Ray Mazza presention on Sims Social

[Quatchi]

I recently read this presentaiton by the lead designer of the Sims 3, on Sims Social and all things social gaming and I though folks may find it interesting.

http://www.raymazza.com/gdc2012.html

Some of the things he talks about:

How to use relationships in games to maximize playtime.

How it seems like it might be more profitable to make your game less fun to play so that people will pay not to play it.

The way brains are being changed by current technology, and how to design games so that people with amazingly short attention spans will want to play them.

What do you think ?

[rian90]

I think that he is talking about Facebook games, which is hard to translate elsewhere. His surveys are from Facebook game players so again, you really can't apply it to anything else besides Facebook games. If I did play games on my Facebook, I probably would not want a long complicated game. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook..jump in and respond to something, jump back out. It is the nature of the beast for me at least.

As for our brains, yes, I do think attention spans are getting shorter..but it is because we are surrounded by things that compete for our attention. I go to dinner with a friend and she spends half her time sending text messages to her adult children. Okay...well, I am here!!! I feel as though she has a short attention span..but she is really multi-tasking...which I think is rude and takes away from the quality of our time together. But I suppose the day will come when that will be normal...and the next generation won't see it as rude. :) So yes, technology is changing the way we behave..not sure about our brains though.

[crocobaura]

They didn't invent the wheel. EA just used the same concept as the rest of the facebook games.

[zigersimmer]

What do you think ?

I think Ray Mazza is the single worst thing to ever happen to The Sims.

[zigersimmer]

I think that he is talking about Facebook games, which is hard to translate elsewhere. His surveys are from Facebook game players so again, you really can't apply it to anything else besides Facebook games. If I did play games on my Facebook, I probably would not want a long complicated game. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook..jump in and respond to something, jump back out. It is the nature of the beast for me at least.

As for our brains, yes, I do think attention spans are getting shorter..but it is because we are surrounded by things that compete for our attention. I go to dinner with a friend and she spends half her time sending text messages to her adult children. Okay...well, I am here!!! I feel as though she has a short attention span..but she is really multi-tasking...which I think is rude and takes away from the quality of our time together. But I suppose the day will come when that will be normal...and the next generation won't see it as rude. :) So yes, technology is changing the way we behave..not sure about our brains though.

Humans do not multi-task. Humans do task switching. Your friend is being rude. Why go out to dinner with you when she really wants to stay home and send text messages?

[rian90]

Humans do not multi-task. Humans do task switching. Your friend is being rude. Why go out to dinner with you when she really wants to stay home and send text messages?

Yeah..I agree. Amazing how many folks do that though. I have one guy at my World of Darkness rpg table who messes with his I-Phone while I am running the game. Next time I think I will have something big drop on his head. ;) And give him a penalty for jumping out of harm's way.

[Baiaana]

Bwuauahaha MAZZA?!
Sorry, but if you're italian like me you would know why this word make me laugh^^

[zigersimmer]

Yeah..I agree. Amazing how many folks do that though. I have one guy at my World of Darkness rpg table who messes with his I-Phone while I am running the game. Next time I think I will have something big drop on his head. ;) And give him a penalty for jumping out of harm's way.

Yep. Would your friend think it was appropriate to sit with you in a restaurant carrying on a conversation on her phone while you ate as though you were there all alone? It is amazing how people have actually become less social with the explosion of all the so-called "social media" options.

BTW:
My first rule of table-top role-playing games is: Absolutely no electronic gadgets of any kind allowed. Not even a calculator. The only items allowed at the table are paper, dice, pens/pencils, player rule books and snacks. Table-top RPGs are all about playing with the other people in the game.

(My second rule is no miniatures. The game happens inside your imagination, not on a gaming grid. Games that require a grid and miniatures are not RPGs, but are actually miniatures games; a fine hobby in its own right, but not an RPG.)

This gives me an idea: Why can't EA add an RPG for my simmies to get together and play. For that matter, how about so many other game types besides chess? Like card games? Ooops, silly me. TS3 isn't about your sims socializing with each other. It's about scoring achievements that can be posted on facebook.

[Quatchi]

Humans do not multi-task. Humans do task switching.

From a computer operating system point of view task switching is definitely a form of multi tasking. This is the primary way operating systems do multitasking is through task switching between threads in increments between a few micro seconds and a few tens of milliseconds. If you task switch fast enough an observer can't tell the difference. Multi processing is having the ability to actually do thing simutaneously, which in computers is done by having multiple CPUs. Even with multiple processors the machines are also task switching.

