Games should have a guided path

I had an hour to spend today at the jury's public discussion of the Stockholm based game education programs of FutureGames. We listend to jury members from DICE (Battlefield), Teotl (The Ball), Lionhead (Fable) och Frictional Games (Amnesia)who were about to elect a winner of the final exam projects. I have not yet had the chance to play the games but the discussions aroused a few thoughts.

The first game discussed was a rhythmical batting game compared to Patapon, but the jury members could not get through it and felt there should be more instructions to it. I spontanously thought about the target group of such a game and finally the designer of the game asked the jury if they had ever played this kind of game before, and no, they had not. A game jury should probably be put together out of different gaming types to be fair I guess. No matter how great each and everyone is in their field, the mix in the jury is crucial.

The second game discussed showed this even more. Someone got disappointed by being alone in a forest while someone appreciated the well rendered pine trees as an experience all alone and yet someone else wanted to find more objects and actions to explore.

Several of the games presented lead to the discussion about whether a game should have a guided path or not. The conclusion was that you always need rewardings for your actions, some hidden and subtle progression and that every action needs to get clear response to make the game meaningful. I thought about Sims where you need to make people fall in love to get children and you need to get children to be able to make them go to school and so on. It's both rewarding and making a path of progression. (as is life)

Well finally I thought about how also fantastic but yet junior game developers tend to concentrate on the core game and forget the same thing as for example e-commerce and communities. They fail to quickly introduce the game functionalities to the user and add more by time. They don't make clear why the user should want to come back soon, or want to go on to the very end of the game. No matter how great a game idea is it is more fun if people will want to play it... a lot.

Looking forward to work with the students on this this fall.

Foursquare turns NY to a giant game of Risk

The board game Risk, in which players maneuver plastic armies on a http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmap in order to achieve “world domination,” has firmly occupied one corner ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff nerdom for about fifty years. Foursquare stationed itself in another more tech-oriented corner of that same kingdom about two years ago. Now, at last, the two categories of nerdom meet.

“World of Fourcraft” uses Foursquare and Google Maps APIs to turn New York City into a giant game of Risk.

Read the post on Mashable

Sticking out is more fun than standard

I've been having the thought before and today I read about manrepeller.com in Swedish Elle. It's about the most fashion savvy girls who look crazy to many of us, but who are most confident that they are the very early adopters of the new styles and that in time for the next season everyone will know just how savvy they are.

These girls don't dress up for men. Men think they dress ugly, strange and weird. In general girls should preferably dress sexy, pretty, girly, ordinary - comprehensively. They should dress up for men and not for some else reason.

The fashion savvy girls don't care for that, they care for codes of knowledge that only other fashion people know of. In many cases it's an act of self confidence, fun, expertize and anti-standard. There are of course those who become slaves to this community too, but not original and sticking out is more fun than not standard and easier to get out of than the habit of always pleasing men.


Prada 2011

Company culture close to a Cult

Next when reading Tony Hsieh’s book I’m wondering about how it is to have a family at home and friends from before when working at Zappos. It’s great to love to go to work, to feel that you have friends there who care for you and who support you, but as a parent of three kids I wonder how you cope with the other cultures that you must be a part of – the small communities of every school and daycare that your children belong to? It feels quite important to actively take part in your children’s school when parents arrange mingles and activities. If you don’t your kid is soon an alien to school, friends and to you. So how do you fulfill your parental role while being a part of a culture as Zappos, asking you to check in your full time, ethics and soul into the company?

Or maybe it’s a culture created by and for dinkies or at least childless employees and there should be other companies in the society building culture by, with and for parents… and everyone else who is not willing to check in his soul to a company.

It is much more fun to go to work when believing in and embrasing the goals and when being a part of the company, but at the same time it’s easy for this kind of culture to become a cult – a religion - creating new goals and ethics over time that everyone follows out of pure social validation. In my mind it is sound and maybe even human to be precautious to that kind of traps. At the same time as I adore the described Zappos culture and philosophy, it is always scary when groups become strong and powerful. Powerful cultures got power over the group and over others.

