作者：Bret

任何与我交谈超过30秒的人都会发现我们的话题会慢慢偏离社交游戏，因为我所关心的区域是进化心理学，即根据达尔文的进化论去理解人类的社交行为。

幸运的是，两个完全不同的领域也存在着一定的关联，特别是扯上游戏设计。所以，我将在此提出一些对你有帮助的建议。

人类总是很重视社会地位。对于男人来说，更高的地位意味着他们能够找到更好的配偶。在别人责怪我有性别歧视之前，我想简单地解释下，这种说法可谓是从古至今存在于人类社会中的真理，所以不要怪我，要怪就去怪人类的进化。

进化论(from bretterrill)

在社交网络中，一个人的社会地位可以通过好友数量粗略地体现出来。之所以通过粗略估算，是因为在此难以判断玩家相对于其他人的社会地位。

而开发者应该快速得出这些估算值，从而在Facebook上发行一些大受欢迎的应用。“Top Friends”以及“Entourage”让你能够知道谁是你的最佳好友。“Friend Wheel”则能够展现好友之间的关系。

随后还出现了一批优秀的应用，如“Who’s the Hottest？”，“Sexy Friends”以及“Compare People”。这些应用让人们能够判断他们在朋友圈中以及在整个Facebook平台上的社会地位。不幸的是，这些应用所体现的玩家社会地位都没什么变化，所以玩家在明确了自己的社会地位后一般不会再次回到应用中。

还有一些朋友买卖的游戏，如《Friends For Sale!》以及《Owned!》都能够在数值与社会地位中创建一种清晰的联系。这些游戏都能够明确地告诉你在朋友圈中以及在Facebook社区中的价值是什么。而且，这些价值总是在不断提高着，所以你会发现你所预知的社会地位也会不断提高，而你也可以使用这些社会地位去影响你的好友们。

这些通过好友买卖而创造出来的社会价值是人为的，所以只能够反映玩家在游戏环境中的地位而非现实生活。如此看来，它们不足以作为一种真正的社会地位指示器，但是却能让玩家感到满足。

我认为是时候出现一些新的游戏或应用去迎合大众沉迷于社会地位的心态了。好友买卖的游戏模式应该做出一些变化，即能够更加明确地影响玩家在脱机后（即现实世界中）的社会地位。如果一款游戏能够影响玩家在现实社区中的社会地位，让玩家为此游戏，那么这款游戏必将大卖！

或者你也可以选择复制《Who’s the Hottest?》而将其重新命名为《The Coolest Person Contest》。等等，这件事好像以前就有人成功实践了。

为了社会地位而竞争是所有人类的核心业务，尽管我们总是极其婉转地在进行这些活动。

社交游戏因为已经牢牢镶嵌于社交环境中了，所以玩家能够在此为获得社会地位而竞争。

排行榜(from bretterrill)

游戏设计者应该如何为玩家呈现社会地位着实是个非常重要的选择。在游戏中，社会地位主要通过排行榜的形式表现出来。排行榜是关于游戏最高级别玩家的榜单，主要罗列出前十名的玩家。

排行榜最初用于体育运动中，电子游戏借用了这一机制。游戏中的排行榜最初出现于大型电玩中，如《太空侵入者》，玩家可以在游戏中输入自己姓名中的大写字母，而如果谁通过了游戏，屏幕上便会出现他名字的大写字母。但是从此以后的排行榜也都未发生太大的变化。

然而社交网络却带来了创新，在这里，排行棒的依据变成了好友在游戏中的表现。在这里你不仅可以与其他玩家做比较，也可以单独与你的好友相比。比起陌生人，你与好友间的较量似乎更重要。人们更愿意与自己社交圈中的人进行竞争。

排行榜作为一种社交游戏设计工具，比起女性玩家更能够吸引男性玩家的关注，这便是它的一大败笔。男人总是会为了社会地位而竞争。而女人则更喜欢通过策略上的协作去追求社会地位。按照这一标准，我们能够判断排行榜更加受男性玩家的欢迎。

所以，为了证实我的这一理论，我决定观察Playfish四款游戏的前十名玩家排行榜。以下是男性玩家在四款游戏中的前十名排行榜中所占的比例。

《地理知识大挑战》：100%

《Bowling Buddies》：80%

《Who’s Got the Biggest Brain》：90%

《Word Challenge》：70%

为了能够做出更有结论性的申明，我本想通过前1000名玩家的排行进行判断，但上述例子已足够说明男性玩家确实更希望为跻身榜单前列而努力。

也许这时候你会纳闷，既然男性玩家喜欢排行榜，那为何说排行榜不好？其实并不是不好，只是不够理想。我们希望女性玩家也能够像男性玩家那样积极地玩游戏。事实上，我们希望她们能够比男性玩家更喜欢玩游戏。社交游戏的成败全依赖着病毒式传播。而女性比起男性则更乐于与其他人分享游戏。

芭比娃娃(from bretterrill)

