Abstract
Game developers write code that governs and impacts our behaviors. The resulting positive and negative social outcomes are the inevitable consequence of some designs, even when those consequences are unintended. To make this point, the chapter lays out a theoretical groundwork from computer-mediated communication and references a series of empirical research examples. The operating assumptions are that online communities are real, code impacts behaviors, and developers working in the “mechanics-design-aesthetics” framework make this code in an attempt to create experiences. Games have real community effects as the result of what we can call “social architecture.” Games with heavier social architectures have more social interactions and more vibrant communities than those that don’t.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that programmer Hintjens (2016) uses this term as well, but in a different way. He is referring to the best practices for building an online community independent of social science, as built up by anecdote. The use here is tied to SIDE (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 2000) and SIP (Walther, 2006) theories, as well as to the experience of game-based practitioners like Kim (2000) and McGonigal (2011).
- 2.
I am the lead data scientist and founder of the company.
- 3.
Accuracy was measured by comparing the prediction of influence with the downstream actual influence. For example, if player A is forecasted to cause player B to play for an extra 10 min, player B’s behavior can be checked. To address the lack of control condition, the more stringent test was applied: cases where player A quits the game were examined. In these cases, player B’s play should be reduced by that same 10 min. Comparing those predictions versus actuals yielded the 85% accuracy rate.
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Williams, D. (2018). For Better or Worse: Game Structure and Mechanics Driving Social Interactions and Isolation. In: Ferguson, C. (eds) Video Game Influences on Aggression, Cognition, and Attention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95495-0_14
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