Courtesy of Flickr's kenjonbro

To our loyal Ayogo blog readers, thanks for all your recent comments and re-tweets. It’s good to know what you’ve been up to — we really appreciate it! In terms of what we’ve been up to, we’re getting ready for a huge summer.

To start, Pet Pupz, a community-based virtual pet  app (originally a Facebook game launched on Facebook awhile back) is now available in the Apple AppStore – and therefore your smartphone and the iPad! You can download it here.

As for coming attractions…

We have an exciting announcement to share with you on June 14th and then one more later on in the month. The first announcement involves a topic on serious games and health, and coincidentally, it was also the topic of a panel Michael was recently a part of. Terry Lavender from the Vancouver Observer covered the panel at last week’s Vancouver Digital Week. I also attended the event and I was excited to see the enthusiasm for “serious games.”

On the panel, Michael spoke about game design for casual social games, and in particular about game design in games that aren’t just played for fun, but also may encourage and incentivize certain “serious” behaviours. Here is an excerpt from Terry Lavender’s post,

Why do kids willingly do chores in FarmVille (a Facebook-based game) and World of Warcraft, but not in real life, asked Michael Fergusson, CEO of local casual game company Ayogo. The answer, he said, is the appeal of competition and challenge. Ayogo is working with a large health research institute to see whether a health-based videogame can actually motivate people to develop a healthy lifestyle. But in order to work, the game has to be fun first, with the health benefits strictly secondary, according to Fergusson.

As for some cool statistics that I picked up from the conference, did you know that….

* 1 billion people see a Google page every day
* 55% of people online are women
* Social media users are more positive about brands than non-users
* There are 5 billion mobile phones in the world, compared to 1 billion personal computers and 1.1 billion televisions
* 75% of Canadians have mobile phones
* Canadians send 100 million text messages every day

Oh, catch us at Launch Party 9 on June 17th in Vancouver. Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington is just one of the celebrity judges at the event. In the meantime, please show us some love and VOTE for our video!

Courtesy of Flickr's kohtzy

One of senior team members, VP of Engineering, Dave Orchard flew down to San Francisco last week to check out two conferences, f8 and Inside Social Apps. He has written a detailed blog post about the take away messages from f8, including some really cool technological announcements that were revealed. For a more detailed read, you can read his blog post on our tech blog.  I’ve cross-posted a sneak peek of the post below…

I think the biggest announcement is a combination of announcements, so let’s start with the top-down view. What Facebook can now do is be the gatekeeper for all aspects of personal information. If you like a movie, song, restaurant, article, person…whatever…on a 3rd party site like imdb.com or yelp.com, that site will notify Facebook. Then Facebook will update your profile in real-time! That itself is simply amazing, that the profile you statically filled out on sign-up and never revisited is now real-time with you. But wait, there’s more. Applications that you have added can subscribe to your profile and changes, and will be notified, typically in less than a minute. In fact, they will try up to 5 times and keep the callback for up to 24 hours.

Courtesy of Flickr's undergroundbastard

Ayogo got some more press recently, this time from Canada’s largest urban weekly, Vancouver’s very own The Georgia Straight. Christopher Poon contacted us after hearing about some of the innovative games we have been working on for the iPad. He thought it’d be valuable to interview Michael Fergusson about how Vancouver mobile game developers are preparing for the arrival of Apple’s newest IT-device. Thanks for the interview Christopher! I’ve cross-posted the interview below. As always, we’d love to hear from you, so make sure to leave a comment or contact us if you have any questions.

For Hong-Yee Wong, the scenario is all too familiar. Apple unveils an innovative mobile device, and critics are quick to point out its flaws before even seeing what effect it has on the mobile-entertainment market.

The CEO of IUGO Mobile Entertainment, the Vancouver-based game developer behind such iPhone titles as Toy Bot Diaries and Zombie Attack, is optimistic that the highly anticipated iPad will create a new market in interactive entertainment, much as the iPhone did after its release in 2007.

“We are definitely very excited to see the new platform,” Wong told the Georgia Straight by phone. “I think it’s a revolutionary device, and I think it provides a new paradigm for the interactive digital lifestyle.”

