Social Network Games

Abstract

This article presents the results of an interview study on how people perceive and play social network games on Facebook. During recent years, social games have become the biggest genre of games if measured by the number of registered users. These games are designed to cater for large audiences in their design principles and values, a free-to-play revenue model and social network integration that make them easily approachable and playable with friends. Although these games have made the headlines and have been seen to revolutionize the game industry, we still lack an understanding of how people perceive and play them. For this article, we interviewed 18 Finnish Facebook users from a larger questionnaire respondent pool of 134 people. This study focuses on a user-centric approach, highlighting the emergent experiences and the meaning-making of social games players. Our findings reveal that social games are usually regarded as single player games with a social twist, and as suffering partly from their design characteristics, while still providing a wide spectrum of playful experiences for different needs. The free-to-play revenue model provides an easy access to social games, but people disagreed with paying for additional content for several reasons.

Keywords

attitudes experience Facebook free-to-play frustration game design gameplay interviews micropayments motivation perception playful experience sociability social games social networks user study video games

Social games, that is, games played on social network services such as Facebook, have become very popular when measured by the number of registered users. The social games business has been growing fast and, in recent years, they have made headlines with promising estimations (Business Wire, 2011; Gobry, 2012; GP Bullhound, 2010; IESherpa, 2012). Facebook is the most popular social network service with over 1.1 billion active users (Facebook, 2013). According to Alexa (2013), a web information company, in January 2013, Facebook surpassed Google search as the most popular website. In 2011, CITYVILLE (Zynga, 2011), reached 100 million monthly users in 43 days since its launch on December 2, 2010 (Takahashi, 2011). Recently Facebook announced that 20% of Facebook’s daily users play social games (Crook, 2013). These numbers suggest that games and play on Facebook have become very popular, and that it is the most popular platform for social games.

Academia has also noticed that the emergence of social network games and studied them from various focused perspectives, such as sociability (Losh, 2008), social dynamics (Wei, Yang, & Adamic, 2010), game design (Järvinen, 2009; Paavilainen, 2010; Tyni, Sotamaa, & Toivonen, 2011), playability (Paavilainen, Alha, & Korhonen, 2012, in press), platform (Kirman et al., 2010), playfulness (Kirman, 2010), marketing (Hamari & Järvinen, 2011; Hamari & Lehdonvirta, 2010), behavioral economics (Hamari, 2011), player classification (Kirman & Lawson, 2009), uses and gratifications (Hou, 2011), and motivations (Doughty, Hopkins, & Lawson, 2011). Most of this research has been quantitative in nature. However, to gain a richer understanding of the phenomenon, a qualitative approach is needed.

This article constitutes explorative qualitative research into the social games domain, with particular reference to social games in Facebook. Because of the relative novelty of this domain, our aim here is to provide a broad perspective into the phenomenon, rather than to focus on certain details with a narrow frame. We situate our research in game studies (Mäyrä, 2008) by trying to understand games as activity (Stenros & Waern, 2011). Due to the multidisciplinary nature of game studies (Crookall, 2000; Mäyrä, 2009), this research features elements from social sciences, human-computer interaction and marketing research.

In this article, we report results based on 18 semi-structured interviews with Finnish Facebook users on how they perceive and play social games. This article provides insight into six main themes that emerged from the interview data:

How social games are perceived,

How they are played,

What makes them fun and motivating to play,

What causes frustration,

What the role of sociability is, and

What the attitudes toward micropayments are.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first article to present a qualitative study of social network games of the type found on Facebook. The purpose of the article is to provide bottom-up, user-centric information on the topic by studying and portraying, through interviews, the meaning-making of social game players. The findings presented in this article should be useful for both researchers and social games developers. Numerous social network services with social games are currently available (such as the Russian VK and the Chinese KAIXIN001). However, most research—this one included—focuses on Facebook as it is the most popular social network service, and also for practical reasons due to the language barrier.

This article is structured as follows: First, we introduce social games by explaining their common features; then we present our methodology and the interview results; and finally we provide a discussion, a conclusion, and suggestions for future work.

Social Games

Social games is a game industry term for video games played on social network services such as Facebook. In this article, we use the term social games in this context, as well. The beginning of the social games era can be set in 2007, when the social network service Facebook was opened for third-party developer applications with the launch of the Facebook Developer Platform (Mäyrä, 2011). As a term, social game is a misnomer and represents the digital fallacy (Stenros & Waern, 2011), resulting from the consideration of games in general through the prism of digital games—games have always been social (Isbister, 2010; Stenros, Paavilainen, & Mäyrä, 2011). The term social game actually emphasizes the role of the distribution platform, social network services, which distinguish social games from other types of video games.

Järvinen (2011) has proposed the following short definition for social games: “Online games that adapt your friendship ties for play purposes, while accommodating your daily routines.” This definition emphasizes three distinct aspects: Social games are played online, they take advantage of the player’s existing social network, and they support the sporadic and spontaneous cultural use of social network services, such as Facebook.

Design Characteristics

The design values and game mechanics of social games are similar to those in casual games (Juul, 2009; Paavilainen et al., 2012, in press). Kultima (2009) has recognized four design values in casual games: acceptability, accessibility, simplicity, and flexibility (see also Juul, 2009). These values fit social games well. For example, our findings confirm that FARMVILLE (Zynga, 2009) features a positive, acceptable theme, and it is an easily accessible web browser game. The gameplay is easy to learn and suits different needs, accommodating to the players’ daily routines (see also Pagulayan et al., 2012).

