Make Multiplayer More Fun: Designing the Social Environment

Lecturer: Bill Fulton, Ronin User Experience

This talk’s three central points are:

1. Multiplayer fun = gameplay fun + social fun. Yet social fun often seems neglected.
2. Like gameplay fun, social fun can only be maximized through intentional design
3. Designers can gain insight & guidance from the field of social psychology

The goal of this talk is to provide evidence for these points and discuss the impact of neglecting social fun in a multiplayer setting, and how social psychology can be used to improve the social fun of a game. Brief summaries of those three points are given below.

Multiplayer fun = gameplay fun + social fun

The point of this equation is to highlight that the fun of a multiplayer experience varies widely by the social experience. Playing with your circle of friends will make you reluctant to stop playing, whereas playing with a pack of obnoxious pre-teens may make you quit playing. While the same gameplay fun is available in both situations, the social fun--or social annoyance--can either dramatically improve or sour the overall multiplayer experience.

Social fun can only be maximized through intentional design

Like gameplay fun and real life, social fun online doesn't 'just happen.' Just as it would be naïve to believe that tossing a few guns & enemies into a level would result in fun gameplay, maximizing social fun requires more than checking off the boxes of internet connectivity, chat system and buddy list. The best chance to create social fun is through the design process--define the desired social experience and design features that are likely to achieve those goals.

Designers can gain insight & guidance from the field of social psychology

Human social behavior is both subtle and complex, which makes predicting and influencing social behavior tricky. Furthermore, social behavior is difficult to test and iterate, as it requires access to new groups of strangers to play repeatedly over time. Despite of these constraints, social design need not be a shot in the dark; it can be based on principles from social psychology.

Shadowrun (PC/Xbox 360) is used as a case study for social psychology informing social design. Seminal studies from social psychology on intra- and inter-group harmony (Sherif, 1956; Aronson & Bridgeman, 1979, ) led to a non-traditional design of economic and statistics systems. Those systems which contributed to a strong team feel to the game, and a healthy (but civil) cross-team competition.

Intended Audience: Developers of online games that want to learn how designing the social environment of their game - designing according to principles of social psychology - can make their game stickier while creating and maintaining a healthy culture in their community.

Prerequisites: No specific technical knowledge is necessary. However, attendees with a background in social online games (specifically MMOs and FPSs) will find the examples most relevant.

Format: Lecture

Track: Design

Date/Time: Wednesday, 9:00 AM

Room: Seaport

Fulton - Make Multiplayer More Fun.zip
http://www.roninux.com/pubs.html