I’ve always loved word games, so it was a natural decision for me to study ‘intrinsic motivation’ as a graduate student in Psychology. My master’s thesis attempted to show a relationship between enjoyment of a game and the presence or absence of feedback, and whether or not that feedback was tied to performance.
I hypothesized that pay to play would diminish internal enjoyment and motivation. Because I was a starving graduate student, I tested this theory by creating and programming a crude hangman game (in Fortran) to create the various conditions of performance rewards, no rewards and random rewards. An elegant design, I had high hopes of an experimental breakthrough. I wasn’t able to prove my hypothesis, but I did pass my oral exams and got the degree. Off I went to a career in advertising, then marketing.
In one of the many ironies of my life, I now realize the real breakthrough was not the findings but the hangman game itself.
Talk about lack of vision! This was 1978, right about the time Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were busy changing the world. The Google Guys weren’t even born yet. Yet, I was so busy mastering SPSS, Fortran and other mysteries of experimental design that I totally missed the point that the game itself was the point, not just a vehicle to gain a degree. (If I could turn back time….)
It was apparent to me even in 1978 that computer-based games were literally “sticky“.
My measure of ‘intrinsic motivation’ was how long subjects stayed and played after I told them their contribution to the experiment was over (no more cash) and they were free to leave. I casually added that they could stay and play if they wished. This was a strategic error as it cost me a lot of time waiting. Some subjects had to be told to leave after an hour. The average ‘persistence’ was 20 minutes.
Fast forward 32 years and electronic games have become a worldwide obsession. 24% of U.S. and U.K. Internet users play social games like Scrabble and Farmville online at least weekly. The profile is very broad, in terms of both age and gender. E-Marketer reports that as of March 2010, gamers spend an average of 8 hours a week playing games, up from 7.3 hours in 2009.
Gaming has become so important a ‘media’ that Nielsen tracks it along with radio, movies and TV. According to Nielsen, the most popular PC game is World of Warcraft, with The Sims a distant second. WOW is played on average 524 minutes a week.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
In March, Activision’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 hit a record 25 million unique players across all platforms, XBox360, PS3 and PC’s. I asked my twitter friends to enlighten me as to what makes this game so addictive. The answer appears to be great storylines and graphics.
Interactive games have become a ‘social media’ in their own right. A July 2009 Mintel Report (“Gaming in the Interactive World) explains that console is the most social, with more than a third of users play these in person with other. Remote is common on social networking sites, as would be expected, as well as online sites. 18-24 year olds are the most likely to be social when playing games – 41% say it’s more fun to play games in person compared to just 25% overall. 31% of 18-24 year olds say playing games online is a great way to meet new people and 22% say they would like to play in tournaments. Older gamers are much less likely to agree with the more social aspects of gaming.
Ford Taurus: Chasing the Shadow Game
With games this popular, it’s little wonder marketers have caught on. Many participate in popular games as sponsors, while some create their own games. Ford Taurus is featured prominently in the USA Network hit show, White Collar. They have extended this placement to White Collar’s male skewing audience with an online game that mimics one of the show’s FBI-crime solving episodes called “Chasing the Shadow”. The game is said to be fairly sophisticated, more like a console game than an online game. It also features the Sync interface, “which may be the most important element of the game, since players spend a good deal of time using it to make and receive phone calls, text messages, and so on.”
Marketing Daily described it this way: “While driving the Taurus, the trainee uses features like Ford Sync technology (to receive text messages, voice messages, make calls, and get clues); SecuriCode vehicle access; adaptive cruise control; and collision warning….Ford Taurus branding frames the game window, and vehicle features are also touted via text messages and voice messages from headquarters.”
That is certainly a far cry from hangman, and well beyond anything I could have ever imagined in 1978. The Ford Taurus provides a great example of how marketers can leverage the inherent ‘stickiness’ of games to involve young consumers in their stories and products. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of these types of efforts in the future.
I only wish I had the vision to imagine what they will look like.