Based on the work of Rao (2008), Järvinen (2009) offered five design drivers that describe the nature of these games. Social games support spontaneity through sporadic play and feature symbolic physicality such as gifting. Inherent sociability uses the player’s social network, and social games foster narrativity for the player and others. Furthermore, they are played whenever the player sees fit, rather than at set times, enabled by asynchronicity.

According to Paavilainen (2010), social games can be described and evaluated using 10 high-level heuristics: accessibility, interruptability, continuity, discovery, virality, narrativity, expression, sharing, sociability, and ranking. To explain, social games are easy to access and they support sporadic, spontaneous gameplay. They progress continuously, offering new content as the game is updated by the developers during its life cycle. Viral messages are used for acquisition and retention through narratives that are posted on the social network. They support player expression by often providing customizable game spaces for others to visit. Social interaction is further encouraged by reciprocal actions such as sending and receiving gifts. Game mechanics are tied into the players’ social network, thus fostering collaboration and competition in the social network.

The Free-to-Play Revenue Model

In order to attract a wide range of audiences, the revenue models and pricing models in social games have been especially designed with these goals in mind. The free-to-play revenue model refers to a pricing model where the entry and core usage has no monetary cost, but the publisher sells additional virtual goods, such as energy boosts and virtual clothes, to the players. The free-to-play model offers two main advantages. First, it allows flexible price points for customers with different willingness to pay for additional content. Second, it enables a wider range of player segments (see Kirman & Lawson, 2009; Tuunanen & Hamari, 2012) to access the game. The following reasons detail why the majority of commercial social games are based on the free-to-play model:

Non-paying users increase virality and the value of the service, creating a positive network effect (Hamari & Järvinen, 2011; Tyni et al., 2011).

As games are essentially experience goods, the revenue model is designed to allow free testing before determining the willingness to pay.

The customers can spend exactly as much money as they wish, in contrast to retail games, which commonly have only one price point.

The relative value of virtual goods sold increases due to the non-paying users not possessing them.

The games-as-service approach enables the developers to iteratively tweak game mechanics to better address the goals of customer acquisition, retention, and monetization (Hamari, 2011; Hamari & Järvinen, 2011; Hamari & Lehdonvirta, 2010).

Metrics Driven Development

The possibility to tweak and test the game design is particularly alluring. With the more traditional revenue models having only one price point, game developers were not able to affect monetization after players had already been acquired. The free-to-play model and games as services paradigm (see Hamari & Järvinen, 2011) allows the developers to tweak the monetization by analyzing the metrics data from the game. For example, Zynga (2008) had seven different tutorials running in parallel in MAFIA WARS, allowing them to select the version most accessible to new players, and most profitable for the corporation (Elliot, 2010). Most social games can be seen as certain kinds of customer relationship management systems (see Hamari & Järvinen, 2011; Hamari & Lehdonvirta, 2010; Huotari & Hamari, 2012). This service design paradigm based on metrics also allows the developers to gradually update the content, keeping the players interested in the game—and as a design process, it is a significant departure from retail and subscription-based game development.

Offline Progress Mechanics and the Double Currency Model

Social games feature offline progress mechanics (Paavilainen et al., 2012, in press), which are designed to lure the player to pay micropayments or invite more friends to play. These mechanics are temporal in their nature (Fields & Cotton, 2012; van Meurs, 2011). The two most commonly used types are appointment and energy.

The appointment mechanic dictates that the player must wait for certain game tasks to be completed (e.g., crops in FARMVILLE take time to grow before harvest). The player can speed up the growth through micropayments. The energy mechanic works slightly differently, yet the principle is the same: The player has a certain amount of energy and each game action consumes some of that energy. When all energy is depleted, the player must wait for some time for the energy to replenish. The player can purchase energy through micropayments. Both mechanics drive the player toward in-game purchase decision situations.

Social games feature an in-game double currency model (Fields & Cotton, 2012), in which one currency is earnable (i.e., “easy to get”) and the other, more valuable one, is purchasable (i.e., “hard to get”). The purchasable currency is valued as it allows access to premium content, which is usually exclusive to paying customers only (Tyni et al., 2011).

Data and Method

The objective of the study was to gather rich qualitative data that would give insights into how people perceive and play social games. The chosen methods were an online questionnaire for screening potential informants and semi-structured interviews for gaining qualitative data from Finnish Facebook social game players. Interviews have been recognized to be a central qualitative method for gaining understanding of gameplay (Jørgensen, 2012; Mäyrä, 2008).

We approached our goal first with a questionnaire, which was used for mapping further structures for the interviews as well as to identify interviewees for the study. The questionnaire was advertised on various Finnish discussion forums, email lists, and in the authors’ own Facebook profiles. We relied on the snowball sampling (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981; Heckathorn, 1997) to reach a viable number of respondents from which to select the interviewees.

The questionnaire probed the respondents’ gaming habits, Internet usage and attitudes, Facebook usage in general, attitudes toward play and games on Facebook, as well as issues concerning online and offline sociability. The survey received 134 responses (67 males and 67 females). The average age of the respondents was 30.5 years and a clear majority (91%) had used Facebook for 1 year or longer. A third of the respondents (34%) played social games on Facebook at least sometimes.

Our aim was not to carry out statistical analysis. However, instead of manually analyzing every respondent’s answers to recruit different types of Facebook users for the interviews, the data were first analyzed in SPSS by using orthogonally rotated principal components analysis (PCA). We strictly followed the guidelines provided by Metsämuuronen (2006).

