I read this interview with Playfish‘s CEO Kristian Segerstråle a while back. When asked one of the key challenges in the development of social games, he points to the importance of all elements in the game being more fun with friends. This is of course a rudimentary element of any social experience and seems so simple when its down on paper like that, but as we’ve been working through the design of Flutter I’ve come to appreciate just how easy it is to forget that no player action exists in isolation. This is equally:
- Enlightening – as this social aspect can add tonnes of competitive or collaborative depth to a mechanic that in isolation could be quite shallow
- Terrifying – when you realize how bullet proof your mechanics need to be in order to survive in a user driven economy. When friends are being ranked against each other based on your designs, you better be sure your rules and fair and reasonable.
Thinking about this reminded me of Jesse Schell’s book The Art of Game Design, and the lenses he uses to dissect his game designs. This rule has become a new lens for us:
- The Lens of the Social Platform
- Is your game more fun with friends?
- How does each mechanic motivate a collaborative or competitive desire within your player?
The subtleties of mechanics aside, these interactions become truly next level when they become (as Kristian says) a way for friends to communicate. Families are coming together over Farmville, Pet Society is keeping school friends in regular contact despite being scattered around the globe. This is why social games are so huge, because these simple playful interactions are given a whole new meaning and relevance when they help to define a relationship between real people.
What if we could take it even further and make the interactions, environments, themes and messages in the games meaningful themselves? We then start to tap the potential for these games to be a playful discussion of real world issues that the media has become so poor at letting us form our own opinions around.
But before we get too serious, it’s always most important that its fun! 