Unveiled back in January by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the iPad is a touchscreen tablet computer that resembles a large iPod Touch. One line of iPads will be Wi-Fi–enabled, while the other will have both Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities. The former will be released in the U.S. on April 3, with both becoming available in Canada, the U.S., and other countries by late April.

While skeptics have dismissed the iPad as uninspiring, Wong sees nothing but potential. Wong noted that the iPhone received similar criticism prior to the launch of the App Store, and we all know how that turned out.

Michael Fergusson, CEO of Ayogo, another Vancouver-based mobile-game developer, echoes Wong’s sentiments.

“There are those who say it’s nothing more than a big iPod Touch—it has a bigger screen, there’s no multitasking—but there were also those who said that about the iPhone: that it wasn’t going to be a game changer,” Fergusson said by phone.

Both IUGO and Ayogo are in the midst of developing games for the iPad. Wong and Fergusson agree that the only way to successfully carve out a place in the mobile-game market is to design products geared to the specifications of each device.

“We looked at the iPhone as a unique device, and we designed an original game for the device that made you solve things by using the tilt functionality or the touchscreen,” Wong said. “We’re definitely looking at the uniqueness for the iPad. We’re not blindly extending what we have on the iPhone or the iPod Touch onto it because we do spend a lot of attention and focus on the user experience and a lot of the user interface, and it’s critical to us.”

Fergusson said the iPad’s key feature is its larger, 9.7-inch touchscreen, which will allow developers to create a multiplayer experience that is impossible on the iPhone or the iPod Touch.

“When you think about games that you play on your phone and then you think about games that you play with other people, like board games—I mean, Monopoly is hard to play on an iPhone,” Fergusson said. “It’s hard to play on a board that’s four inches by two inches, but it’s a lot easier to play on one that’s 10 inches.”

Screen size is one of the reasons Andres Wanner, a lecturer at Simon Fraser University’s school of interactive arts and technology in Surrey, believes the iPad will be a success. According to Wanner, the screen will also allow innovative features to be developed for applications for use in everyday life.

“Map applications have been quite a successful thing on the iPhone itself, but when you think of a map, you don’t want to have tiny little details but, rather, a large overview,” Wanner explained by phone. “The big screen will help with that, and that’s one way that the iPad will have an advantage over the iPhone.”

Wanner predicts that, at first, only tech-savvy individuals will pick up the device. However, he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see older generations embrace the device later, as its simplicity could appeal to those who thought the iPhone and iPod Touch were too small.

Fergusson is hopeful that developers will take heed of how consumers use the iPad, so that they can create better products for the device.

“Right now, we’ll only have early-stage games, but as we get better over time, I’m sure we’ll see more and more innovative games on the device, and really see what the iPad is capable of,” Fergusson said.

Courtesy of Flickr's tao zhyn

To start, thanks so much for joining our Facebook Page and contributing your thoughts and comments to our blog discussions – we really appreciate it! Since your feedback helps us craft this blog series, we wanted to address a particular topic that there has been a lot of buzz around: understanding micro-transactions (the sale of virtual goods) in social games. You might (or not) be surprised to learn that just like understanding how game design and game mechanics can help motivate and engage people in gameplay, the same principles can be applied to understanding why people buy virtual goods in the first place. This is important as virtual goods revenues are expected to hit almost $2 billion in the U.S alone this year.

While we’re planning to address the more complex issues surrounding the monetary ecosystem of social games in future posts, we thought we’d start here: How can game design and game mechanics create demand for virtual goods, essentially leading to player purchases?

Why Virtual Goods Matter

Virtual goods are digital items with contextual meaning. They are non-physical objects like avatars, bling or coins that are purchased for use in online games or communities. These objects are nothing more than icons or pixels, so why do we spend real cash on obtaining them? As we’ve explained before, games and play are basic survival adaptation and so are the way we perceive virtual goods. What the end user perceives as a virtual good is always part of a user experience–the gameplay–and it is usually delivered by the game design. From a game design (and business) point of view, it’s beneficial to understand this. Virtual goods hold meaning to the player, because they enable players to perform meaningful tasks within a game, like influencing game statistics or allowing for self-expression. They become metaphors for packaging up behaviours that people are already engaging in, offering real value.