More thoughts from Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness

Soulsearch and Risktaking deliver happiness

There are some parts from Delivering Happiness that I'd like to keep close to heart and that I hope that I will be in position to apply on my own employees sometime. It's Tony Hsieh about him starting to put the company’s core values on paper:

I thought about all the employees I wanted to clone because they represented the Zappos culture well, and tried to figure out what values they personified. I also thought about all the employees and ex-employees who were not culture fits, and tried to figure out where there was a values disconnect. (s155)

I find this a wonderful way to review oneself, the one you want to be and the one you are.

And about one of the company’s final core values Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded:

We want everyone to not be afraid to take risks and to not be afraid to make mistakes, because if people aren’t making mistakes then that means they’re not taking enough risks. (s168)

I love taking risks, and I love people taking risks. How boring everything would be with only safers.

Bad stories are making you even less successful

Reading Zappo CEO Tony Hsieh’s ’Delivering Happiness’ most of his philosophy sounds sound and impressive, but there are also some things that fret my mind.

Your culture is your brand

It’s what we often believe and say in this time of transparency, and I guess we who don’t run a huge organization also embrace it while those who do run an organization often seem scared and unprepared. It’s what would give power to the people. The idea is that any employee or customer can spread a negative experience to thousands of others and the effect would be disastrous.

But we are not there. Customers can repeatedly report a bad experience of a service and yet, if the pressure from friends, media or oneself is big enough, they keep coming. For how long I don’t know, but the companies who don’t put the user experience before the money are many – and they stay alive. In my mind they would probably have been far more successful if they set the values the other way around, but yet, they can be mighty as it is.

Even more evident is that it is still very hard for employees and ex employees to spread the word of a negative company culture. It just doesn’t look good to slander your employer. As an employee you look disloyal, disturbing and obstinate. As an ex employee you appear phased out, bitter and gossiping. In both situations you are probably looking for a new position and would much rather be associated with adjectives such as change forward, courageous and innovative – so you better just say something like I cannot fulfill my personal goals within this organization.

It still feels as people just don’t like to think of big successful companies as bad organizers – how could they be successful if they are not doing it right all the way? Nobody want to hear of the bad stories.

Kärlek ettor och nollor

Jag var på kärlek ettor och nollor i veckan, inbjuden som del i en jury i en speltävling på högskolan i Karlshamn. Vi träffades sex deltagare från olika delar av arbetslivet för att enas om några vinnare som skulle belönas med ett stipendium för att få chansen att producera färdigt sina spel under sommaren.

Det var snabbt tydligt att det var tur att vi inte behövde utse en vinnare allena utan kunde ge fyra olika projekt den gyllene chansen. Vi hade under månaden som gick tittat igenom tolv olika projektidéer, några med prototyper, andra utan, och värderat dem utifrån innovation, game play, grafik och möjlighet att slutföra spelet på 10 veckor. Kvar hade vi nu de sex spel som vi gemensamt hade gett högst värdering, och skulle välja bort två av dessa. Tur var det, för jag tror det hade varit omöjligt att komma överens om en vinnare med flera 25-30-åringar i teamet. Jag är både glad och ledsen över att jag inte snart ska fylla trettio. Ibland är det bra att inte se några alternativ, utan tro benhårt på det man tvärsäkert vet är sanning, men ibland är det oerhört frustrerande och energikrävande. För det mesta är jag lyckligt vetande om att det är underbart att lära sig nya saker varje dag.

Ja, vi kom i alla fall fram till att två kommersiellt tydligt gångbara klassiker och två innovativa mer osäkra kort alla kommer att spendera sommaren med att förverkliga sina spel. Jag känner mig rätt säker på att vi får se både Bloody Trapland, Morphball, Sjörök och The Shine of a Star på Steam till hösten.

Vi visste förstås inte ett dyft om varken projekten eller deras grundare, men kanske var The Shine of a Star allra roligast att se vinna då det var två förstaårsstudenter. Hade jag varit dem hade jag blivit grymt peppad och lagt ännu mer fokus på att bli en sjukt bra speldesigner under nästa år på skolan.