On the other hand I really wonder wether humans can actually do multiprocessing. Humans do lots of things at the same time, some of which are done atonomously but under control of the brain. Blinking, breathing, balancing, all seem like things people can do while thinking about things and are under the control of the brain. If you can do two or more things with some of them being subconcious, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to beleive that a brain is able to think two independent things conciously simultaneously.

Of course this is only theory. Reality is everyone is terrible at multitasking, which is why people who talk on thier cell phones while while driving crash thier cars, regardless of wether they are using a hands free device or have a handset. Its the act of multitasking which causes the crashes.

[Ghost sdoj]

I notice that he seems to have overlooked one aspect of social games that would possibly improve Sim Social quite a lot. If the other person is playing as well, offer to link the games. If everyone agrees, you can link the games and have them interact with each other instead of interacting with inanimate clones.

[eskie227]

I notice that he seems to have overlooked one aspect of social games that would possibly improve Sim Social quite a lot. If the other person is playing as well, offer to link the games. If everyone agrees, you can link the games and have them interact with each other instead of interacting with inanimate clones.

It's a nice concept. It would be a bit like avatars on something like Second Life. However, just remember, these are the same developers who couldn't get "Simport" to work without transferring unwanted items with the "performing" sim. And you think they can develop a mechanism linking 2 players together without breaking something important?

[zigersimmer]

From a computer operating system point of view task switching is definitely a form of multi tasking. This is the primary way operating systems do multitasking is through task switching between threads in increments between a few micro seconds and a few tens of milliseconds. If you task switch fast enough an observer can't tell the difference. Multi processing is having the ability to actually do thing simutaneously, which in computers is done by having multiple CPUs. Even with multiple processors the machines are also task switching.

On the other hand I really wonder wether humans can actually do multiprocessing. Humans do lots of things at the same time, some of which are done atonomously but under control of the brain. Blinking, breathing, balancing, all seem like things people can do while thinking about things and are under the control of the brain. If you can do two or more things with some of them being subconcious, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to beleive that a brain is able to think two independent things conciously simultaneously.

Of course this is only theory. Reality is everyone is terrible at multitasking, which is why people who talk on thier cell phones while while driving crash thier cars, regardless of wether they are using a hands free device or have a handset. Its the act of multitasking which causes the crashes.

A few misconceptions here. Task switching is what computer OSes, such as Win 3.1 and OS/2, did in the early '90s. They were literally only running one application at a time, although you could have multiple applications open in separate windows at the same time (unlike DOS). Humans operate the same way. Your brain can only truly work on one task at a time, although you can have multiple tasks open but not using the brain equivalent of processor cycles simultaneously. Autonomous functions such as blinking and breathing are not tasks.

The issue with using a phone, hands free or not, while driving is that your focus is not on the road but instead is on the other end of the phone connection. Basically, you are essentially not in your car at all, because a human can not truly multitask, only task switch.

When I'm driving, my cell phone is switched off. There is no phone call important enough to distract me when I'm traveling at highway speeds.

[Quatchi]

A few misconceptions here. Task switching is what computer OSes, such as Win 3.1 and OS/2, did in the early '90s. They were literally only running one application at a time, although you could have multiple applications open in separate windows at the same time (unlike DOS).

This is actually a bit of a misconception.

Windows 3.1 and earlier did a thing called cooperative multi tasking. In these operating systems a thread could run as long as it wanted and starve other threads, even higher priority ones, out so that they could not run. The programmer was required to call a "Yield" function to give other tasks (threads) an opportunity to run.

Modern OSs do a thing called preemptive multitasking, this is where threads run for as long as they want until a higher priority thread becomes unblocked or a timeout called a "quantum" occurs. Whenever a thread is blocked (waiting for another thread) or it reaches its thread quantum the thread is paused and the highest priority thread that is not running and not currently blocked is scheduled to run instead.

Preemptive multitasking and cooperative multi tasking are both forms of task switching. Task switching, also known as context switching is is basically any technique that allows multiple threads to run or a single processor. These techniques allow you to run hundreds of threads 'simultaneously' on a machine with only a few or even just one core. No matter how many cores or hyperthreads you have on your CPU the OS still uses these techniques.