Implications for Game Design

If it’s not about the virtual goods themselves, but it’s about the underlying human emotion or desire that is displayed by them that really matters (as some would argue it does) then we can see its significance for game design. Game designers can essentially create an environment that incorporates engaging ways to display, obtain and share these virtual goods. Researcher Vili Lehdonvirta suggests a few ways game designers can achieve this level of engagement. He explains that game designers can try to mimic conditions that are similar to environments that existed in our hunter-gatherer days, so to drive players to make virtual goods purchases. (We’ll see in future posts why this is important to understanding micro-transactions.) He suggests placing items in a game that provide functional attributes that players can relate to, like adding an element of performance advantage or new functionality. as he explains, other than just having desirable attributes, functional commodities also have a strong emotional and social meaning. As an example, in Need for Speed Nitro on Facebook, performance upgrades for cars generally have to be earned through gameplay instead of cash purchases, but cash purchases (sale of virtual goods) can help to reach these gameplay goals faster. What other features influence users’ purchase decisions? He suggests designing goods that can be customized or personalized, as this adds an element of social hierarchy for the player. Scarcity is another way game designers can create demand. Humans are hardwired to compete for scarce resources, so by making digital goods artificially scarce, designers are raising their perceived value.

As you can see, using game mechanics that make virtual goods seem more valuable and meaningful, we can incentivize players to action. We should note that we’ve hardly scratched the surface of this complex topic. There are many elements to building successful monetary ecosystems and how each one relates to gameplay. However, we felt that for game designers (or businesses) understanding how game design can create demand for virtual goods was an interesting implication to consider. What are your thoughts? Leave us a comment or contact us.

Courtesy of Flickr's janusz l

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “social games with a purpose,” since I went to a gaming event last month in Vancouver. That’s where the idea of was first introduced to me, and I thought it’d be interesting to explore this topic further. Why? Because games are typically seen as entertainment, however it seems they can they also be used as tools for changing behaviours, learning new skills and even saving the planet.

Games With A Purpose

What does it mean when we call something a game with a purpose and how is it different from just a game? A game with a purpose is defined as a game played on the computer in an entertaining setting that serves some purpose for the person setting up the game. The player usually does something that she would otherwise not willingly do just because she can do it. The idea is that when you’re playing these games it’s not just about having fun, but it’s also about doing something in the game that has meaning in a real-world context. An early example of a game with a purpose or GWAP, is the ESP game. In that game, players had to identify images and label them because image recognition was something computers couldn’t do back then. The game made humans willingly perform a task that they otherwise might not have wanted to do (identify images) because it was part of a game.

Tools for Change

As we’ve explained in previous posts, when we enjoy learning, we retain more because we’re more engaged in something that is meaningful. From a scientific perspective, the goal of game developers is for players to achieve a deep state of focused motivation or something called Flow (the term was coined by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). Why? This is where players get “hooked” in the game. It’s also believed that this element of Flow is what makes games such a great candidate for changing behaviours.

So what kinds of Facebook games are we talking about? Some more common casual games with purpose have been used in science-related fields. Researchers at the Children’s Nutrition Centre of Baylor College of Medicine created a successful PC game that helped kids improve their lifestyle. (They used the game as a mechanism for kids to discover and distinguish between fresh fruits and vegetables, and junk foods that just had fruits in them.) The game utilized “fun” and interactive gameplay to motivate the kids to make the right choices. For us, we’re currently working on a motivational and educational Facebook game about how to improve eating and exercise habits. The purpose of the game is to teach players how to estimate the nutritional value of foods in order for them to make the right choices. The game will also encourage players to make concrete positive changes to their nutrition and fitness and activity regimes. (Through a series small actions, completing “missions” and using achievements as a way to encourage particular player behaviour, we hope to encourage actions within the game, which indirectly improves health.)

Besides games that encourage learning skills, there are also Facebook games that use gameplay to address “unsolved” social issues in the real-world, like poverty, education, health and climate change. Lil’Green Patch is one of those games that combines environmentalism and gaming. The more actions that players complete in the game (tend to their and their friends’ land), the better the outcome for a real-world problem (advertisers will donate money to saving the rain forest). Who would’ve thought that nurturing patches of virtual land on Facebook could raise more than $320,000? What are your thoughts about using social games to motivate us to positive action? Leave us a comment or contact us.