You have a thing.  You have gone to great efforts to craft your thing over the last several years, and it is on average an enjoyable experience for your users.  You have not spent a great deal of time fleshing out the usage metrics for your thing, but you can at least track statistics on how many people are using it.  Your thing also has competitors, for you are not the only one to have realized that there is money to be made in the space your thing occupies.

Things are going along pretty well for your thing, and your user base is increasing in size.  However, you notice that you have some churn in your thing – that is that people are leaving your thing and trying other things.  Your  churn isn’t so great that your user base numbers are actually in decline, but you’d like to come up with a way to improve retention – to keep your thing sticky (this is what the business people tell you anyway).

In response, your team comes up with this very common solution.  Your users need a sense of identity within your thing.  You want them to think of your thing as their thing, to give them a sense of ownership over their corner of the space.   Since that identity only exists within the context of your thing, and they’ve become emotionally attached to it, it will become more difficult for them to leave.  That’s the theory anyway.

And actually it’s not a bad theory, the problem is that it’s easier to build a complex profile for your users than it is to get them to buy into it.  To build an emotional connection to that identity within your thing, the identity needs to be of value to the user, and largely that means social status.  People are loathe to leave something in which they’ve built cred, and if you look at every single example of a system where any kind of rich identity is keeping the users there, it’s because they’ve sunk time into increasing their status in that thing.

A simple example is the Motley Fool’s CAPS program.  CAPS is a system in which users declare whether a stock is going to move up or down, and are then given points based on how well their picks do relative to the market and the rest of the community.  High CAPS scores are highly coveted.  Users with high CAPS scores often have their opinions quoted by the Motley Fool staff, are given special invitations to exclusive newsletter programs, and have their picks bubbled to the top of any stock you look at in the system.  Notice that all of these things require a community of individuals to exist, to be able to interact with each other, and for there to be opportunities to elevate ones self above their peers and rewards for doing so.

World of Warcraft is an entire world of status.  Each new expansion creates new opportunities for showing off in a new way: Achievements, levels, PvP rankings, and so on.  Most of these channels collapse into a unified reward mechanism: equipment.  All the best looking, most exclusive equipment requires spending hundreds of hours in game, but once you have such a piece, you’re a walking advertisement for how badass you are.

The game is built in such a way that there’s no way around sinking the time to get this stuff, and every single random individual in the community who sees you is going to know it.

Even something like achievements on Xbox Live are a huge sink for some people.  This is the SIMPLEST form of status: simply a number.  The higher your number, the better you are.  This is much less relevant, however, if you’re not connected to Xbox Live and your friends can’t compare numbers with you.

Giving your users rich identity features is great – but inefficient.  If you’re going to spend years and dollars trying to improve retention from that angle, it’s infinitely better to spend them increasing the fidelity of the community as a whole.  People can build their own status systems given the ability and reason to interact with each other – its what we do all the time.  Rich identity should be a solution to the problem of having built a community so complex that it borders on a society or culture, but there’s insufficient ability to distinguish users apart.  Rich identity can pay dividends then, but if you’re a single man on a desert island, nobody cares how expensive your fine Italian suit is.

Four years later I’m working in 343 Industries, the studio that owns one of the kings of the most brutally competitive (from a business standpoint) genre currently available: First Person Shooters.

I was having lunch with my friend Dan Cook a few weeks ago, and he pointed out that this blog isn’t a game industry blog.  It’s a gamer blog.  That changes now.

It’s also been massively neglected for the past year.  That part probably isn’t going to change.  I just don’t have the motivation for blogging that I once did, but hopefully it will be updated on a semi-regular if rare basis.

A couple of weeks ago, we finally shipped the project I’ve been working on since incubation, the Avatar Editor on xbox.com.  This project involved several major hurdles, including integration with a system primarily designed for the Xbox 360 and making it available to ‘three screens’ (the third screen being Windows Phone 7), as well as coming up with a way to leverage 3D graphics in Silverlight, which doesn’t normally support it.  It’s been a great ride, and I’m proud to see it out and people enjoying it.

