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心理学角度分析社交游戏魅力所在

发布时间:2011-06-09 17:20:58 Tags:,

游戏邦注:本文作者为Dierk Schaefer,文章从心理学角度分析社交游戏为何如此受玩家追捧。

研究社交游戏蕴含的心理学原理通常是从个人经验着手。

这听起来是否有点耳熟呢?有些日子我甚至都不想查看工作安排,更别提处理其中任务。那么为何我会倾心虚拟任务清单,天天在Facebook准备菜肴,收割庄稼,挖掘财富呢?

我无法对社交游戏置之不理,我是学心理学的,我的生活、工作都和社交游戏、社交媒介以及电子游戏业密不可分。但我无法道出其中原因。

我玩的多数Facebook游戏都是现实世界的再现,而在真实生活中我对这些活动根本毫无兴趣。Facebook游戏平台究竟魅力何在,让我每天都会登陆数次完成这些无需动脑的点击任务,维持那设有咖啡厅、农场、小岛、宠物、伙伴和大城市的虚拟世界?我完全可以利用这些时间去做其他事情。

如果你认为这不过就是社交游戏开发商小小的尝试,那么请再仔细想想,Facebook游戏开发商显然握有我们玩家所不知的诀窍,因为这是由于这些令人匪夷所思的原理,社交游戏商业模式和玩家忠诚度如今成绩斐然。这些开发商思想敏锐、见解独到,反应迅速。各个行业都应享受这份幸运。所以我试图探索社交游戏蕴含的心理元素,分享才是王道。

why social games from friskymongoose.com

why social games from friskymongoose.com

我想起些有关社交玩家的心理学理论。有些是心理学原理,有些来自个人经验。详细内容如下:

* 审视现实——我们之所以体验社交游戏是因为我们能够经历现实生活从未体验过的活动。我们可以粗略完成现实生活中的工作任务(游戏邦注:就像生活中没有足够时间那样)。但在短短几分钟里,我们其实能够收割数英亩的庄稼,重新装饰9居室的房屋、建立庞大的城市公园,虚构10道菜,招待饥饿的消费者。我们处于主导地位,我们能够花费很小精力就完成重要任务,实现重大目标。

* 金星综合症——在社交游戏中,我们赚取积分,通过采取行动晋升新等级。好友伸出援助之手,帮助我们赢得特殊奖项和奖励,奖励能在游戏中兑现,向所有Facebook好友展示。现实生活何时能出现这种情况?现实生活中,我们无法通过完成琐碎任务赚取金钱,没有晋升等级和排行榜。社交游戏融入童年时期的奖励和激励观念,就是所谓的金星综合症。

* 炫耀权利——“如果一棵大树从森林倒下,周围无人,那么它还会发出声响吗?”当我们获得打破个人和全球记录的高分时,我们希望别人也认为在3局制的1分钟回合里获得如此多的分数是很困难的。或者当我们在Facebook建造最好的农场或城市时,我们希望同好友分享,让他们知道自己是如此有创造性,如此有趣或者疯狂。如果我们无法同好友炫耀,那么在《宝石迷阵闪电战》中赢得40万积分也就不那么有趣了(游戏邦注:而且没有共享排行榜,这我们就无法证明自己并未弄虚作假)。

* 逃离现实——这是种逃避。社交游戏让我们能够快速脱离现实生活。这个法则,Zynga和Playfish之类的开发商已经试验多次,而且屡试不爽:提供给玩家有趣、有吸引力的内容,供玩家观赏和争取,配上悦耳背景音乐,且不断提供新道具,让玩家装饰自己的虚拟空间,而这通常是我们在现实生活中无力或无法亲自体验的活动。这让我们忘却烦恼,短暂掌控世界。开发商只要这样就能够轻松囊括众多忠实粉丝。体验社交游戏还能帮助我们重新集中注意力,创造性思考问题。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Soapbox: Devouring the Social Game Buffet – Why We Play

By Dierk Schaefer

Pondering the psychology behind social gaming usually starts with personal experience.

Does this sound familiar? I don’t even want to look at my to-do list some days, much less tackle it. So why is it that I look forward to a virtual to-do list of serving up dinners, harvesting crops and digging for treasures on Facebook each day?

Looking back on some of the things I said (and didn’t say) in “Why do we play social games?” I can’t seem to let it go… My degree is in psychology. I live, work and basically breathe social games, social media and the video game industry. Yet, for the life of me, I can’t explain it.

Most of the Facebook games I play are straight-up simulators of real world activities that I have no interest whatsoever in doing. What is so enticing about the Facebook gaming platform that makes me want to perform mindless point-to-click tasks several times a day, just to maintain my virtual game world full of cafes, farms, islands, pets, gangs and big cities? I assure you there are dozens of other things I could do with all those minutes of my life.

If you think this is a cheap stab at social game developers, think again – in fact, Facebook game developers are obviously privy to knowledge the rest of us aren’t, because for such unexplainable phenomena, social gaming business models and loyalty rates are through the roof. They’re smart, savvy and quick-to-action. Every industry should be so lucky.  I’m just searching for answers behind the psychology of social gaming, and it only makes sense to share.

I’ve conjured up some philosophical theories about social gamers. Some have been tossed around before, some have psychological backing, and some simply come from personal experience. In the end, it’s probably a combination of all of these and more:

* Reality check – We play social games because we can do things we’d never do in real life. We can barely scratch the surface of our real life to-do list – seems like there are never enough hours in the day. But in a few short minutes, we can virtually harvest acres worth of crops, redecorate a 9-bedroom home, build an elaborate city park, and cook up 10 new delicious dishes to serve to hungry customers. We are in charge, and we have the ability to complete big tasks and achieve big goals, with little effort invested.

* Gold star syndrome – We earn points and level up for almost every action we take in a social game. Our friends pitch in and help us earn special prizes and rewards to redeem in-game and showcase to our worldwide web of Facebook friends. When does that happen in real life? We don’t typically earn money for doing chores in the real world. There are no levels and no scoreboards to top. Social games feed into childhood ideas of reward and motivation – aka, gold star syndrome.

* Bragging rights – “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it…” When we earn a new high score that breaks personal and network-wide records, we want someone else to acknowledge how hard it was to score that many points in a 1-minute round of match-3. Or once we’ve built the best farm or city on Facebook, we want to share it with our friends and show them how creative, funny or crazy we can be. It’s not nearly as much fun to score 400k+ in Bejeweled Blitz if we can’t brag to our friends about it (and have a shared scoreboard to keep us honest).

* Calgon, take me away – It’s an escape. Social games give us a quick getaway from real life. The formula has been proven millions of times over by companies like Zynga and Playfish: Give us something fun and interesting to look at and strive for, spruced up with some inconspicuously catchy tune that repeats on loop. Constantly give us new items to decorate our virtual spaces in ways we couldn’t afford or physically do in real life. Get our minds off of our worries, and let us rule our own world for a few minutes. That’s all it takes to reel in happily hooked players. Playing social games can even help us refocus and think more creatively.

It seems the only gameplay elements (motivators, if you will) missing from social games are challenge and chance. Are players hungry for more? Let that soak in and then check back tomorrow for my regularly scheduled Sunday Soapbox, where I’ll try to take social gaming to new heights via opinion.

Meanwhile, what do you think? Have I left out something obvious that drives us to play social games (and spend real money in them), or have I gone off the deep-end entirely with the list above? Why do you think we play social games?(Source:friskymongoose


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