I am making my way through Jesse Schell’s excellent book, “The Art of Game Design.” Jesse is a professor at Carnegie Mellon, where he teaches and does research on game design. The book is a series of “lenses,” or aspects of game design to consider to make games more fun and compelling. This is a great approach to designing games and other products, as well as to enhancing creativity overall, which I will write more about in the future.
As I was reading the book, it reminded me of an experience I had with a game recently, which led me to consider whether a game can actually be too engaging, either by design or by accident, to the point where it is not in the interest of the game itself or the end user?
The game in question is Bejeweled Blitz, which I played recently for several weeks on Facebook. Bejeweled Blitz is an excellent lite version of the all-time favorite Bejeweled, except with B.B. the max game length is 60 seconds and they have added a competitive scoreboard where you see your friends’ high scores, which are diabolically reset to zero every 7 days.
Playing B.B. is a great way to take a quick break from work. The problem is, no matter how strong are your intentions to play only for 5 minutes, this often turns into 10 minutes or 15 or even 30… or more. As I said, this is a very addicting game. And not just for me–I saw many of my friends posting new high scores every week, so I knew a lot of folks were playing this game… a lot. Also several of them complained to me spontaneously they were playing too much and wanted to play less.
For me, the solution was simply to delete B.B. from my Facebook account to add an additional hurdle to playing the game, and I have not played it since. This got me thinking, designing a game to be highly addictive obviously has advantages for increasing the popularity and sharing of the game as well as the profitability. However, does it have disadvantages, not only for the players but for the game itself.
Case in point, Farmville. Farmville, from Zynga Games, is on its way to becoming the most popular Facebook game ever, with more than 35 million monthly users. I see lots of my friends playing on FB by posting achievements and invitations to join them–yet I am hesitant to start playing this game because I do not want to add another distraction to my day. My buddy Gagan Biyani tells me many of his friends have avoided buying an iPhone for the same reason.
I don’t have a good answer, and maybe there is not really a problem per se. However, it does seem worth considering whether a well-designed game should offer users some easy ways to moderate their own experience and playing of the game specifically to make the game less addictive or reduce compulsive playing–e.g., reduce the intensitiy of visual and sound effects, diminish or remove the competitive scoreboard, etc. This way they can continue to play and enjoy the game without overdoing it, and ultimately deleting it.
What do you think?
Three things:
1. One of the best introductions I ever received when I first joined this team. Our EVP introducing one of our devs, “This is Motts. He’s very dedicated and a go getter! Once, he stayed up till 4 a.m. to beat my Bejeweled Blitz score.”
2. I suppose not everyone has the gamer gene, but even those people have something that they’re crazy about, whether it is jogging every single day, or refusing to let anyone go faster than them on the road. We all have something we’re obsessed with! Luckily, ours is games, and not, like you know, anything illegal.
On iPhone’s Harbor Master game, I’m #67 globally on the Sturgeon Creek map! /flex!!
3. If you try FarmVille and decide it is too addicting, here are a couple of comforting stories:
- A couple of months ago, Someone send out an email from the EP’s desk to the whole building asking if anyone had an extra pair of pants. Five minutes later, the EP sent a follow-up email claiming he wasn’t the one that had sent the original. Hilarity ensued all week.
He figured out who had done it because those punks that work for him totally told on Someone! A week later during lunch, he told Someone that he would get back at her, and she won’t see it coming. She told him that would not be in his best interest. The EP has a son around 14 years old. In about 10 years when Someone is ready to start cougaring, he’d become her baby daddy. More hilarity ensued.
- A few weeks ago, Someone took their producer’s phone hostage until the hostage negotiations were met later that day at a neutral place (Starbucks). It was glorious!
When I realized I was becoming addicted to FarmVille, I decided to express it the only way I knew how. This is my farm: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2797233&l=f7e8dcf196&id=658277422
Parizad, I agree it is a great thing to design a game that inspires so much passion that users stay up until 4am to beat their friends and co-workers… and/or steal their office equipment.
The trouble comes when they do that every week or every night–and never get any work done!