[Mootilda]

The part of the presentation that I find most disconcerting is the idea that I'll have a real-life relationship with someone because my sim has a relationship with their sim. Somehow, this in-game relationship will give us some sort of special relationship in real life. That's just creepy. In fact, the whole idea that your sim is you doesn't fit in with how I play.

Other scary ideas which are discussed:
- It's good to have very expensive items available for download. The Sims franchise needs more items that the average person cannot afford.
- Playing alone is lonely. The game should force you to interact with other players.
- People can pay to avoid having to play the game. Make the game more unpleasant and you'll make more money.
- The game should push people into playing "mean" interactions, even if they don't like the idea or the interactions.
- Have a leaderboard which ranks players, without the ability to opt-out.
- Display a real-life picture of you in other people's games.
- Make your leaderboard directly dependent upon how much people spend on extra items.

[rian90]

We actually pay not to play Sims 3 already. We buy expansion packs and store items which help us to 'cheat' without actually cheating. We have Genies that make our Sims very wealthy, and therefore we don't have to climb the ladder. We have potions and a fountain of youth. And soon, we will have magic that will do exactly what the Genies, FoY, the potions, and the cauldron already do...help us to cheat. We can do that all free with the Cheat Console, but we still pay for it. It allows us to skip gameplay....get ahead faster.

Yes, I do realize that it is less like cheating since it is part of the game...BUT..it is paying to skip parts of the game, which is exactly what this guy is talking about. On Sims Social you can pay to get special features that allow you to cheat and skip the 'hard' parts. Our clamoring for more in-game ways to cheat proves this guy right. We don't like the way he put it, but if you read various threads on this forum, you see that he is right. We don't have to pay for it..but we do. For many people, it is the chemistry set, the magic potions, and other things that they want more than anything.

[crocobaura]

We actually pay not to play Sims 3 already. We buy expansion packs and store items which help us to 'cheat' without actually cheating. We have Genies that make our Sims very wealthy, and therefore we don't have to climb the ladder. We have potions and a fountain of youth. And soon, we will have magic that will do exactly what the Genies, FoY, the potions, and the cauldron already do...help us to cheat. We can do that all free with the Cheat Console, but we still pay for it. It allows us to skip gameplay....get ahead faster.

Yes, I do realize that it is less like cheating since it is part of the game...BUT..it is paying to skip parts of the game, which is exactly what this guy is talking about. On Sims Social you can pay to get special features that allow you to cheat and skip the 'hard' parts. Our clamoring for more in-game ways to cheat proves this guy right. We don't like the way he put it, but if you read various threads on this forum, you see that he is right. We don't have to pay for it..but we do. For many people, it is the chemistry set, the magic potions, and other things that they want more than anything.


In Sims Social, the 'hard' parts is the only kind of gameplay available. If you want to play it like a normal sims game then you need to buy energy.

[Mootilda]

Ray argues that forcing people to buy energy is the wrong approach. His research finds that people express more buyer's remorse when buying transient stuff like energy; they express less remorse when they buy things which are permanent in the game, such as furniture and clothing.

Personally, I would never buy energy in Sims Social. Then again, I have yet to spend any real money for anything in the game.

[crocobaura]

Yes, it makes perfect sense to buy expensive furniture and clothing for your avatar only to be able to do nothing with it except look at it.

[raymazza]

The part of the presentation that I find most disconcerting is the idea that I'll have a real-life relationship with someone because my sim has a relationship with their sim. Somehow, this in-game relationship will give us some sort of special relationship in real life. That's just creepy. In fact, the whole idea that your sim is you doesn't fit in with how I play.

Other scary ideas which are discussed:
- It's good to have very expensive items available for download. The Sims franchise needs more items that the average person cannot afford.
- Playing alone is lonely. The game should force you to interact with other players.
- People can pay to avoid having to play the game. Make the game more unpleasant and you'll make more money.
- The game should push people into playing "mean" interactions, even if they don't like the idea or the interactions.
- Have a leaderboard which ranks players, without the ability to opt-out.
- Display a real-life picture of you in other people's games.
- Make your leaderboard directly dependent upon how much people spend on extra items.