That said, I felt it was also time for a change.  The future of the Avatar Editor in good hands with the rest of my team, I’ve departed Xbox Live to join one of the internal MGS game studios called 343 Industries.  Looking at the world from a title perspective instead of a platform perspective is entirely different, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

To summarize:

• Steam is coming to the Mac platform, starting in April.
• Valve games, starting with Portal 2, will be simu-released on Windows, Mac, and 360
• Cross-play between Mac and PC is supported
• Purchasing for one platform can mean getting it for both (Steam Play).
• All existing Steam services will work for Mac
• Source Engine is also coming to Mac
• Source Engine code will cross-compile to either Windows or Mac, meaning less re-work in porting

Let that sink in for a minute.  This means a lot more than simply another way to buy Mac games, this is potentially the first step in a complete shift in the computer video game market.  About 60% of all AAA Mac games are published by one company: Aspyr.  That means that with a single business deal, Steam could be fronting a large portion of the entire Mac gaming catalog.  Steam is already easily the dominant digital distribution service for retail titles on PC, and could easily become the dominant force in Mac gaming too.  By making a bet on their future titles, they’re also saying that they see the Mac as a valid platform on it’s own, at least on par with Windows.

We’re moving to a world of digital distribution on the PC (Windows and Mac both).  The benefits to (transparent, non-obtrusive) DRM that becomes available on that channel make this a certainty.  To Valve, this isn’t just about opening a new market segment, this is about consolidating the retail channel under their house, and about continuing to provide further reasons why when you make a PC game, you should integrate with their user services and their social network.  If they’re successful, it means that they’ve abstracted away the OS.  The game will not be defined by what OS it runs on, but on what social network it’s tied to.  You won’t be a Windows Gamer, or a Mac Gamer, you’ll be a Steam gamer.

Excerpt:

In the beginning, there were the blades, and they were good. For years, the beloved blades lit up television screens everywhere. Although we loved them dearly, the blades had limitations that made it difficult to create new types of compelling content, to run promotional or community events, and to highlight whatever new things are going on in Xbox LIVE.

NXE changed all that. Obviously, there was a huge change in layout, moving from the blades to a grid format consisting of several rows of horizontal “channels,” each containing many “slots.” In the blades style dashboard, the layout was almost entirely baked into the console flash. NXE UI, conversely, is downloaded from a system called Dante.

In practice, what this sounds like to me is communicating with someone by editing a Google doc at the same time.

If this sounds kludgy to you – rather than brilliant – then congratulations, you have a critical mass of properly firing neurons.

Despite my skeptism, I decided to try it out.  I’ve been wrong before.  My impressions were thus:

1. Because HTML 5 (which will supposedly deprecate the need for silverlight and flash, it is to laugh) is not supported in Internet Explorer – the browser used by 65% of the world – and because google apparently can’t be bothered to make Google Wave work without it, the only way to use Google Wave in IE is to install the Chrome Browser Frame, essentially a browser within a browser that allows sites to switch out IE’s rendering engine and use Chrome instead, if they choose.  There are a million reasons why this is terrible.
2. At least when I was using it, it didn’t even work.  Friends of mine who have Wave can’t see Waves I invite them to, nor can I see waves they invite me to.  Waves I create are not even saved within my view.  This means that Google Wave currently does absolutely nothing at all.
3. In addition to installing a useless, market fragmenting plug-in to use their application which does nothing (or installing firefox, which is what I actually did), it apparently only lets me do nothing with people who are already on my google contacts list.  It will allow me to ‘start a new wave’ with these people (ficticiously), or to ‘ping them’.  Both of these things seem to do the same thing, only one of them opens a wave above the top nav bar, and one opens it in the right view pane.  Neither works.
4. Even if this did all work, the usage model is bizarre.  When I say it’s like communication via google doc, I mean that in the worst way.  It also means it’s non-linear, so you can go back up further in the conversation and add new threads, which means as someone trying to follow the conversation, you need to continually scroll back up for new bits that have appeared further up the conversation.  Wave has a control panel similar to what you might see on a VCR to play and rewind a conversation, which should scare you.