在前面我谈到了人类对于社会地位的渴望以及如何在游戏中利用这种渴望。那么现在我将谈谈能够吸引女性玩家的地位机制。

以下是女性在脱机世界（即现实世界）中用来体现地位的几方面：

物品。在现实世界中，女性主要是通过一些物品的辅助来体现社会地位。特别是装饰品，手提包，鞋子，珠宝等。当然了，男性也会这么做，但是程度却远不及女性。关于物体所体现出的地位价值其实与该物品的花费有着直接的联系。一些非常昂贵的物品只有非常富有的人才买得起，而也只有那些地位很高的人才拥有大量的金钱去购买这些奢侈品。

礼物。一件昂贵的礼物也是地位的象征。如果你能够买得起一件昂贵的物品并将其赠予他人，那么你的地位也就展露无疑了，因为这意味着我有足够多的钱能够买礼物送给别人。在一些不同文化中，有些人甚至把随意破坏资源，烧毁自己的所有物去证明他们拥有了多少高价值的物品，以及他们的地位有多么崇高。

外貌。貌美的女人总是能够吸引高地位男性的关注，所以在其他人眼中，特别是女性的眼中，美丽是地位的象征。就像坐在一个女人堆里倾听她们对于其她女人的评价，甚至，当一个非常美丽的女人走进房间时，那些姿色平平的女人便会瞬间黯然失色了。

也许还有很多能够表明女性地位的因素，但是在我眼中这几点比其它因素都更重要。

这时，我敢肯定你的脑海中肯定在想着如何将这些机制应用于你的游戏中，或者你已经捷足先登了。

物品。这是关于人们如何打造光鲜亮丽的形象。让你的女性玩家能够获得一定的装饰物去完善自己的形象，游戏角色，或者其他能够在游戏中体现出她们身份的内容。越昂贵或者越稀有的物品预示着更高的地位。而你必须着实衡量自己的虚拟经济从而去追求这些物品。你需要清楚什么物品更有价值。《魔兽世界》在这点便做得很好，他们将颜色与物品结合在一起去预示该物品的价值。这是一种清晰而不通俗的好方法，能够让玩家更好地辨别物品的价值。还有一些更加通俗的方法，便是明确地告诉玩家物品的价值，即玩家可以将鼠标移动到特定物品上以了解其价值。毕竟，只有让玩家了解了物品的价值才能够有效地用于指示玩家的地位。

礼物。我在之前的文章中已经提到了这点内容，并认为送礼物是侧重于送礼之人而非收礼之人。我甚至怀疑，如果这一点在游戏中的表现更加明显，那么必将会出现更多更有价值的礼物。

外貌。显然，比起现实生活中的外貌，人们更喜欢去装扮他们在游戏中的角色，让这些角色更加吸引人。你也可以通过花钱去购买一些功能而让你的游戏更加有魅力。我认为已经有很多人做到这一点了，但是他们的做法却缺少系统性。而且相当明确的是，每次当一款功能被选走之后，它的价格会针对于下次购买者而相对提高。而我们也应该定期引进一些新功能去吸引更多新玩家的注意。

原文发表于2008年10月份，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Game Design Lessons From Evolutionary Psychology: Social Status, Pt. 1

Anyone who’s talked to me for more than 30 seconds already knows outside of social games, my main area of interest is evolutionary psychology, the application of Darwinian evolutionary theory to understanding human social behavior.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of crossover between the two fields, especially with game design. Here’s the first of some insights that might be useful to you.

Humans are obsessed with social status. Higher status equals better mating opportunities for males. Mating with high status males, means more foods and resources for females. Before anyone accuses me of sexism, I’ll simply state that this pattern holds true for all known human societies from ancient to modern, so don’t blame me, blame human evolution.

In social networks, it’s (very) roughly represented by the number of friends on has. A rough estimate, because there’s no way of knowing where a person stands in relative social status to other in that group of friends.

This need was quickly met by developers and led to some of the most popular apps on Facebook. Top Friends let people knew who your top friends were, as did Entourage. Friend Wheel showed connections between friends.

Then a wave of ranking apps appeared: Who’s the Hottest?, Sexy Friends, and Compare People. These apps allowed people to determine their social status in their friend group and one Facebook as a whole. Unfortunately for these apps, social status doesn’t change rapidly and so there isn’t much need to return to these apps once you’ve determined your social status.

Then, Friend Exchange games like Friends For Sale! and Owned! created an explicit connection between a numerical value and social status. These games literally told you what you were worth in relation to your friends and the Facebook community. Best yet, these values always increased so you could watch your perceived social status increase and you could bestow that status on to your friends.

The status values created by the friend exchange games were artificial, and more and more reflected the game environment rather than real life. As a social status indicator, they became less valuable, but nonetheless satisfying for validation.

At the moment, I think there’s a huge opportunity for another game/app to emerge that caters to human’s obsession with social status. Something that innovates on the friend exchange model and more accurately reflects offline social status. If people can compete for status in a game that gives them real social benefits in their offline community, it will mint money.

Or you can just clone Who’s the Hottest? and call it The Coolest Person Contest. Oh wait, that’s been done (very successfully).