The PCA created different principal components based on the questionnaire answers and counted how strongly each respondent represented each principal component. In that way, we could recognize different groups, such as heavy Facebook users, Facebook gamers, experienced traditional video gamers, and people who like to socialize on the Internet. These groupings enabled us to identify and approach respondents who showed varied attitudes toward Facebook and social games, thus providing rich, comprehensive data.

We recruited 18 interviewees from among the respondents. For an unknown reason, many female respondents declined our interview requests, resulting in a skewed demography with 14 male and 4 female interviewees. The age of the interviewees varied from 22 to 47 years old, with the average age being 31 years. The interviewees were handpicked to ensure a variety of video gaming experience and to encompass both early adopters and newcomers to Facebook. All interviewees considered themselves to be active Facebook users and had encountered social games in some form.

The interviews were conducted by three researchers in one-on-one sessions with the interviewees, either in person or over the phone. The interviews were semi-structured, lasting from 40 to 70 minutes, the average being 54 minutes. One interview was cut short at 22 minutes, due to the interviewee’s sudden chores. For the interviews, we followed the guidelines provided by Metsämuuronen (2006) and the interviews were transcribed by a professional agency.

The basis of our analysis lies in grounded theory (Strauss, 1987), which is a data-driven analysis method in which single findings are coded and categorized into groups. Such an approach is well suited for studying a new phenomenon with little prior research. As our research paradigm was user-centric, we wanted to emphasize the interviewees’ own meaning-making on their emergent encounters with social games. The transcriptions were analyzed by the research team, who double-checked each other’s findings. The interviewee statements were collected into 384 comments, so that each of them could be understood on its own. We constructed a digital affinity wall (Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998), which is a form of qualitative coding similar to the analysis in the grounded theory method. From among the 384 interview comments, we combined similar comments together into groups with describing titles. These titles were “perceptions,” “playing,” “fun and motivation,” “frustrations,” “sociability,” and “micropayments.”

Results

In this chapter, we present the results of the interviews. This chapter is organized based on the main themes that emerged from the qualitative coding. All interviewee quotations have been translated from Finnish into English by the authors.

Perception of Social Games

You can’t really call them games, they are more like toys. (Male, 25, id3)

They’ve been extremely simple. (Male, 27, id6)

Two main attitudes toward social games manifested themselves among our interviewees. One group did not care for social games and felt that they are not actually games, but merely toys. According to them, social games are extremely simple and become repetitive quickly. These interviewees often had more experience of traditional video games, thus having higher expectations of video games in general. One interviewee singled out qualities like long production cycles, big companies behind the games and full-screen modes to differentiate “real games” from social games. This group eagerly compared social games to traditional video games and found social games to have less, if any, value. According to them, social games and “real games” can be clearly distinguished.

The other group had a more accepting attitude toward social games and perceived them as casual games with a social twist, small games that hook you, or even as new versions of old bulletin board system games that were played before the rise of the world wide web.

Social games fit different spatial and temporal zones than traditional video games. Many respondents considered social games quick to play and requiring little time. One respondent stated that social and console games serve different needs; she could play a social game during a break at work, but console games require time allocation and scheduling with the family at home. She compared playing social games to filling up a crossword puzzle on a tram while on her way to work.

The interviewees did not consider social games very immersive, using statements like “zero immersion.” The lack of 3D virtual worlds was seen as a reason for this lack of immersion. However, one interviewee noted that some social games are not that different from massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. For example, in CASTLE AGE (Phoenix Age, 2009), the player does a lot of grinding (e.g., performs repetitive gameplay tasks to gain resources), leveling up and collecting better equipment, just like in many MMO games, even as the more complex interactions of MMO games are hidden behind simple mouse clicks in CASTLE AGE.

Regardless of the negative attitudes toward social games, the interviewees were positive toward the platform. Some even suggested that Facebook could function as a gaming platform for traditional video games. The idea of playing classic titles with Facebook friends was deemed particularly interesting. In general, the experienced players hoped that Facebook games would develop toward traditional video games and MMOs. However, almost all respondents hoped for more depth and complexity. Similarly, more social interaction between friends and even expanding the gameplay outside of the platform were seen as promising future developments. An interesting observation on the character of sociability in these games was related to how some of the interviewees wished for more conflict mechanics, like sabotaging friends’ strawberries in FARMVILLE. Such grief play mechanics were generally laughed at, but they also raised questions about friends who lack a sense of humor and the possibility of using such mechanics for virtual bullying.

Playing Social Games

Gaming every now and then, I usually set up something in the morning and collect in the evening. (Female, 35, id2)

It doesn’t take that much concentration, you can always play for a couple of minutes. (Male, 33, id18)

The flexibility of spatio-temporal factors of gameplay was brought up by many interviewees. Social games are pervasive in the sense that they can be played almost whenever, wherever. Active players indicated that they usually check the state of the game in the morning and set up a task in the game, and finish it later during the day. During the evening, they might start a task that will be ready in the morning. The morning routine might take for as long as 30 minutes for these passionate social gamers, depending on access to gameplay accelerators like gasoline in FARMVILLE. One respondent shared his daily routine in CASTLE AGE: He would battle monsters, collect drops, and craft equipment during the day, and send gifts to his friends in the evening.

Social games are played both at home and during downtime at work. One interviewee stated, however, that he only plays at work because at home he has better things to do. Only one interviewee explicitly stated that sometimes she visits Facebook just to play social games, although after the play sessions she checks the feeds and messages.