Hi, I understand where you're coming from. My intent for making some of the points in my presentation may have been misunderstood, so let me address your scary ideas:

1) The Sim is You, and relationships in the game might cause real-life relationships. This was a side-effect of only having 1 Sim. We were observing how players play with only a single Sim. We notice this on the PC games, too -- some players make themselves when playing, and others don't. But it's more likely for players to make themselves in The Sims Social because they only get 1 Sim. And because of that, many people play as if it's an avatar game, when it's not how we approach normal Sims games. In the presentation, I was only noticing some of the uncomfortable ways this affected interactions between players. It wasn't our intent to put people into creepy situations! We just want people to have fun with their friends, but as you could see in the presentation there were some examples of ways this surprised us with how strongly people reacted to each other.

2) Expensive items. My suggestion was that there are a very few people who play these games and want to spend LOTS of money, so we should acknowledge that with items made just for them. But I also said I didn't want it to sideline the average player. I wanted to see expensive items that were only available to those huge spenders that nobody else could even see in the catalog. We never did this, but it was an idea.

3) Playing alone is lonely and the game should force you to interact. I'm actually agreeing with you here. At the end of my presentation I make an analogy to World of Warcraft vs. Everquest. Everquest forced you to play with other players. But World of Warcraft did not -- it was "first and foremost a single player game" and did much better because of it. Players could play with each other if they wanted, but didn't have to. And that was my point -- "social games" need to take a lesson from this and make their games playable solo, without paying, and only make the multiplayer gameplay an optional added enjoyment.

4) Pay to avoid playing. I agree with you here, too! My point here was that it can be dangerous to alter your game such that people spend more money and think unequivocally that it's a great thing! That's how a lot of product managers viewed it though -- "we made this change and got more money from it, we should keep doing it." But my point was that this is a short-term point of view and doesn't indicate how it affects players long-term, and my feeling was that it will drive players away over time because it's a less fun experience! So we need to be very careful... it's one of those battles that game designers like myself wage against the product managers who are in charge of making money.

5) Pushing players to play mean interactions. My goal was to give players a benefit for playing in a way that was different. Perhaps this went too far because some of the collectibles from mean interactions were required, when it probably would have been better to have them as optional for extra benefits. I was approaching it kind of like I approached some of the "negative" traits in The Sims 3, where there are some beneficial qualities for your Sims. For example, if you make a Sim with the Mean trait, you'll be able to make that Sim happier by making enemies... it gives you a different way to play the game. Again, perhaps I approached it too strongly in TSS.

6) Leaderboards without the ability to opt out. Hmm, that's not what I'm saying. I would like the ability to opt out. What I was saying was that in a game where you already have a leaderboard, if you rank it by certain stats, it drives more competitiveness. But I actually would like the ability to opt-out or to sort by other things, like level or seniority or just alphabetical.

7) Display a real-life picture. I mostly wanted to share how this affected players and some of the odd ways it made them feel about the things they were doing and the extra gravity it gave to those actions. I don't think it's good for all games to do this. I was just telling my peers what we learned so they could make their own decisions.

8) Make your leaderboard directly dependent upon how much people spend on extra items. I meant that if you ranked players by a part of gameplay that was more competitive, then they would have more have more desire to spend money. We didn't rank players this way just so they would spend money, but that's a side effect that helped us. I know it's an unpopular view, and in my ideal world there would be no way to spend money in the game... but then we wouldn't have been able to make the game in the first place. It's one of the hard parts about making a game that people can choose not to spend money on. Personally, I much prefer working on pay-up-front Sims games because then you get the money out of the way and can only focus on designing the fun.

I hope this helps you understand where I was coming from with the presentation. The Sims Social was a learning experience for lots of us, and that's why I wanted to share these things with everyone.

[Margaret Pendragon]

sims social: yuck. I was excited when it was announced, but it was immediately obvious that they were just trying to get their hand in the pot of facebook games. I didn't like the weird cartoonish avatars, and it didn't resemble the sims at all.

I was also hopeful when they said The Sims would have more social functionality, but that too was a dud. It would be cool if they could make that better, but otherwise I don't care that my friend's sims woohooed a dozen times and posted it on their "wall". So, that aspect of The Sims is disabled in my game.

[matrix54]

I wish I had the faintest idea about hwy they're pushing the social agenda on gamers. Some things, I can make a guess about, but this one - no idea. At all. Sims Social wasn't even all that social - the only real social aspect to the game was bothering your friends to click a button to give you something. I got tired after a week or 2 and left. Couldn't go back.

