1 - Virtual Goods: How and Why They Work

by Lennart Nacke

As a Christmas spe­cial, I will for once update this blog daily for the next 24 days with my favorite pre­sen­ta­tion slides about games, user expe­ri­ence, game design, emo­tion, affec­tive and enter­tain­ment com­put­ing, etc.

On December 1, we start with a pre­sen­ta­tion from Amy Jo Kim, who runs Shufflebrain, a com­pany that builds games for social net­works (cur­rently very suc­cess­ful). She is also author of the book “Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities” and can cer­tainly be con­sid­ered an expert on online com­mu­ni­ties. Her pre­sen­ta­tion is witty, sharp and to the point. But have a look at it yourself:


So, why do vir­tual goods work? (Business Week reports that rev­enues are soar­ing for social game apps) According to Amy Jo, they appeal to peo­ples’ quirks and needs because the social con­text pro­vides emo­tion and meaning:

  • Desire for enhancements
  • Desire for indi­vid­ual impor­tance and expression
  • Desire for socializing
  • Demonstration of indi­vid­ual care
  • Need for pos­i­tive reflec­tion on indi­vid­ual action

The slides also present a good strat­egy to mon­e­tize this indi­vid­ual need for mean­ing and emo­tion by using social games or games on social plat­forms. For me the most impor­tant take­away is how­ever the human desire for emo­tion and mean­ing, which can be uti­lized by game design­ers to turn games into suc­cess­ful ser­vices (which will hope­fully also find its way into improv­ing human lives).

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