Tag: monetization

  • “Made to Stick” and Social Online Games

    “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip and Dan Heath is a look into the “stickiness” of ideas and how this impacts product design, marketing and consumer behavior. It contains a wealth of ideas that are directly applicable to the design, monetization and community aspects of social online games. In […]

  • Religion, Online Social Communities and Monetization

    “Religion Explained” by Pascal Boyer explores the psychology of belief systems and reveals how the nature of religion is linked to the structure of the brain (as with the design and stickiness of everything else humans create and consume). Boyer posits that religion is a result of our need to explain the constant background processing happening in our brains. If we understood those background processes and why they lead to concepts like religion we might hijack them to create stable, religion-like societies and behaviors in and around our online social games.

  • An Argument for Ugly Characters

    Marketing tells us we need objects in order to be better people, feel better about ourselves, and impress our peers. If not for marketing, every person in the world might exist on the same basic set of durable goods. Marketing tells us we aren’t enough, that more is needed to be “complete”. As such, purchasing is ultimately driven by fear. In-game the ability to visually register the material worth of a character is limited. How can I know the worth of your shoes upon immediate inspection?