Week Two: Slum of Millionaires

In the context of this program, I think you need to decide if you are mostly working on the game, or the second character/narrative part.

Since we spent most of our time discussing a game:

You really need to design the game first...for your concept to reach an audience, its needs to be fun/compelling first and foremost, and not be gameplay bolted on to other content. You aren't game designers, which doesnt have to be an insurmountable problem. The trick is to find an existing game that has metrics you like, and that are relevant with your content, and then make changes/modifications.

There's a useful quotes/concept in this interview/report by Zynga (the maker of Farmville)'s GM:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6280/a_philosophy_that_extends_.php

"A lot of people in the game industry, like they want to build games because they're gamers, right? They like games, they play a lot of games. Our audience is actually in fact not gamers. The 200 million users out there who maybe play just a very, very basic kind of game, and that's it.

So, how do you, as a gamer, build a game that can be continually enjoyed by the really, really non-gamers, like the students, like accountants, lawyers, like housewives, househusbands, children, etcetera?"

It sounds like your audience too. I think you need to codify what your value is (actual grounded, concrete content, with rich-media as part of that content) and make sure that is the featured part of drawing audience in and maintaining them. If my Facebook-newsfeed shows compelling content as part of the updates (rather than "Richard bout two pigs") you might draw more of my friend into the experience.

Flat-out copying some of their successes (which, to be fair, a million people are trying to do) may let you find the places to feature your own content/approach, as an original creative contribution (and as your value-proposition)

http://blog.pekpongpaet.com/2010/01/02/what-makes-farmville-so-sticky-an...

Then we can focus on finding unique ways to play off your content. True, we've talked about linking the game-mechanics and actual data to the real world, which is compelling in the abstract (ie: if I know its based on the real world, that may make it seem "cool"). How do I continue to see that effect in my moment-to-moment game play? I think that's the compelling part about your approach.

Some other real-world-data games (which may or may not be relevant):

Sharkrunner -- movement of sharks you chase is based on real-life movement of GPS-tagged sharks:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/sharkweek/shark-runners/shark-runne...

We also need to explore the trading-mechanic in your game; I'll look for some references or similar games. Anyone else know any?