Wylde's Critter Garden

We launched a new feature on ourWorld this week which might be our best yet.  I don't want to brag, which is good because I had very little to do with this one. 

The garden uses ourWorld's existing Condo system and adds a Farmville/Farmtown style game mechanic

The game is called Critter Garden and it has a lot of things going for it.  First, everyone in ourWorld can play it, for free.  Even better, players who want the fancier stuff can pay us for fancier nests, more nests, and garden upgrades.  

Also, the new garden features some of our best art yet.  The artists, animators, and modelers really outdid themselves, and more great stuff is on the way. I work with a bunch of geniuses, and I can't stress enough how lucky I feel to be on their team.  

If you're in ourWorld, feel free to stop by Wylde's garden.

That's right, sheep eggs. Got a problem with that?

Adam!!!

http://gameguts.blogspot.com/

Are you a Hunter or a Farmer?

This is my interpretation of a recent Seth Godin blog post as it relates to online social gaming.


The difference between hunters and farmers in the gaming public has been apparent for years now, but only recently, with the explosion of social networking sites like Facebook, have games for farmers taken off as successful. I don't mean just social games like Farmville and Farmtown, though they certainly fit into the category. I mean any game where the barriers are time, patience, and social skill rather than direct obstacles to be defeated as rapidly as possible.

ourWorld is primarily a farmer game, populated with an assortment of hunter games. Most of the 100 or so flash games in the ourWorld arcade are hunter type games. The disconnect between the games and many of the players who just aren't all that into them has been obvious to us for a long time. Changes like allowing basic chatting and other activities to replace gaming as the means to level up have addressed this disconnect, and things seem to be fairly well balanced now, though I believe the disconnect still lingers.

I believe the contrasts between hunter and farmer games are already known, but are being labeled differently and perhaps incorrectly.

Hunter - Farmer
Male - Female
Traditional - Social

Are all three of these pairings the same? In a very, very, broad sense, I think it's fair to say that more hunters are male and they tend to play more traditional games. Conversely, more farmers are female and tend to play more social games. As soon as you start to get more specific, however, things get less clear. What exactly is the difference between a traditional game versus a social game? The two get more intertwined every day. Sure, a lot of girls and women play social games, but lots and lots of guys do as well. Mafia Wars is a farmer game, but not targeted specifically at women (as far as I can tell.) Same for Farmtown.

I think it's a good idea for a game designer to have a clear idea of who he or she is making their game for, but finding categories that are stronger than just "boys vs girls" or "traditional vs social" will make those ideas more successful.

-Adam!!!

The Amazing VooDoo Economics of Farmtown

My obsession of the month has been Facebook's Farmtown. I am particularly impressed with the way the Farmtown designers have bent economics to match the goals of the game, leaving real-world economics behind.

It's Pumpkin Season!

Like most virtual world-type games, the value of Farmtown money isn't based on supply and demand. The supply of both money and goods is, of course, limitless, so the prices are arbitrary. The demand has no impact on price, so the goal is to maximize demand (i.e. players) as much as possible by increasing the size of the player-base. Attracting more players is the baseline goal of all games, and Farmtown uses all of the Facebook viral tricks to achieve that goal. In addition, they use a novel approach to employment economics, which, while simple, is new to me.

If you are a Farmtown farmer, these are your costs to grow crops:

• Plow
  
• Buy seeds
  

Once the seeds are grown, you harvest and get paid:

• Harvest and sell immediately OR
  
• Harvest and store, selling at the Market for +10% price*

Here's paradigm shift. The Market is full of people who want to work for you, and getting that bonus 10% is how you find those players in the first place. Players who work for you get paid BUT:

Unlike in the real world, instead of the farmer giving the workers a cut of the farms income, the farmer gets paid MORE when using a worker and the worker gets paid by the game, NOT by the farmer. That means the farmer's choices are:

• Harvest and sell immediately for the least money OR
  
• Harvest and store, selling at the Market for +10% price OR
  
• Hire somebody else to harvest, selling at the Market for +20% price, plus the worker gets 20% value of the harvest. Note: Harvesting becomes a bit of a chore, so you're saving time and effort as well as making more $
  

Hiring somebody to Plow your fields also is 25% to 50% cheaper than doing it yourself in addition to the worker getting paid. Again, it's a chore you get to avoid while saving money and the worker is thanking you for the 'free' money.

The game simply doles out more money for the cooperative behavior they choose to encourage. Unlike the real world, there's an infinite supply of cash, so this works with no side effects. I've always thought of virtual economies as trying to replicate supply and demand of scarcity based real-world economies, but Farm Town has proved that there are other options, depending on the goals of your game.

* note: I'm totally estimating the % benefits, but the gist remains valid.

-Adam!!!