The Social Interaction Mechanism of Hardcore MMOs & Casual Social Games
By Date: 02-21-2012 Views:
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Current designer/producer of hardcore strategy MMOs at Kabam and former designer/producer of casual social games at Zynga, Matt Ricchetti wrote an article on Gamasutra about what makes social games social. It expounds the different social mechanics between the success of casual social games and hardcore MMOs.
As we known, the common contributor to the success of casual social games and hardcore MMOs is their unique social mechanics. Matt summarized them as follows:
Casual social games:
- Inviting "neighbors," sending gifts, visiting your friends' playspaces
- Asynchronous play with asymmetrical, loose-tie relationships
Hardcore MMOs:
- Forming parties and joining guilds, chatting with guild members, coordinating real-time group battles
- Synchronous play with emphasis on symmetrical relationships that build strong ties
Take League of Legends and Kingdoms of Camelot as cases, the article analyses synchronous vs. asynchronous, strong tie vs. loose tie, factions vs. guilds, factions vs. neighbors, concludes that as the online game landscape becomes less black and white, social innovation requires more work. Think it reversely, we learn that MMOs aslo needs more social innovation.
Read the full article on Gamasutra.
