Games themselves are nothing new, they have been around for thousands of years – so it makes sense that we have figured out what makes them work. Game designers know which elements they need to include to make a game truly addictive, and if you can apply those same ideas to social web design you can achieve the same outcomes. 

If you give something a score it becomes a game. This is the basis of Game Mechanics. 

The five central elements of Game Mechanics are: 

• Collecting things.
• Earning Points.
• Getting/giving feedback.
• Exchanges/Gifting.
• User Customization.

Now remember that it isn’t about the goals themselves, but the process that you go through in order to achieve those goals. The feedback you give your users is what drives them return, and you can adjust these reward schedules until you figure out the right balance. There are both fixed and dynamic rewards and there are a number of ways you can integrate these into your site.  

Amy Jo Kim is one of the leaders in this space and her site is full of great material on this topic. Here is a presentation that she made at the Etech Conference explaining the aspects of Game Mechanics. 

These mechanics are easy to learn but hard to master – but if you start looking at how the most popular social websites and social games apply them you will be able to spot what combinations of these works well, and think about how those apply to your own work.

The other must-have resource in this area is Joshua Porter’s Designing For The Social Web book. His blog archives are also a good place to go for lots of gems. 

The key is to learn how to identify the 5 elements of game design and then look around your world to see how people are interacting with things.

• Are you addicted to Flight Control? Why? 
• Is a game that you always loved getting boring? Why? Reward schedules perhaps? 
• Which service do you love getting notifications and alerts from? Why? 
• Is there a collection you are building that makes little sense? Music maybe? 
• Have you got more Twitter followers than a friend? Does it really matter? 

“Once we see a pattern, we delight in tracing it, and in seeing it reoccur.” – Raph Koster

By Ross Hill - June 14th, 2009 at 1:25pm with 1,272 views - amy jo kim flight control joshua porter last.fm omgpop raph koster twitter