Social games do not require constant concentration. They can be played while talking to a customer on the phone, watching television, or eating breakfast. As they are readily available, easy to install and quick to access, it is convenient to play for a couple of minutes every now and then, situation permitting.

Some social games require scheduling as the tasks must be finished at specific times, but it was considered a good feature if one can set the rhythm of play to fit one’s day. During a busy week, one can grow crops in FARMVILLE that take days to mature, whereas in a different situation, a faster task is more suitable. For example, one interviewee noted that games like BEJEWELED BLITZ (PopCap Games, 2010) are quick to play and “you can always go for another round” as one round lasts only 30 seconds.

Enthusiastic gamers played multiple social games in parallel. For example, one interviewee stated that he plays one game and, once all the possible actions have been completed, he changes to the next, then to a third and a fourth, until he can return to the first one and start the cycle all over again. This way he can keep playing for a longer time, bypassing the limitations of the offline progress mechanics. These kinds of hardcore social gamers are interested in optimizing their strategies in social games. By studying the game mechanics by reverse engineering the game design, they can calculate the best task options for any situation. One interviewee told us about a friend who had made an Excel sheet with different optimization calculations for FARMVILLE. The interviewee saw this information as highly valuable. Another method for optimization was to search for loopholes in the game mechanics. One interviewee relied on third-party services, such as wikis, for searching gameplay tips for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: TINY ADVENTURES (D&D:TA; Wizards of the Coast, 2008).

Cheating also takes many forms in social games and such incidents were brought up by three interviewees. One interviewee was using a service that reveals all the legal two-letter English words recognized by SCRABULOUS (Lexulous, 2007). He considered it leveling the playing field as he was competing against native English speakers. Another interviewee reported that her colleague somehow knows how to cheat and hoped that the colleague had not cheated when playing against her. A third had created a macro for PERFECT WARRIOR (2007), which he left running for a week while he was away, only to discover that his character had become the strongest one on the server. The same interviewee had also used cheating software in BEJEWELED BLITZ, enabling him to stop the timer and change diamonds, beating others’ high scores with a very small margin. These were deliberate acts: He considered cheating forbidden, comparable with bullying, and thought it ultimately took away the fun from gameplay.

Fun and Motivation in Social Games

I play just for fun and pastime; I see that some play really seriously too. (Female, 27, id14)

It is calming; there are animals and nothing evil. (Female, 33, id17)

The interviewees played social games for various reasons. For some, playing on Facebook is about killing time and filling an empty moment, while others play for more instrumental reasons (e.g., to meditate and relax after a work day). One informant revealed that he plays a simple social puzzle game in the morning to “get his motor running.”

Going a bit deeper, the informants revealed several game mechanics they find pleasing. Building and organizing your own virtual world was a strong motivator, as was the instinct to collect virtual items and swap them with friends. Progression (such as gaining new levels, discovering new content) was mentioned, as well. Aspects of challenge were also discussed in relation to social puzzle games like WORD CHALLENGE (Playfish, 2008), which feature competition against friends and also challenges in the game itself. Visually pleasing sceneries and cute animals were listed as graphically inspiring aspects in social games. One informant stated that it was simply fun to watch the nice looking plants grow. The calm and non-threatening atmosphere of the casual themes intrigued the interviewees and the overall cuteness in design was praised, although some did not care for the “all fluffy and candy” visual looks.

Sociability was also considered fun and motivating, either by competing against friends in games like ATTACK! (Presidio Media LLC, 2007) or collaborating in CASTLE AGE to bring down boss monsters together with friends and strangers. Social interaction was not a prerequisite for social fun, as the mere presence of friends in the high-score lists motivated the informants to beat their friends’ score and rise up in ranks. Bragging about beating a score on Facebook was part of the fun.

The ease of gameplay came up in many interviews. Intuitive user interfaces, understandable themes, and simple game mechanics were recognized as key features for accessibility. Interviewees who had little or no experience of traditional video games were pleased with the gentle learning curves of social games as they had no interest in learning how to play more difficult games. One experienced gamer, however, noted that he likes CASTLE AGE specifically because it features the possibility of failing in the game, which is not common in social games. Familiarity also played a role in creating an interest toward a social game. Games like ATTACK!, SCRABULOUS, and D&D:TA were interesting, and easy to pick up as they were familiar from non-digital contexts.

The interviewees felt an obligation toward the virtual flora and fauna. They did not like to see their garden wither or animals die. Many thought that as they had invested so much time, stopping would mean that their efforts had been wasted. One stated that when she first saw dead animals in her virtual garden, she was shocked. She wanted to make sure that it would not happen again. One interviewee discussed the obligations:

It was fun [in FARMVILLE] to gain new levels, get stars, you got to plant new seeds—You get all these messages all the time and you have to go and see—Everyone was sending gifts and then I sent gifts back and then I was hooked—if you didn’t go back to tend the farm, the flowers would wither away, you had to go back—When you have put a lot of effort (into the game) then you have to go back—I do not know what appealed to me, it made no sense. (Female, 27, id14)

For ethical reasons, one interviewee wanted to have large pens for her animals, and suffered from bad conscience when she was forced to build smaller ones. Another passionate player said that she decorates her homestead in FARMVILLE for Christmas and changes the snowy scenery to beautiful green lawn when the spring arrives. The emotional attachment to a social game can be surprisingly strong, as a hardcore FARMVILLE player revealed:

I came home around 4 a.m. from a bar and some of my plants had died. I was like about to cry and I forced my spouse to plow them as I was too intoxicated to do that. He was like, what the hell is this? (Female, 33, id17)

Other motivational factors that came up were the novelty of design and theme. Novelty was a central factor for the hardcore social gamers who follow the scene closely, looking for new game mechanics. For the more casual player, the choice between games with identical mechanics can be solved by the theme. The choice between mob gangsters and medieval fantasy comes down to personal preference, yet the quality of the finishing touches in similar games with the same theme can be decisive.

