Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Mechanics 1st Edition

by Tim Fields (Author), Brandon Cotton (Author)

26 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0240817668

ISBN-10: 0240817664

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Mobile & Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Mechanics, Second Edition
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Social Game Design reveals what you need to know in order to create and monetize online social games. Using examples from successful game designs, you'll learn what makes these games compelling, and why people will pay to play them. This book will inspire you to apply these principles in order to meet the challenges of this new space, creating original games that both delight players and generate profit. We'll talk about different business models, how to acquire and keep players, how to sell virtual goods, and how to keep players coming back day after day.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tim Fields has been in the game industry since 1995 as a producer, project manager, design lead, and business developer. Tim has helped small studios and top publishers like EA and Microsoft run teams that create great games. He has worked on shooters, sports games, racing titles, and RPGs using talent and teams from North America, Asia, Europe, and the UK.
Brandon Cotton has over 10 years of game industry experience covering a wide variety of technology, platforms and game types. He is active in the social and online game design community, and currently serves as a founder, design lead, and programmer for Portalarium. He has built games for NCSoft, Ubisoft, and Microsoft, and holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ CRC Press; 1st edition (December 12, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 278 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0240817664
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0240817668
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,120,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,010 in Computer & Video Game Design
- #1,495 in Digital Art
- #3,105 in Game Programming

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26 ratings

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Fabian Hernandez Alamilla

Awesome book!

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2014

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Kick and deep overview, It's a great start to research in specific points. I already bought the second edition in paperback.

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Jascha Casadio

An extensive up to date review of social game design and monetization.

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2015

Reading this book is like having a long conversation with a veteran of the game industry: enjoyable and plenty of insights. So if you are looking for a 360 degrees overview of the social game industry, go on and get this book, you’ll get through those 200 pages with pleasure. If, on the contrary, you are interested in something more technical, then as you get to the back cover of this title, you will feel some bad taste in your mouth.

I’ve been suggested this book. Working in the game industry, I have already been exposed since day one to its rules and acronyms and I was merely interested in a title that focused on KPIs. This title marginally touch the subject, even if it’s about monetization.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pleasant book to read that, in my case, didn’t really get me any real value. I simply had the wrong expectations from it, maybe driven by the title, which could have been different, indeed.

The authors describe the many concepts that anyone into social games must know, starting with a history lesson about how the industry evolved from text based adventures to MMORPGs and games asynchronously played on the major social networks and/or on mobile devices.

This approach is used throughout the eleven chapters: all the topics are introduced first as they were in the past, when solo playing was the rule; then as they are now, in a world where everyone is connected and playing together.

Among them, I have particularly enjoyed those about the power of competition and cooperation, as well as the desire to show off success and vanity goods. The importance to quickly adapt, through A/B testing, to a fast moving cruel industry where hundreds of competitors are ready to get a piece of your cake is constantly highlighted.

There are a couple of things that I’ve particularly liked about this book: the first is that the authors often accompany the concepts with real world examples of companies and games and how they were able to exploit this or that social feature. The second detail that I have really loved is the interview with some legend of the game industry that you find at the end of each chapter. These interviews usually take up some good 4 to 5 pages and are a great mix of wisdom learned from the past and vision of the present/future of the industry.

So, this title is a good up to date read, as long as you are not expecting to get some formula or technical details about monetization. A pleasure to read.

As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: http://books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!

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Chris Miller (@IdoNotes)

Social gaming techniques from some true authorities

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2012

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With the recent push of social business and gamification I wanted a viewpoint from the originators of the idea. Social Game Design: Monetization Methods and Mechanics by Tim Fields and Brandon Cotton comes from true successful experience. Game designers lead the way in gamification and monetization with many of the tips applicable to social business design.

I am glad I was able to get this book for review after getting into the second chapter. The first chapter was just introductory and gave you an idea on what the book does not cover. I fully anticipated it to be about online and mobile games with tons of technique I could apply outside of that.

Chapter 2 has a subsection that summed up social business ideas in many enterprises. Just being online or multiplayer in their words does not make you social. This is a point often overlooked by businesses entering the deployment and ideas. The ability to bring employees, partners and customers back again and again is a key component.

A highlight of the book is the interviews at the end of each section with major names in social game monetization. They openly talk about how they built the empires and what mistakes they made along the way. It is great knowledge and the same mistakes that we will all make.

While chapter 3 is only a few pages on the history of game monetization,chapter 4 gives the business reason to build social into the game or your company site if you look at it with the same lenses I did. Industry terms were not as important that were shown in Chapter 5 but serve a good reference point for some analytics you will need when deploying.

I felt Chapter 7 was the most important one I read showing you how to acquire, keep and regain users. Not only through innovation but by building in rewards and systems to keep them energized about your platform. Acquiring the users is the highest cost a social business will have. Providing value back to the enterprise is a grassroots effect. Getting the data into the system and having it grow is where rewards, leaderboards and badges come into play.

For the gamers reading this the book definitely covers virtual goods, payment systems and forms of currency. Being able to decide what platforms will be beneficial and how to set varying levels of gaming are all explored with great expertise.

This book has value for both the game writer and business trying to get into the social game.

Disclosure: The above links are Amazon affiliate links for the book.

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Top reviews from other countries

Josep

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2016

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Love this book!

Farid Haque

An eye opener for those looking to design social games

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 29, 2013

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A very insightful book on game design. A real 'horses mouth' almanac on social gaming tricks of the trade. Highly recommend if you want to start with the very basics and understand the mechanics that make social games tick. Loved the interviews. Made you feel as if you had a window into the very studios that have spoken to the authors themselves!

dacudo

Very helpful and current

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2012

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Great book that is up to date with the industry. Detailed analysis of monetization and in-game currencies. Well written. I would recommend this book to anyone that is studying free-to-play games on social or mobile platforms.

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