This is perhaps the worst product I’ve seen out of Google yet.  Lots of people create useless products, but it takes someone really special to create something that does nothing, and would be useless even if it did what it was supposed to, with the kind of financial backing that Google has.

I really don’t know what the hell is going on at Google these days.  Once upon a time they were releasing things that were extremely complex and useful, requiring deep understanding of algorithms, or positioning information in ways that were useful and had never been done well before.

The offerings these days are applications based on web-kit, leveraging ‘standards’ that haven’t been adopted in 2/3 of the browser marketshare, requiring anyone on the platform to get deeply in bed with Google, and providing no value whatsoever, unless in this brave new world confusion and failure are now valued monetary instruments.

Every year, Microsoft runs a competition called DreamBuildPlay.  Last week DBP 2009 was kicked off.  Things you should know:

• DreamBuildPlay is a contest in which you or your team (of up to 7) build a video game for the Xbox 360.
• Your video game needs to be built in XNA Game Studio 3.0, or 3.1 when it comes out in May.
• You get a free 12 month subscription to XNA Creator’s Club just for registering.
• Grand Prize Winner receives $40,000.  Prizes of $5,000 to $20,000 available for subsequent winners.
• If the judges really like your game (even if you’re not the grand prize winner), they may offer you a publishing contract for Xbox Live Arcade.
• The Dishwasher, an XBLA title released last week was a DreamBuildPlay winner in 2007.  Other DreamBuildPlay winners are in the pipe.
• No theme this year, so you can build any kind of game you want.  But it has to target the Xbox 360, not Windows.
• Submission Deadline is Aug 6, 2009 (My Birthday!)

If you’re an amateur or hobbyist game designer/programmer/artist and you have a wild idea for a new game, this is your chance to hunker down and get some eyeballs on what you can do.

Register here.

I know your deeds challenges players to survive over the course of months and years, trapped in a city dominated by nightmarish zombies. While of course concerned with the ever-present threat these creatures represent, the player will face long-term concerns like obtaining sources of food and water, building shelter from attack, and the overall survival of the human race.

Game Mechanics:

The player begins in a semi-randomly generated urban environment. A full day and night will take place over the course of 20 minutes, the proportions of which will depend on the time of year (i.e. More of that twenty minutes is day in the summer, less in the winter). During the day, the player enjoys relative safety from zombie attacks (at least outdoors), and those encountered tend to be lethargic and confused. Days are typically spent scavenging for supplies and building materials, constructing barricades and traps, and investigating scripted plot points.

Crafting

A crafting system exists in the game, in which players need to collect tools and materials to build and reinforce whatever position they’ve chosen as their base of operations. Stress is induced in the player as collecting these materials, building, and setting up the barricades and traps will take up more time than they have allocated in a given day, and the attacks that will occur all night wears down these defenses, requiring repairs the next day.

Sleep

Sleep also takes a major position in the game. If the player refuses to sleep, they will begin falling asleep while performing tasks, and generally perform miserably. Sleeping during the day is safer, but sacrifices critical time that could be spent building and scavenging. Sleeping at night means you may be rudely (and suddenly) awakened by a zombie chewing on your throat. Additionally, nighttime sleep is less restful, due to the loud noises going on outside. Going to sleep on a daily basis thus becomes a thing of terror, rather than relaxation.

Freeform

Unlike most survival horror games, there are very few scripted events in I know your deeds, beyond the seeding of background story information and certain key events which are linked to game timeline. The plot is developed by finding items which piece together a patchwork background story, eventually resulting in a method of destroying the zombies en masse. The player can ‘hole up’ in any building they choose, and reinforce it as they can. Items and buildings are pseudo-randomly generated in a manner that makes each game unique, but also consistently playable and interesting.