Two interviewees could not articulate or pinpoint their motivation to play social games. According to them, playing social games can be considered as a substitute function, procrastination or displacement activity.

Frustrations in Social Games

The newsfeed spam of games is annoying, especially if you don’t play the game that spams. (Male, 47, id7)

Simple in the wrong way, should have more depth! (Female, 35, id2)

The most common cause of frustration in relation to social games reported by our interviewees was the amount of spam they create in the form of notifications, requests, news feed items, and wall posts. Spam was such an issue for some interviewees that they did not want to play games that were considered “spammy.” Spam from games one does not play was found especially irritating and a blanket block of all information generated by such a game was seen as the only solution. The interviewees indicated that they themselves do not spam, or have tried to minimize game-related posts. Sometimes this was not possible as progressing in the game required sending requests and wall posts to friends.

Control over the posts was considered important and some interviewees did not want to be labeled social game players by their friends due to the stigma of social games being “lame.”

The second major source of frustration was overly simple game design. Although simplicity was praised as it lowers the entry threshold, it ultimately leads to repetitiveness and boredom. When all the game mechanics and un-lockable items have been discovered, the game starts to lose its hold as it does not provide new experiences. Although some games were constantly updated, it did not make a real difference in the gameplay, as the additions were often cosmetic (e.g., green cows). The informants wanted to see new game mechanics, not just new static content. Collecting for the sake of collecting was seen as a poor motivator to keep playing a social game. Getting bored was a common reason for switching to a new one.

Another aspect related to boredom was click fatigue. This was especially problematic in the games that require constant organizing activities. An example was given from FARMVILLE, where the plantation grows to such proportions that it becomes very tedious to tend. Accelerators (i.e., game items and mechanics that speed up the tending) were praised, but their availability was scarce and they often required the use of real money, which was generally frowned upon.

Complicated games and games with poor tutorials were summarily dismissed. As the games are free to play, the interviewees said they tried several games and chose the ones they liked. When they got bored with a game, they simply moved on to the next one. Clarity of gameplay and clear game mechanics were sought after, and if a game failed to deliver these, it was quickly dropped.

If the games were generally good enough, some problems were tolerated. Still, aggressive funneling toward micropayments or repeated requirements to send requests to friends were sources of discomfort. Likewise, sometimes games where collecting items is emphasized suffer from poor design, as players end up with numerous possessions they, or their friends, do not need. Certain resources might also lose their value and meaning due to abundance. Turn-based games among friends have unique problems, as players might leave the game or just forget to take their turn on time. This causes uncertainty in other players, who may wait for several days for a player to finish a turn, while that player has actually forgotten the game already and is thus ruining it for everyone.

Bugs and other technical annoyances split the interviewees’ opinions. While some noted that bugs can be easily overcome by refreshing the browser, others complained that bugs, especially random crashing and broken user interfaces, had a negative effect on their enjoyment. One interviewee stated that had he paid micropayments in the game, he would have zero tolerance for these kinds of problems.

Three interviewees were also worried about the addiction to social games. One decided to quit playing FARMVILLE after she realized it takes her an hour to play at work. Another saw his friend playing FARMVILLE and decided not to try, as he believed that the game would have hooked him instantly. A third interviewee watched his girlfriend play MAFIA WARS and decided to stay away from such a “time sink.”

Sociability in Social Games

There is very little social interaction in the gameplay. (Male, 24, id9)

I don’t have enough neighbors. It sucks. (Female, 33, id17)

Our interviewees considered sociability to be an important part of social games, yet the depth of social interaction through gameplay mechanics was regarded to be low. For example, assigning friends to different roles in social games was considered fun, but hardly social. Assigning your boss the role of a waiter might be funny, but it is not very social, as long as the said boss does not know about it. Helping others by sending gifts and power buffs was easy to do, but the value and sociability of the reciprocity it fostered depended on the game. The respondents felt that it did add value to the experience when certain game elements (such as being a mayor and a neighbor) were associated with their friends—even if that connection would be just nominal. Receiving gifts was noted to be fun, but sending them out was more of a chore.

A few interviewees had strong social ties to a specific active player-friend: The two would help each other and send gifts back and forth on a daily basis. One interviewee stated that he prioritizes certain gaming friends in his social network as they had earned his trust. Some interviewees felt a commitment to reciprocate the help they had received. This could lead to a vicious cycle as the game might not be interesting any more, yet the player keeps playing, because others are relying on her gifting.

Some games were perceived as too dependent on the number of friends the player has. “Gift request spam” was generally frowned upon by our interviewees as it can be a “hellish annoyance.” Progression in the game might stop because a player lacks friends in a particular game or her playing friends are not sending gifts back and forth.

