{"id":184,"date":"2011-10-18T12:03:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T16:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/?p=184"},"modified":"2011-10-18T13:23:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-18T17:23:33","slug":"austin-gdc-recap-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/?p=184","title":{"rendered":"Austin GDC recap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This was my second year at Austin GDC and again, it was fantastic. Austin GDC feels like GDC used to when it was held in San Jose, there is little press, no games reveals, no glitz and glamour. Just developers coming to meet, network and share their experiences and knowledge. It&#8217;s a great places to learn something new or at least remind yourself about the things you are supposed to keep in mind, but have maybe forgotten throughout the previous year of busy development schedules.<\/p>\n<p>Every year I like to recap the talks I attended so I can share them with others and not forget myself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Year in Social Games 2011 &#8211; Steve Meretzky &amp; Dave Rohri<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong>I was paying much more attention to mobile in 2011, so this was a good chance to catch up. Thee were some really excellent takeaways from this talk.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Change is slowing down<\/li>\n<li>The long tail dominates &#8211; Old games dominate the top 20 (by Zynga). On Facebook, as opposed to consoles, games as a service is the path to a top game. Any new game requires a heavy commitment to operations.<\/li>\n<li>Facebook games have now entered the age of high quality, the age\u00a0of blue ocean is over. The\u00a0MVP (minimum viable product) quality bar has increased greatly. Any new games must have a rich feature set, high polish, good FTUI and balance.\u00a0To escape this developers would need to release a very innovative game (i.e. a game with no competitors)<\/li>\n<li>What is most effective updates for\u00a0existing\u00a0games? Adding locations to base games,\u00a0resetting currency\u00a0and\u00a0introducing\u00a0new\u00a0mechanics.\u00a0Frontierville\u00a0added\u00a0whole\u00a0new\u00a0games in this manner.\u00a0This strategy has little\u00a0impact\u00a0on user decline, since it is an expansion\u00a0for\u00a0hardcore\u00a0players, but it creates more monitization\u00a0opportunities\u00a0for big spenders (i.e. whales).<\/li>\n<li>Casuals invasion! This seems like an easy win: overlapping demos and familiarity, good response to user acquisition campaigns and short gameplay is part of design. However, not many big successes. Only Popcap was a big winner.<\/li>\n<li>More &#8220;hardcore&#8221; players are coming to the platform which means competition as a core mechanic is becoming more common. ArmyAttack, empires and allies, social empires, city of might. War is profitable and breeds whales! Overall, players are getting more\u00a0sophisticated and can manage more complex mechanics.<\/li>\n<li>Rise of IP &#8211; Are social games immune to IP power? Monopoly, Smurfs, Sims\u00a0is\u00a0biggest\u00a0hit.\u00a0Does\u00a0it\u00a0help\u00a0or\u00a0hurt? It makes\u00a0user\u00a0acquisition\u00a0easier and content is supplied. However, added\u00a0costs,\u00a0business\u00a0dev, royalties, approval, pressure\u00a0to\u00a0release.\u00a0IP gets people\u00a0in\u00a0but\u00a0does\u00a0not\u00a0keep\u00a0them<\/li>\n<li>Text RPGs &#8211; all declining so they have evolved, a good example is Crime City. A number of examples like monster collection or light dungeon crawlers have emerged but are not getting good numbers. \u00a0ISO RPGs work best. This is the genre to watch for evolution over the next year.<\/li>\n<li>Social games are a hard road. There have been big failures by otherwise successful companies. PlayFirst games performed very poorly. Big Fish games also. Pogo foray also very weak. Even big game companies like Sony. Why? <em>Making social games is\u00a0really, really hard.<\/em> It requires a huge commitment.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Flash 3D Games &#8211; Lee Brimlow<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Good demonstration by lee Brimlow about Flash&#8217;s new 3D\u00a0capabilities. Very exciting tech.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation of Players &#8211; Scott Rigby<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This was the talk of the show for me. For the past couple of years there has been a\u00a0pendulum\u00a0swing about using\u00a0extrinsic\u00a0motivators. At first they were going to save the world and then 2 weeks later they we the devil incarnate. \u00a0Scott Rigby has a good middle of the road way to handle them.<\/p>\n<p>There are good and bad\u00a0extrinsic\u00a0motivators. Bad ones will net gains in the short term but fall off quickly. Good ones will sustain\u00a0engagement\u00a0over the long term. The definition between good and bad lies in whether the motivators are addressing <em>needs<\/em> or <em>wants<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There are 3\u00a0universal\u00a0<em>needs<\/em> for people:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Relatedness &#8211; connection with others. This can be real people, teams or even NPCs.