Difficulty curve

As time goes on, more and more of the framework of society begins to fail (for example, initially the electrical grid may still be working, but will eventually collapse), creating an increasingly difficult environment in which to survive, and forcing the player to continually be allocating time to deal with these situations, instead of ‘base building’. Additionally, as time goes on, the zombie threat becomes continually more intense and ferocious.

End Game

The game ends when either the player can no longer handle the zombie threat and is overcome, or the player gathers the information and materials necessary to build a device which will end the zombie threat.

1.  Gamers shall have the right to return games that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time.

2.  Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without defects that would materially affect the player experience.

3.  Gamers shall have the right that games will receive updates that address minor defects as well as improves game play based on player feedback within reason.

4.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games not require a third-party download manager installed in order for the game to function.

5.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games perform adequately if their hardware meets the posted minimum requirements.

6.  Gamers shall have the right not to have any of their games install hidden drivers.

7.  Games shall have the right to re-download the latest version of the games they purchase.

8.  Gamers shall have the right to user their games without being inconvenienced due to copy protection or DRM.

9.  Gamers shall have the right to play single player games without having to have an Internet connection.

10.  Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.

Given the recent announcements both by Stardock and Valve on the topic of DRM, I think there are arguably some adjustments to be made.  In the customer report from which that list was pulled, Stardock discusses the issue that the burden is not on publishers to provide mechanisms to sell and transfer digital titles.  I find this highly ironic considering one of the primary features of the new “Goo” system they announced is to do just that.  However, I agree, that the burden is not on the publisher, it’s on the distributor.

Video Games in the 21st century are not like games in the 90s.  Certainly to a large extent today, and ever more so going forward, games will be distributed through the internet, or will at least leverage the internet.  Games no longer exist in a vaccuum, on their own right, but are tied into a larger social platform such as Steam Community or Xbox Live.  As this process continues, it means that when users choose where to buy a game, it is no longer the choice of a commodity, buying the same game from Walmart or from Gamestop.  It’s not even the choice of interface (Do I want to play this game on my console, or on my PC).  When you purchase a game, you are contributing to your personal space within a social ecosystem.  It’s like choosing between MySpace and Facebook. 

What this means is, that for the first time, Distributor/Retailers are now also developers of a social network, with all the benefits and responsibilities thereto appertaining.

This has implications.

In the new world, the existence or lack thereof of a disc is irrelevant.  You are not purchasing a CD – you never were – you were purchasing the right to play that game.  With a CD (at least on a console), you have the ability to easily transfer, or loan your rights to another person.  Stardock is the first, as far as I’m aware, to easily enable this process on games that are purely digitally distributed.  Kudos to them, it will mean competitively, if this is a popular addition in the marketplace, that all the other players will likely have to follow suit.  Score one for the gamer.

I think there are some nuances potentially missing here as well though.  While a secondary market is important, there are also a lot of loans going on, which is not enabled by this system AFAIK.  There is a logical distinction between the person who owns the game, and the person who is currently playing (or allowed to play) the game that is disabled in a system where only the owner of the game is allowed to play it, using their account.  This prevents members of the same household from participating in their own social groups using a single instance of a game (but not at the same time), or from allowing friends to loan each other games, or for any kind of time-limited loans of titles to be made.  I’m not aware of any platform that currently supports these scenarios in any sophisticated way.

Because of the nature of these emerging environments – distributor as social network – it means that in the near future an oligopoly will form around a very small (1 or 2) number of distributors who can build our their community the fastest, with the best features.  Presently the barrier to entry to create a game distribution platform is relatively low, because game publishers treat these platforms as just another kind of retailer – if you’re able and willing to sell their games, and the publisher needs to do little or no work to get on your platform, they’re willing to do business with you.  Providing benefits like piracy protection and metrics (e.g. Steamworks) only sweetens the deal.  As users become ‘locked in’ to a specific network, where all their licenses exist, and all their friends play, and all their status symbols are kept, the barrier becomes more difficult, because in order to create a new platform, you need to shift a significant install base from an existing network.  There will be a Facebook/MySpace of PC-centric gaming platforms, and the race is on, but it’s not clear who that winner will be yet.