On Monday, I’ll talk about how games traditionally use social status, so hold your comments about leaderboards and Warcraft armor until then.（source:bretterrill）

Game Design Lessons From Evolutionary Psychology: Social Status, Pt. 2 – Leaderboards

Competing for social status is the core activity of all humans, even if we often do it in incredibly indirect ways.

Social games, by their virtue of being embedded in a social environment, offer players the opportunity to compete for social status.

How a designer chooses to display status is a massively important choice. Mainly, status is represented simply in the form of a leaderboard. A leaderboard being a list of the top-ranked players of a game, usually the top ten players.

Leaderboards have been around forever in sports, and videogames borrowed them, first in arcade games like Space Invaders where a player could enter their initials and it would display them on the game’s screen for those who passed by. And for the most part, leaderboards haven’t evolved much since then.

Social networks offered an innovation, a leaderboard based on your friends’ performance. You could now compare your performance not only to all players, but to just your friends, as well. How well you’re doing in relation to your friends is much more important than with strangers. Humans tend to compete with people in their immediate social status bracket. Humans also tend to befriend people in their social bracket or the social bracket just above, interestingly enough.

As a social game design tool, leaderboards fail in one critical way, they appeal much more to men than women. Men are driven to compete for social status. Women on the other hand, tend to pursue social status through strategic cooperation. By these standards, we’d expect leaderboards to be dominated by men.

And they are. To confirm my theory, I looked at the Top Ten All-Time Players for four Playfish titles. Here’s the percentage of the players that were men.

Geo Challenge: 100%

Bowling Buddies: 80%

Who’s Got the Biggest Brain: 90%

Word Challenge: 70%

I’d love to look at the top 1000 players for each game to make a more conclusive statement, but regardless it’s pretty compelling evidence that men compete harder to be on top of the leaderboard.

You might be saying, so what if men like leaderboards more, why is that bad? It’s not bad, but it’s not optimal. We want women to be as motivated to play our games as men. In fact, we want them more. Social games live and die on virality. And women are more likely to spread games to others, then men.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss some alternatives to leaderboards that display status and appeal to women. Until then, I just wanted to tell you, dear reader, that you’re currently #2 on my list of top ten readers. All you need to do is come back every day for the next month, and you could be #1. （source:bretterrill）

Game Design Lessons From Evolutionary Psychology: Social Status, Pt. 3 – Bling

IMAGE: Mattel’s MyScene Bling Dolls. What every little girl aspires to?

In my last two posts, I’ve been talking about human’s insatiable desire for status and how to leverage it in your social game design. Yesterday, I promised I’d discuss status mechanisms that appeal to women.

Here’s a few ways women show status in the offline world:

Objects. In the real world, women show status primarily through objects. Particularly, accessories. Handbags, shoes, jewelry. Men do, as well, but to a lesser degree. The status value of an object is directly related to its cost. When an object costs a lot, only people with sufficient resources can acquire it. Generally, only people with high status have sufficient resources to purchase high-cost items.

Gifts. An expensive gift is an indicator of status. To afford to be able to give away resources is a huge indicator of status. It implies that I have so many resources that I can afford to give them away. Some cultures take this to the logical extreme of destroying resources, literally burning their stuff, to show others how much they possess and its correlative, how much status they have.

Physical Appearance. Beauty attracts high-status mates, and therefore in the eyes of others, particularly other women, beauty is an indicator of status. Sit with a group of women and listen to how they evaluate other women. Or better yet, watch how a normal woman will slightly wilt when a very beautiful woman enters a room.

There are more, but in my mind these loom larger than others.

By now, I’m sure your brains are spinning on way that these mechanisms can be or are already incorporated into games.

Objects. It’s all about profile bling. Give your female players an opportunity to earn decorations for their profile, or avatar, or whatever way they are personally represented in your game. Expensive and/or rare objects indicate more status. You should definitely optimize for these in your virtual economy. It needs to be clear what objects are worth more. World of Warcraft does this brilliantly, by associating colors with an object to indicate its value. It’s a clear, but not vulgar way of indicating value. I’d argue that you could be A LOT more vulgar about indicating value, for instance, showing the cost of an object when you mouse-over it. After all, an object does not effectively indicate status unless everyone else knows its value.

Gifts. I’ve written about gifting before, so I’ll direct you to my previous post for a more detailed essay of the power of gifting. I would d like to see someone play with the idea of showing the gifts that someone has sent instead of focusing on gifts a person has received. I suspect, it’ll increase the amount and value of gifts send if prominently displayed.

Physical Appearance. It’s been noted that people tend to make their avatars more attractive then they appear in real life. Perhaps, you could charge more from features that make avatars more attractive. I believe some people may be doing this already but not systematically. It’s pretty straightforward, every time a feature is chosen make that feature a little more expensive for the next person who chooses it. Regularly introduce new features to allow new players to have somethng to buy.

Beyond avatars, I’m stumped on this one. Ideas welcome in the comments. （source:bretterrill）