Not all social games offer similar opportunities for social interaction. In D&D:TA, for example, the players were only capable of sending a relatively irrelevant boost to their friends, while the design of CASTLE AGE is based on collaboration and it features vast interaction possibilities, even with strangers. Similar possibilities were found in other games, as well, leading to surprising events:

In RESTAURANT CITY (Playfish, 2009) players used the game mechanic for their advantage in a creative way. Each unique visit gave new ingredients to your own restaurant. Facebook had a group for linking people up. At some point I had 25 Korean friends and ultimately there was an application which was used to get 30 new friends with a single click. (Female, 35, id2)

Social connections had a strong role in the discovery of new games, as almost every interviewee stated that they found new games based on recommendations from trustworthy friends. The most common way to start playing a new social game was to see a request or post (i.e., the dreaded “application spam”) sent by a friend in the Facebook feed. Similarly, the decision to stop playing was connected to friends. As a certain number of friends leave a game, a snowball effect is triggered, leading to the demise of a game in a player’s social network.

Playing with friends was considered more fun than playing with strangers. Two interviewees explicitly stated that a nice group of friends makes up for poor game design and a third said that his play experience is also affected more by the players than the game. One participant stated that sociability is more important in social games than in “real games.”

Competition divided opinions. Some did not care about high scores while others would not play without competition. Two interviewees stated that their competitive mind-set is triggered when a friend is edging close in the game by score or level. If the player’s friends were too far ahead in a game, it was considered depressing, as catching up with them seemed impossible.

Although they feature social interaction, the interviewees considered social games to be mainly single player games with a social twist. One interviewee stated that the games are only multiplayer games in a sense that you can compare high scores. Another felt that social games are a mix of single and multiplayer, depending on the number of friends playing and interaction mechanisms. Even an active CASTLE AGE player said that he considers the game a single player game. For him, the other players were more like non-player characters found in MMOs than real players.

Non-players sometimes have roles in the gameplay as well. One interviewee stated that he kept playing SAFARI KINGDOM (Digital Chocolate, 2010) because his wife wanted to see all the animals unlocked and another used HAPPY HABITAT (ZipZapPlay, 2009) to create pixel art by growing plant patterns in the garden—and then having her kids guess what kind of a picture would emerge. She speculated that this kind of gameplay was probably not anticipated by the developers.

Using Real Money in Social Games

I am not prepared to invest money into these small Facebook games—When I pay for something I expect to get value for my money. (Male, 25, id3)

I am not interested in micropayments. I somewhat despise the whole thing about leveling up by paying. (Male, 27, id6)

The interviewees did not see themselves paying for social games, mostly because they were not perceived to offer enough valuable content—especially in comparison with other games. They felt that social games are inferior. However, the informants rarely pointed to any specific features that made them reluctant to pay for game content, suggesting a strong attitude-related component against social games and the free-to-play revenue model. Indeed, some did not consider Facebook a proper platform for gaming, despite the possibility of having one’s social network connected to the game. For some, gaming on Facebook was just a side product of the main activity of keeping in touch with friends, colleagues, and other contacts.

One explanation to the relatively negative attitudes toward using money in social games is their low cultural standing and their perception as a vice. Many informants expressed worry over the potential of getting hooked to these “vices.” Some speculated that they would set strict limits on how much money they would allow themselves to use in social games.

They also brought up the conflict between paying for in-game content and playing. They felt that purchasing virtual goods would unfairly imbalance the game. An interviewee stated,

Micropayments are OK for the business, but they imbalance the game. Players end up in an unequal situation, because some players can buy boosters. (Male, 25, id3)

Buying game content might also render the game too easy and ruin the play experience. The price of virtual goods in social games was never mentioned; most of the negative attitudes could rather be connected with transaction costs. Informants felt that purchasing in-game items required relatively big efforts, and suspicious security conditions were also frequently mentioned. However, they thought that a centralized Facebook credit system might alleviate these costs and concerns considerably (Facebook integrated the Facebook Credits system after the interviews were conducted).

One interviewee pointed out that although she does not buy horseshoes (purchasable virtual currency in FARMVILLE), she values them highly. The game rewards the player occasionally with horseshoes, so the player can use them to get acquainted with the premium content. The interviewee pointed out that horseshoes are very valuable and using them requires planning and consideration, but she would still not buy them with real money, as earning them through gameplay is more rewarding.

Discussion

This article has reported results based on a qualitative player interview study on how people perceive and play social games. Social games offer a wide spectrum of experiences, fill different needs, and are perceived and played in various ways. This reflects the variety of gaming backgrounds of our interviewees. This is understandable as the social games industry targets the largest possible, and thus heterogeneous, audience. A summary of our findings is presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Summary of Interview Findings, by Theme.

Theme	Findings
Perception of Social Games	• Often likened to toys rather than other games
	Simple and repetitive
	Casual and/or single player games with a social twist
	Meet different needs than traditional video games
	Integrate well into daily life
	Non-immersive
	Lacking game mechanics based on challenge and conflict
Playing Social Games	Flexible in regard to time and space
	Playable at work and at home
	Suitable for brief sessions
	No need for a lot of concentration
	Fit into daily or weekly rhythm
	Playable in parallel with other games
	Feature similar grinding as MMOs
	Susceptible to cheating
	Conduits for displacement activities
Fun and Motivation in Social Games	Killing time, filling gaps, and relaxation
	Building, organizing, progressing
	Visual pleasantness
	Social play, competition, and collaboration
	Effortlessness, ease of gameplay
	Social obligation
	Obligated by game mechanics
	Emotional attachments caused by persistent gameplay patterns
Frustrationsin Social Games	Design that leads to excessive game notifications in the social network feeds, that is, application spam
	Monotonous and repetitive gameplay
	Game mechanics that lead to excessive clicking, that is, click fatigue
	Requirements for the player to invite friends or use real money in order to progress in the game
	Confusing mechanics and interfaces
	Software and technical problems, such as crashes and bugs
	The perceived obligation to return to the game to tend virtual possessions
Sociability in Social Games	An essential part of social games, although rather low in quantity
	Sometimes an annoyance
	Encourages competition
	Friends recommend games
	Makes up for monotonous gameplay
	Fosters a feeling of playing for an audience
Using real money in Social Games	Virtual goods not considered to be valuable in terms of price
	Social games and their virtual goods considered vices
	Purchasing behavior curbed in order to prevent “addiction”
	Purchased virtual goods give unfair advantages
	Virtual goods have potential to make the game easier than intended
	Distrust in transactions when buying online

