The Strangely Compelling Game Mechanic Powering Google+ | Hacker News Reader

The Strangely Compelling Game Mechanic Powering Google+

theatlantic.com

48 pointsJamesLowell6 comments

While "juicy" interface elements are certainly found in games, the "+1" pop-up circle is no more a game mechanic than a text input box is.

(I realize I'm being pedantic. As a game developer, this sort of playing fast-and-loose with words annoys me in the same way people talking about "programming in HTML" may annoy you.)

Regardless, while I think it overstates the case a bit, I do think that that pop-up is actually a good driver of user behavior, at least on a moment-to-moment level.

I'd be interested to know what people consider a true game mechanic to be. Examples such as the op of including game like behaviour or incentives in interactions we wouldn't normally think of as games is increasingly popular and effective so at what point does it move from "gamification" to a true game mechanic?

I would say there are three main elements of game mechanics: 1) rewards or penalties; 2) unpredictability, either through interaction with other players or pure chance; 3) utilizing player skills that can be improved with repeated play experience.

None of those are involved here, except maybe a little bit of 1) if you consider +1 a "visual reward". I'd really expect all three to be involved before saying something has game mechanics--you can easily find each of them in Foursquare, for instance.

Agreed, and I don't think you're being pedantic at all. It's a great user experience, and the whimsical fun touches like this (and what happens when you remove them from circles) are the kind of thing we're more used to seeing in games than in "serious" software. But that doesn't mean it's "game mechanics."

Oh well, at least he didn't use "gamification" :-)

A little off-topic: but does anyone who has tried Google Circles know if they're as easy (I've read many times that they are more fun :)) to make as Facebook friend lists? To make a list in Facebook I add two or three people to it and Facebook guesses pretty damn well who else I want on that list (presumably by doing something like approximate clique cover on my component of the social graph). Maybe other people's social circles bleed into each other more and that might confuse Facebook algorithm, but for me it worked like a charm.

This would only be true if Google wanted you to invite as many people as you can! But this is not the case; at least for now.

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