“We used to give people 10 horseshoes when they start the game – then we did a little test of, ‘Well, what if we gave 15?’ We thought that maybe the would help them get over the hump of building the cabin because we noticed that people who make it to finishing the cabin were more likely to stick and keep coming back. We tried 15 horseshoes and sure enough we had a substantial uptick in early retention – in people getting to the cabin and therefore sticking as players. In that way, essentially, it made the game more fun.” – That’s the lead creator of FrontierVille, Brian Reynolds, telling Industry Gamers why caring about the metrics of how people play their games is a plus, not some anti-fun, accounting-as-game-design misery.
Zynga Protests That Its Games Are Creative, That Numbers Breed Fun
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5 responses to “Zynga Protests That Its Games Are Creative, That Numbers Breed Fun”
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MaxDestructoI love CityVille, it’s more fun than Sim City was and it’s cute having real friends and family as neighbours and creating a nice town. Not all gaming has to be ‘tr00’ gaming, so to speak.
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ColinI only play their mafia wars game, and they’re getting increasingly stingy with that game. Near impossible to get loot now in Brazil, and the full energy packs were switched off the other day ‘temporarily’. Ridiculous.
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