I even tried SimCity Social - played for a few days, but the gameplay disgusted me, because it was all reward, no risk. That's far to casual. Even the Sims 3 has risks in it, despite its low risk - high reward ratio.

[Periandre]

Am I missing something here... Mootilda posted in April of 2012..? "RayMazza" addresses her concerns in May of 2013?

[matrix54]

He probably ignored the date and started writing.

[jje1000]

Well, these ideas didn't work anyways considering that EA's shutting down The Sims Social and Simcity Social

[Mootilda]

Am I missing something here... Mootilda posted in April of 2012..? "RayMazza" addresses her concerns in May of 2013?I don't mind the delay. It was nice of him to talk about some of my concerns, regardless of how long it took. I don't actually expect EA employees to respond to posts on some arbitrary external site.

[whiterider]

I wonder if the announcement of the shutting down of TSS is what prompted the post. I imagine you can end up in a rather precarious position if you publicly criticise a project you're working on while it's live - but once it's been consigned to the dump heap, there's less risk involved.

I'll have to watch the whole presentation at some point; it's nearly 1am now, and I'm already predicting a happy night of being constantly woken up by the fucking mice. They have acquired percussion instruments. Once I've done that, maybe I'll post again, because I sure as hell have opinions about facebook games :p .

I have to say, though - I can't even remember the last time an EA person actually conversed with the modding/fan community directly like this. It was probably back in Maxis days, actually. I'm really rather impressed. :)

[ade_uk]

I even tried SimCity Social - played for a few days, but the gameplay disgusted me, because it was all reward, no risk. That's far to casual. Even the Sims 3 has risks in it, despite its low risk - high reward ratio.
That's one of the key problems with these 'games' on Facebook etc. In a real game, there is always risk - the risk that all your planning, preparation and strategy will go horribly wrong and your Sim will die, or your City burn to the ground, or your Civilization destroyed by barbarian hordes. Or you just realise you're going nowhere so you start again and try a different approach.

I have never seen that on these 'games', it's all about getting friends onto the advertisers' mailing list, buying game objects, and endlessly repeating the same mind-numbingly trivial tasks. Without risk there is no challenge, so what's the point?

[Ghost sdoj]

There is a lesser quality of risk. Can you get your friends to click on a link on your wall often enough to get 130 of an item in 2 weeks? If not, you will miss out on this exclusive bit of CC. Some of the CC is nice enough to actually want.

[raymazza]

Am I missing something here... Mootilda posted in April of 2012..? "RayMazza" addresses her concerns in May of 2013?
No, you're not missing anything. I just found the post, and even though it's old, I felt like I had to address it because it was the first time I'd seen it. Someone may have made these comments in passing, but I think about this stuff a lot. (And hey, it might still be interesting to people.)

Heheh, good luck with the percussive mice : )

That's one of the key problems with these 'games' on Facebook etc. In a real game, there is always risk - the risk that all your planning, preparation and strategy will go horribly wrong and your Sim will die, or your City burn to the ground, or your Civilization destroyed by barbarian hordes. Or you just realise you're going nowhere so you start again and try a different approach.

I have never seen that on these 'games', it's all about getting friends onto the advertisers' mailing list, buying game objects, and endlessly repeating the same mind-numbingly trivial tasks. Without risk there is no challenge, so what's the point?

Yes, I like that you put 'games' in quotes. I often think of these Facebook 'games' as being less like 'games' and more like hobbies or activities -- something like building a model ship. Slow, methodical process. No big risk, no adrenaline, constant progress. That appeals far more to some people than others.

BTW, I would have loved to add those sorts of risk and disaster details to SimCity Social. One of the challenges I had when working on Facebook games is that they get smaller dev budgets, which means smaller teams and less time. On top of that, the client/server architecture makes everything take longer to implement. If I were to take a feature from The Sims 3 and ask for it exactly the same in The Sims Social, it would have taken roughly 2-3x as many man hours to implement! (Imagine my expression the first time I figured that out.)

Another side of the coin is that there is a very different audience that we were catering to that just looks for something simple and easy... although I think Facebook games can both have simplicity and depth with risk.

Anyway, if you're interested in some of my explanation of why Facebook games are the way they are, I wrote a post about it here: SimCity Social & 8 Truths of Facebook Game Design (http://www.raymazza.com/1/post/2012/07/simcity-social-8-truths-of-facebook-game-design.html)

[whiterider]

Please use the edit button, rather than posting several times in a row. :)