Game On -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The Things You Remember Best -- What Is a Social Game? -- What if Anything Could Be a Game? -- Who Should Read This Book? -- What's In this Book? -- Part I: Understanding Social Games -- Part II: Designing Social Games -- Part III: Glossary, Resources, and More -- How to Read this Book -- Book Icons -- Finding Your Own Path in This Book -- Choose Your Path -- Part I: Understanding Social Games -- Chapter 1:  How to Play This Book -- Quiz: Who Are You? -- Taking the Test -- Scoring Your Results -- What Your Results Say about You -- Do You Have a Combination Personality? -- What Is the Use of a Quiz? -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 2:  Games Have Changed the Business Playfield -- The Power of Experience -- The Evolving Experience Economy -- The Real Game Machine -- The Evolution of Mass Media -- The Evolving Media Landscape -- The Changing Nature of Social Media -- Games as High-Value Experiences -- Major Trends in Five Thousand Years of Social Games -- Games as Art -- Games and Rules -- Games as a Social Activity -- Emergence of Virtual Goods -- Social Network Games -- What Social Games Mean for Your Business -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 3:  Developing Social Media Games -- Social Media Game Development Is Different -- Agile Development -- Goals of Agile Development -- Social Media Games versus Traditional Games -- Social Media Games versus Websites -- Teams -- Player-Centered Design -- Envisioning Your Game Concept -- Understanding Players -- Identifying the Fun -- Crafting Experiences -- Building Software -- Measuring Success -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 4:  Customers as Players -- Describing Customers with Player Personas -- What to Ask during a Customer Interview -- Turning Research into Personas.

Naming Your Personas -- Nine Pitfalls with Personas -- The Hero's Journey -- The Resonance of Myth -- The Mythmaking Game -- Visual Aids for Creativity -- Different People, Different Fun -- Bartle's Four Types of Fun -- Modernizing the Bartle Categories -- Social Gameplay Motivations -- Achievement -- Immersion -- Competition -- Cooperation -- Evolution of Social Gameplay Motivations -- Should You Focus on Multiple-Player Personas? -- Case Study: Magic: the Gathering -- MTG Personas: Timmy, Johnny and Spike -- Critique of Timmy, Johnny, and Spike -- Turning Motivators into Questions -- Cooperation -- Competition -- Achievement -- Immersion -- Interpreting Answers -- Differences in Real versus Online Identity -- The Online Disinhibition Effect -- Is It All in Your Head? -- The Leveling Effect -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 5:  Fungineering -- Why Adults Never Outgrow Stickers -- Endowment Effect and Loss Aversion -- This Is Your Brain on Games -- Sixteen Human Motivations -- The Power of Belief and Alief -- Social Status as a Reward -- 42 Things That Customers Think Are Fun -- Rules for the 42 Fun Things Game -- #1: Recognizing Patterns -- #2: Collecting -- #3: Finding Random Treasures -- #4: Achieving a Sense of Completion -- #5: Gaining Recognition for Achievements -- #6: Creating Order out of Chaos -- #7: Customizing Virtual Worlds -- #8: Gathering Knowledge -- #9: Organizing Groups of People -- #10: Noting Insider References -- #11: Being the Center of Attention -- #12: Experiencing Beauty and Culture -- #13: Romance -- #14: Exchanging Gifts -- #15-19: Imagining Yourself as a Character -- #20: Pretending to Live in a Magical Place -- #21: Listening to a Story -- #22: Telling Stories -- #23: Predicting the Future -- #24: Competition -- #25: Psychoanalyzing -- #26: Mystery -- #27: Mastering a Skill.

#28: Exacting Justice and Revenge -- #29: Nurturing -- #30: Excitement -- #31: Triumph over Conflict -- #32: Relaxing -- #33: Experiencing the Freakish or Bizarre -- #34: Being Silly -- #35: Laughing -- #36: Being Scared -- #37: Strengthening a Family Relationship -- #38: Improving One's Health -- #39: Imagining a Connection with the Past -- #40: Exploring a World -- #41: Improving Society -- #42: Enlightenment -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 6:  Turning Work into Fun -- How Games Make Ordinary Tasks Addicting -- When to Turn Something into a Game -- Understanding the Business Decisions beneath Modern Games -- Glory Days: Gods of Rock -- Carrot on a Stick: World of Warcraft -- There's Always Work to Be Done: FarmVille -- Living the Life You Imagined: Dungeons & Dragons -- Evolving a Community: Spore -- Political Drama: Kingdoms of Camelot -- Always Time to Play God: Godfinger -- Fame Is Greater Than Fortune: Zynga Poker -- Metagames: Xbox Achievements -- The Problem with Serious Games -- Learning Is Fun -- Rosetta Stone -- Language Learning on Livemocha -- Using Games to Improve Health -- Using Games to Improve the World -- Social Media as a Game -- How LinkedIn Turned Business Networking into a Game -- How YouTube Creates the Dream of Celebrity -- How eBay Leverages Reputation and Reciprocity -- How Location Makes Work Fun -- How Foursquare Harnesses Competition and Collection -- SCVNGR and Creativity, Movement -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Part II: Designing Social Games -- Chapter 7:  Anatomy of a Social Game -- Understanding Where Social Games Live -- Three Phases of the Player Life Cycle -- Player Discovery on Facebook -- Finding Customers with Social Communication Channels -- Pitfalls of Using Social Channels -- Things to Do When a Player Discovers You -- Engaging and Reengaging Players.

