There were several great comments on my post yesterday on gameplay relating to the data generated and the possible issues with keeping folks engaged. I believe the ideal application of gameplay in a site or service recognizes and works for three distinct groups: devotees, casuals and don’t-cares (I am obviously making these up - suggestions for better ones appreciated). Devotees are the ones who truly care about the gameplay and are on a mission to top a leaderboard or outplay another devotee. To keep devotees happy the gameplay must be fair and there have to be lots of distinct opportunities with new ones being introduced with some regularity. Foursquare, for example, has the concept of being the mayor of a location which clearly speaks to devotees. Casuals get a kick out of the gameplay but don’t care deeply about achievement. I consider myself a casual with respect to gameplay in TheSixtyOne. When something new pops up and says ‘hey you got some points’ it makes me smile and occasionally I will check something out to see if it results in points. Don’t-cares are either first time visitors or folks who simply want to use the service for its utility value. For that group it is essential that gameplay doesn’t get in the way of that. So there should be no learning of rules or other steps required to just get going. Most important though for the longterm success of a gameplay strategy is the interplay between the three groups. Ideally, the gameplay by the devotees and the casuals generates a ton of data that can be used to make the service much more useful for the don’t-cares. For instance, for TheSixtyOne the gameplay drives the music discovery. It does so with much richer signals than a simple across-the-board voting scheme would. Conversely, the much larger number of don’t cares should drive the economics of the service. That will allow a service to get big and sustain itself in a way that would be difficult based on devotees alone (keeping in mind that these are services that are aiming to have a utility outside the gameplay). P.S. Sorry for lack of links - written on BlackBerry