In our study, some of the more experienced video gamers did not care for social games, likening them more to toys than to “real games,” as suggested by some academics (Bogost, 2010; Sheffield, 2011). Similarly, interviewees with long experience with MMOs considered that social games do not feature comparable sociability. In fact, it was mentioned that social games feature some MMO elements that can be considered negative, such as grinding. According to multi-user dungeon researcher and game developer Richard Bartle, social games feature neither gameplay nor sociability, just extrinsic rewards (Sheffield, 2011). Indeed, some academic definitions for games would exclude social games to begin with, as a large part of the gameplay activities are not governed by clear and explicit goals (see Crawford, 2003). The gameplay of social games rather resembles free-form play (as opposed to rigid rule, Shubik, 1983); though social games have strict rules, their lack of clear goals (or, more to the point, their abundance of numerous different goal systems) fosters player agency. This aspect appeals to a portion of both novice and experienced gamers, despite the lack of a real challenge. This playfulness is connected to the variety of affordances offered (e.g., varied goals, competition, decoration), enabling heterogeneous players to enjoy the same game.

Yet people compare social games to traditional video games. As was brought up by one interviewee, these two types of games meet different needs (see Hamari & Tuunanen, in press; Lazzaro, 2012; Tuunanen & Hamari, 2012). It should be understood that social games offer easily accessible pastimes featuring similar design values as casual games (Kultima, 2009) with social twists, and they too can be played with either a laid-back attitude or with a hardcore mind-set. The major difference is that social games can be easily acquired as they are integrated into a social network service and afford effortless “easy fun” (see Lazzaro, 2012) gameplay.

Social games, like traditional video games and casual games, are played with varied gamer mentalities. When compared with the nine different ways to play games (as identified by Kallio, Mäyrä, & Kaipainen, 2011), our interviewees seemed to fall into almost every category as casual, social and committed mentalities were present. Along with time killers, gap fillers and relaxers, playing with kids, friends, and for company were also recognized as gamer mentalities in our study. Playing for entertainment and fun were also present with the hardcore social games (Kirman & Lawson, 2009) of our study. However, immersive play did not come up in our data. In fact, it was stated that social games have zero immersion.

Social games fit into the players’ daily rhythms. The appointment (offline progress) mechanics enable the player to schedule their playing to fit their weekly schedule. This kind of a rhythm design has been discussed by Tyni et al. (2011). Their and our findings resemble observations in many gambling studies (e.g., Kinnunen, Rautio, Alha, & Paavilainen, 2012; Malaby, 2003). Those who would like to play more often play multiple social games in parallel, allowing them to play for longer cycles, as other games are “recharging” in the background when one game is being played. This kind of behavior is also common among experienced online poker players who play simultaneously in multiple online tables (Parke & Griffiths, 2011). Like professional poker players, these enthusiasts are also interested in optimizing their gameplay by other means. Various golden path strategies and complicated formulas for finding the best cost-benefit ratio in social games are used. This behavior included intentional cheating as one particular interviewee described his experiences with hacks and macros, as discussed also by Consalvo (2007).

Social games are also played in unexpected ways. Just as traditional video games have been used as platforms for player creations such as machinima, social games function as platforms for, for example, pixel art. Kirman (2010) has suggested that social games design should “leave gaps in the design to allow for playful and serendipitous experiences to emerge from the activities of players” and our findings support this emergent, playful behavior.

Our interviews support the research of Doughty et al. (2011) as our interviewees were also motivated by emotion, friends and family, competition, and investment. Hamari (2011) has further explained how especially the investment of time and effort can cause situations where players are enticed to return to the game only to prevent their virtual belongings from perishing. Hou’s (2011) study on uses and gratifications in social games present that HAPPY FARM (5 Minutes, 2008) was mostly played for escapist reasons, such as relaxing, getting a break from stress, and avoiding responsibilities, however, not for challenge or competition. Our study not only supports these findings, as well, but also shows that competition can be a motivator for playing social games and challenge is called upon even by those who are new to video games. Like Hou (2011), we also found that habit or social obligation drives the motivation to play. Lundgren and Björk (2012) suggested that gameplay in social games resembles pottering, that is, managing the game resources for its own sake and our findings on “displacement activity” support this idea.

The major frustrations related to social games were application spam and monotonous gameplay. Later, Facebook changed its policy on application-generated posts and this has significantly reduced the amount of game-related spam. In this sense, this particular finding can now be considered mostly a historical curiosity, though still a valid point to be taken into consideration when designing games for future social platforms. However, the frustrations revealed in this study, such as boring gameplay, click fatigue, in-game monetization, and spammy messaging due to friend requirements, were identified as playability problems in recent studies with newer social games (Paavilainen et al., 2012, in press). In a game design analysis by Zagal, Björk, and Lewis (2013), design aspects like appointment gaming, paying for progress and friend requirements were labeled “dark design patterns,” which might lead to poor game experience. Playability problems can be sources of frustration and in a social network service ecosystem, in which players can easily try out different games, players rarely stick around to try to solve them. Complicated, awkward, or bug-ridden games are quickly trashed and replaced by new ones.