Time-Based Limitations -- Leaderboards -- Social Reengagement -- Economic Exchange -- Adapting Social Games to Business -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 8:  Understanding Social Game Business Models -- Converting Attention to Dollars -- Casual versus Hardcore Games -- Social Play as an Attention Generator -- Social Game Business Model -- Revenue Models -- Subscriptions -- Software Purchase -- Advertising -- Business Metrics for Social Games -- Metrics for Attention -- Economic Exchange Metrics -- Player Discovery Metrics -- Forecasting Growth -- Simple Model -- Advanced Model -- A/B Split Testing -- Qualitative Testing -- Focus Groups -- One-on-One Interviews -- Surveys -- Straw Man Versions -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 9: ​ Using Storytelling to Understand Your Design Objectives -- One Thousand and One Designs -- Stories Have a Beginning, Middle, and End -- The Monomyth -- The Hero's Journey for Games -- The Craft of Storytelling -- Starting with a Powerful Hook -- Show, Don't Tell -- Using Compelling, Active Language -- Making Use of Interesting Characters -- Have a Fascinating World That People Crave to Explore -- Surprise and Delight -- Mystery -- Player Narratives -- Mythical Structure in Player Narratives -- Extracting Experiences from Stories -- Creating User Stories -- Epics: Tell about the Big Picture -- Making User Stories Smaller -- INVEST in Good Stories -- Iterating Stories and Player Narratives -- Visualizing Stories with Story Cards -- Story Creation Games -- Games with Player Narratives -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 10: ​ Creating Compelling Game Systems -- Understanding Flow -- Balancing Challenge versus Skill -- Sources of Challenge -- Disrupting Flow -- Designing Progress Systems -- Leveling Systems -- Badge and Achievement Systems -- Leaderboards.

Time Series Comparisons -- Pacing -- Case Study: Pacing in World of Warcraft -- Case Study: Pacing in Mafia Wars -- Honing Your Game Design Skills -- Experiment with Board Games -- Playing Games Critically -- Visit Toy and Hobby Stores -- Network with Game Designers -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 11: ​ Designing Game Interfaces -- Doorways to a World -- Levels of Abstraction -- Purely Imaginative -- Symbolic Representations -- Perspective Views -- Immersive 3D -- MAGIC Game Interfaces -- Memories -- Attention -- Goals -- Intuitions -- How Beauty Engages Customers -- Peak Shift Principle -- Grouping -- Perceptual Problem Solving -- Isolation -- Contrast -- Symmetry -- Abhorrence of Coincidence -- Metaphor -- Repetition, Rhythm, and Orderliness -- Balance -- Details: It Is about Perception -- Creating an Interaction Map -- Identifying Objects -- Identifying Information Channels -- Context -- Adding Social Elements to Your Interface -- Sharing -- Leverage Online Status -- Commenting and Conversation -- Reward Social Network Integration -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 12: ​ Designing for Virtual Goods -- Why Do People Buy Virtual Goods? -- Who Buys Virtual Goods? -- Where Do People Buy Virtual Goods? -- How People Pay for Virtual Goods -- Credit Cards and Payment Aggregators -- Facebook Credits -- Paypal -- Mobile Phone Payments -- Game Cards -- Categorizing Virtual Goods -- Gifts -- Boosts and Power-Ups -- Personalization and Creativity -- Play Accelerators -- Collectibles -- Expansions -- Transmedia Content -- Managing Virtual Economies -- Understanding Virtual Markets -- Money Supply -- Problems in Virtual Economies -- Mitigating Problems with Virtual Economies -- Pricing and Merchandising Virtual Goods -- Chapter in Review -- Choose Your Path -- Chapter 13: Coda -- Anything Can Be a Game.

Games Are a Mathematical Art Form.