<\/li>\n<li>Automony &#8211; the ability to figure things out on your own or control your own destiny. Games should create\u00a0opportunities\u00a0for actions and communicate\u00a0futureopportunities. A good example if players can think &#8220;What if?&#8221; about your game.<\/li>\n<li>Competence &#8211; displaying mastery. Most\u00a0common\u00a0example, visceral feedback in games (heads blowing off) but non-violent feedback is just as powerful. It just needs to make the player feel like they dominated.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>So how does this relate to\u00a0extrinsic\u00a0motivators? If you are fulfilling one of these needs\u00a0through\u00a0your motivators, thats good.<\/p>\n<p>Extrinsic\u00a0motivators can be bad when they are controlling or\u00a0purely\u00a0external. Calling motivators &#8220;external&#8221; can be tricky. Does this mean &#8220;internal&#8221; motivators are better? Not always. If you motivators are building guilt, shame or pressure, you have a bad motivator. Avoid creating feeling of &#8220;Should to&#8230;&#8221; or &#8220;Have to&#8230;&#8221; in your players.<\/p>\n<p>Extrinsic\u00a0motivators can be good if they connect to the 3\u00a0universal\u00a0needs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Popcap keynote &#8211; John Vechey<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Interesting but reading Black Swan has skewed my perspective on success stories.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why We Buy &#8211; Nikolaus Davidson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Davidson&#8217;s talk last year was far and away my favorite talk so I was very excited to see him speaking\u00a0again. This year he built on his\u00a0previous\u00a0talk about economic\u00a0choices\u00a0and delved deeper into how people make purchasing\u00a0decisions.\u00a0Again, people are not logical and are\u00a0predictably\u00a0irrational.<\/p>\n<p><em>When we buy, we match an\u00a0opportunity\u00a0with an emotional motivation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There 3 types of transactions: the gain\/loss, the deal and the gamble. It&#8217;s important to recognize wich one you are presenting to players and <em>if they perceive it correctly<\/em>. Perception of the transaction is everything. You must be careful not to cross your trasactions.<\/p>\n<p><em>Loss\/gain <\/em>&#8211; this is an event, can be earned or random. Keep in mind lessons from previous talk &#8211; losses hurt more than gains, threshold of triviality, etc.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Deal <\/em>&#8211; exhange, buying stuff.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Gamble <\/em>&#8211; hope for gain but not expect it. This can be very profitable but people are TERRIBLE at perceiving randomness and easily fall into gambers\u00a0fallacy.<\/p>\n<p>Now we delve into a bit of evil, how do we craft these emotional motivations to our favor?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anchoring &#8211; people automatically anchor to numbers (higher anchor = higher cost)<\/li>\n<li>Manipulate\u00a0perception\u00a0(% of savings,<\/li>\n<li>Red herrings (purposely\u00a0bad deals for the users to &#8220;figure out&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Chaos in Motion &#8211; David Calvo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chaos indeed. This was either the rambling of a madman or the topic went way over my head.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marvel Super Heroes &#8211; Jay Minn &amp; Jason Robar<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This was such a great talk! They are using Unity 3D and Smartfox\u00a0just\u00a0like we are for Exonaut.<\/p>\n<p>Since they are in the kids market, I like seeing\u00a0their\u00a0design tenants:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kids want to be the hero. Let them BE the hero, no one cares if they see 4 Wolverines.<\/li>\n<li>Kids want to\u00a0succeed! Failure is impossible but a range of successes are possible (i.e. graded)<\/li>\n<li>If it&#8217;s too easy for your testers, it&#8217;s still too hard<\/li>\n<li>Kids love\u00a0repetition<\/li>\n<li>Kids love direction<\/li>\n<li>15 minute play session<\/li>\n<li>Rapid\u00a0level progression<\/li>\n<li>Small delta between high and low-level players<\/li>\n<li>Invisible match-making<\/li>\n<li>ALL CLICKS SHOULD BE AWESOME!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I loved this bit they had about co-play, &#8220;Solving the Candyland problem&#8221;, i.e. making a game that parents can play with their kids that is not painfully boring for parents.<\/p>\n<p>Again the term &#8220;MVP&#8221; came up, ship the minimum viable product and then iterate on it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another great conference. I really feel energized and ready to get to work on our next game, whatever that is \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was my second year at Austin GDC and again, it was fantastic. Austin GDC feels like GDC used to when it was held in San Jose, there is little press, no games reveals, no glitz and glamour. Just developers coming to meet, network and share their experiences and knowledge. It&#8217;s a great places to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gdc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.bulletpattern.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}