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Lextant Fall Fry 2010 >
Columbus, Ohio
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Our observations of the world around us
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40,000 Participants…
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As the host of Design Forty, our 40 minute conference call turned podcast show, I occasionally reach into the far corners of my mind to dig up yummy design topics.
One of the trends I’ve been following lately is the mechanics of game design. Odds are you’ve played a game or two in your lifetime, admit it. People of my demographic know games well, we’ve grown up with consoles and online gaming. Our media is filled with its influence and innovation. Currently, game play is being studied on multiple fronts to better understand the human interaction in virtual worlds. Interaction is just the start, the real meaty data is all the behavioral and social aspects.
My special guest for this episode is Nick Yee a research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center. Nick has been pursuing his passion for understanding virtual worlds, specifically massively multi-player games for nearly his entire academic career. He’s conducted numerous research studies, authored a dozen or more papers, and recently completed his PhD.
One project in particular, the Daedalus Project, caught my eye about two years ago. The premise was fascinating and massively important- these people that play online games (like World of Warcraft), what do we know about them? Who are they demographically? What are their motivations inside these online worlds, why do they go there, play there, create what often seems like “work” there? Nick Yee and his colleagues have surveyed over 40,000 participants in online games like World of Warcraft. Go back and look at that number again… FORTY THOUSAND. Nice.
This episode of Design Forty is one of the most juiciest slices of research interview commentary you’ll ever listen to. Nick not only has the facts, he’s exploring the far reaches of these virtual worlds. He’s sitting on the ground work that every game company on the planet should be studying and have in their pocket when it comes to understanding all the required game mechanics to make engagement for humans work in a virtual world.
There’s a reason why games like EverQuest were called EverCRACK by its own fan base. Addiction, engagement, satisfaction, achievement, reward, competition, [insert human behavioral/social aspect here] and odds are Nick has stumbled across it. These learnings reach far beyond just games. They can be applied to brands, products and services.
There’s been few times I wanted to stretch beyond the 40 minute rule on this show, and talking with Nick was one of them.
Tune in and enjoy.