Group items tagged

gotta love kids!

very popular amusement game may have educational value

This game seems to be very similar to a popular farm game in China. The different types of motivation (such as coin rewards) remind me of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations mentioned in today's class.

The cover of the NYTimes magazine section: "The Hyperaddictive, Time-Sucking, Relationahip-Busting, Mind-Crushing, Power and Allure of Silly Digital Games." How about a flood of letters about serious games in response?

This is a really interesting article about the story of one of the most popular web-based games of last year. The interesting part is that the creator of the game designed it as a joke, trying to poke fun at other wildly popular games like Farmville. He made the game as simple as possible, compelled users to log in regularly to "Click a Cow," and had them earn points when other people clicked their cows. The message was supposed to be, "these types of games are manipulative in their tactics to keep people playing, and they are mindless and painfully stupid." However, his design stumbled on something that people really enjoy, and as a result, people didn't get that the game was meant to be a joke, and it became a huge hit. I think this shows that flow-inducing actitivities, or ones that keep the user engaged and provide quick feedback, are highly desirable for users.

Pigs in Space: Some data on this popular (not to me) FB app, which is owned by Zynga, a gaming concern valued at $1 billion last year.

In 3 out of 5 of these games users work on quest-like activities - Wow is #5; Mafia Wars is #4 & Farmville is #1. The other 2 resemble typical socialization when playing a game in person - "bragging rights" and playing a board game. They all seem to touch on at least one of the 3 components from Ryan & Deci - relatedness, competence, and/or autonomy.