500,000, not because you beat Bob. The ‘reward’ you’ll get in playing these game is the joy of a better house, a higher income, etc. These are cosmetic rewards; but these are rewards nevertheless. If I receive these rewards, that does not detract in any way from anyone else who receive these rewards.
It’s irrevelant to my enjoyment how other people prosper, only how I prosper. If I had $500,000 in the game, I’d be pretty happy, even if you had $1,000,000 in the game. If I strive any higher, it’s not because I want to beat you, it’s because I want the $1,000,000 mark.
(It’s why I quitted these games after making $500,000…I have admittingly low standards for prosperity, and once I have such prosperity, that’s it. I won’t deny the addictiveness of such rewards, but that I personally see no reason to maxamize such rewards when living a comfortable life is alright.)
For the game to keep someone playing with these reward systems, they have to continually amp these ‘rewards’ up higher and higher, providing people with better and more prettier objects. This is a problem with other games too: MMORPGs have to worry about the endgame content, and single-player games have extra-bonus unlockable content in the hopes of increasing the hours somebody plays the game. I don’t think such a process would become sustainable in the long term; or at least, it’s not sustainable for me, who don’t quite see why becoming a Super-Mega-God is somehow more valuable than being a Mega-God.
But let assume competition is what drives these players to keep on playing. The Friend Code System doesn’t really lead to recruitment of new people; again, it’s already people who are already playing, but want new beniefts. I have no connection to my “friends”, other than the in-game benieft that I receive due to my “friends”. And worse, my “friends” are also receiving beniefts from ME. When a player boot up the game, and see a list of Level 120 people, that player will know he’s never really going to make it up to the top, and even if he did, he would have no place to go after that since Level 120 is the level cap. Any competition that would result would have to be locally organized competitions between real life friends, starting from Level 0 and ending at some unspecificed levels. Except that these competitions could more easily be organized with board games and mulitiplayer Apps.
(On a unrelated note, I think cooperation is more likely to foster addiction than competition. When you work together, you feel a bond, and that bond becomes unshakable. You can’t leave the game once you form a true friendship, you have to stay in the game to help your friend. If you are engaged in competition, you can leave your opponent and nobody would care. If you are engaged in cooperation, then you know that if you leave, the whole team suffers as a result. You don’t want to leave. This could explain the staying power of guilds, etc.)
I will agree with you on crop rot. I haven’t experienced it myself, as I never played Farmville, but I have to say that’s a terrible idea! I don’t believe in punishing the player, and quite frankly, I’m not sure I want to play a game that does this. I think rewarding players is the better way to keep them than just waving a cudgel at them. Altough a twisted person might want such rotted crops.
I will also agree on stopping addicition.
But I disagree with the need for players to justify the game time being meaningful. Since when is it meaningful to play single-player games?! It’s usually not. Sometimes, you may see some cool experiences, and I guess you may play them for those experiences alone (and not for the game being enjoyable)…but it won’t explain why people play other games instead that do not deliver such experiences (Solitare, Pinball, Pacman, Minesweeper, etc.). Sometimes, people just play games for fun, to just get the high score. There’s nothing wrong with games providing entertainment.
The hell does «metrics-based iteration» mean?
It means they are taking specific measurements of how users are using their game — average hours played, popularity of different features, retention rate per game, changes in use before and after different changes to the game — and using this to inform their ongoing design changes. For example, if their metrics show that players are twice as likely to return to the game within the next six hours if there is a penalty for not doing so, Zynga might conclude that “crop rot”, losing progress for not returning quickly enough, is an excellent mechanic that players like, and they could expand its use in games.
Although usually using statistics like this is very useful, and the ability to do this means you can rapidly improve the quality of your games, I hand-picked the above example to show the problem with taking this too far. Crop rot works by encouraging stress and addictive behavior in players, effectively reducing how fun the game is in exchange for higher usage. If your only goal is to maximize the performance of the game on those metrics, ensuring that players play the game religiously, then Zynga’s philosophy works; but if you want to make sure you’re a “good gaming citizen” and you’re making games to give the best entertainment and contribution to people’s lives, then this mechanical process has to be tempered with good design sense and a few guiding principles.
Well that helps, thanks.