The Fun Community

This week's FunCast is the first part a chapter in the Well-Played Game called "The Fun Community." It has become an increasingly central part of everything I teach, and, for some, has become very useful in understanding how to design games for mass, multiplayer, online communities.

Here's a bit:

"...The only real assurance we have about the "fun" we can have together is the one we give each other.

The need for community holds true whether we are players or spectators. As a spectator, I want to be able to scream for my team. If the spectator sitting next to me wants to scream for her team, and if she insists that I also scream for her team, the likelihood is that we will wind up screaming at each other. We have to spend more of our time resisting each other than enjoying the game. I want the game to be important. She wants the game to be important. But we both lose our opportunity to relish this importance when the game becomes more important to us than we are to each other."

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith