Ever since Atari and Odyssey game consoles started appearing in consumer homes in the 1970s, a lot of very smart people have put their talents to use as game developers. Today, many of the people who would’ve been creating games like Pong or Telstar had they been born a generation or two earlier are now the developers behind some of the most popular social applications on Facebook, MySpace and other leading social networks.
One of the keys to success, as many app developers are finding out, is emulating the mechanics of game design from their more traditional predecessors.
Even if your app isn’t necessarily game-oriented, you can still learn valuable lessons by studying game mechanics. For instance, game developers have long relied on point systems and leaderboards to encourage usage, loyalty and what we in the web world call “stickiness.” Point systems, of course, are a crucial part of how Offerpal Media helps monetize social applications.
But it’s how you let your users use or redeem those points that is crucial to your monetization success. It’s important to give users good reason to want to spend those points, and hence good reason to need to earn more points. “Leveling up” — allowing users to advance to higher levels quicker and more easily — is one way to redeem points. You can also let users redeem points to upgrade their game player or profile, such as giving them a faster, more souped-up car in a racing game.
Another example of a game mechanic that has found its way into popular social applications is collecting, or the act of amassing stuff and showing it off to others. This is partly what makes apps like Send Pokemon and (Lil) Green Patch so popular — the desire to collect more Pokemon characters or to grow your personal Green Patch.
Amy Jo Kim, a Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience and in-demand consultant on game design, lists other game mechanics that can be applied to social applications, including:
- Feedback: by offering feedback you help accelerate mastery of the game to make it more fun and compelling.
- Exchanges: these structured social interactions can be explicit or implicit and encourage users to interact more deeply with their peers.
- Customization: allowing users to customize their experience increases their investment and creates a barrier to exit.
Here at Offerpal Media, we’ve studied game mechanics extensively and use them to help our application developer partners get the most out of their apps. We take a deep dive into your app and get to understand the nuances behind what motivates your users. Then we help optimize the user experience as it relates to the virtual economy, ensuring that you monetize your traffic as much as possible.
Got a story of how you’ve applied game mechanics to your app? Interested in hearing how we can help grow your virtual economy through game mechanics? Drop us a line or let us know in the comments.
Filed under: virtual economies | Tagged: game mechanics, Monetization, offerpal, virtual economy
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