Social games were not considered multiplayer games in the same sense that synchronous games with co-presence with other players are. Instead, social games are mostly played alone, but with some social features (e.g., reciprocity) supporting the notion of playing “alone together” (Ducheneaut, Yee, Nickell, & Moore, 2006) with dependencies on friends. Indeed, as Järvinen’s (2011) definition states, social games “adapt your friendship ties for play purposes,” meaning that the lack of actively playing friends can be problematic, as progression may require a certain number of active friends in the game. This leaves players in awkward situations, especially if they do not want to spam their friends with game requests. It is not unthinkable that avid players add people they do not know as friends on Facebook in order to have them as resources in a game (see Price, 2010; Stenros et al., 2011).

Attitudes toward competition were divided. For some, competition through ranking is a major motivator, while others disregarded it completely and focused on collaboration and building their own virtual worlds for themselves. Our findings support earlier work, which compared competition in social games through high scores to arcade games and concluded that social games are massively single player games (Stenros et al., 2011), or more accurately massively parallel single player games (Järvinen, 2011). Sometimes the interviewees noticed that their friends were too far ahead in the ranking, causing a negative feedback loop (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) as catching up was not possible. Thus meaningful competition was diminished.

The games industry discusses whether social games should be more social or not. One side claims that social games are not yet social, but will be in the future, and then they will be “real” social games as the industry matures (Costikyan, 2011; Rose, 2011). The other side holds that increasing social interaction would actually render social games less accessible and casual, resulting in losing players (Järvinen, 2011). Our study does not provide consensus on this matter. Regardless of what the interviewees thought about game sociability, everyone agreed that friends are important in gameplay and also an important source for finding new social games.

In our data, the players rejected the idea of paying for social games for four major reasons. First, social games do not have enough valuable content. This opinion was heightened if social games were compared with other games, suggesting that players are accustomed to certain game types or have negative attitudes toward social games to begin with. Furthermore, the interviews showed a general negative attitude toward spending money for exclusive in-game content.

Second, social games were considered vices and potentially addicting, which makes them resemble gambling games. In an earlier research (Thaler, 1999; Wertenbroch, 1998), it has been shown that people tend to strongly limit their consumption of vices by setting strict mental limits on how much money they are willing to spend. They feel that consumption of the vice could be a slippery slope. Gamblers often have exactly these kinds of mental limitations (Bjerg, 2011; Kinnunen et al., 2012). Our findings also support this in the context of social games. This perceived threat may not be complete hearsay, as different game mechanics in social games closely resemble tricks that capitalize on the loss aversion tendencies of players (Hamari, 2011). Our data brought up aspects of social games that can be seen to tap into peoples’ loss aversion tendencies in the form of sunk-cost fallacy and endowment effect (see Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1991).

Third, purchasing virtual goods was perceived as affecting gameplay in a negative way by unbalancing the game between the players. This has also been previously discussed in the context of the magic circle concept (Caillois, 1958/2001; Huizinga, 1938/1971; Lin & Sun, 2007). Another rationalization is that money can render a game too easy, and thus disturb the optimal experience, often discussed in the context of flow theory (see Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005). Last, the transaction costs were considered too high and the purchase procedure was perceived to be too complicated or awkward.

Our study has limitations, which must be acknowledged. First, this study focused only on the Facebook platform and desktop use. Nowadays, social games are played in increasing numbers on mobile phones and tablet computers as well, which provide new research challenges and opportunities. Also, other social network services with social games have gained popularity, especially in Asia (e.g., Joffe, 2011). However, for practical reasons, we chose to focus on social games on Facebook due to their popularity in the western world.

Second, the gender demographic was skewed as only four females agreed to be interviewed. This was problematic, as it has been reported that women represent a slight majority among social games players (e.g., Thompson, 2013) and differences have been found in the context of other games (Schell, 2008). For example, it has been found that female playing behavior is driven more by immersion-related and social factors, whereas males are more driven by achievement-oriented factors (Williams, Yee, & Caplan, 2008). Therefore, if these differences also apply to social games, the immersion-related and social factors could be underrepresented in our data.

However, as this research is qualitative in nature, we are unable to draw out inferences on gender differences. These questions could, however, pose interesting avenues for further research. It would have been an option to drop out the female interviewees and reframe this study, but in the end, the larger dataset was seen as more important than equal gender representation in the data. Due to the gender bias, we refrained from making any gender-based generalizations based on the data.

The third limitation was that none of the interviewees were willing to pay micropayments for social games. Although it is true that a majority of players are not willing to pay for free-to-play games (e.g., Fields & Cotton, 2012), interviewing paying players would have been beneficial for getting a better coverage of the phenomenon.

The fourth limitation is the constant change in which the game industry operates. Social games and the free-to-play revenue model are rapidly evolving alongside platform policy changes. The design of these games might change dramatically in the future, thus affecting the end user experience, as well.

Conclusion and Future Work

This article has presented research on how Finnish Facebook users perceive and play social games. Social games offer a wide spectrum of experiences and cater for different needs. True to the casual games design values (Kultima, 2009), they are also easily accessible with acceptable themes, flexible gameplay, and they offer instrumental value for the player (see also Juul, 2009; Pagulayan et al., 2012). These games are played for many different reasons and also in different, surprising ways, both in casual and hardcore manners (Kuittinen, Kultima, Niemelä, & Paavilainen, 2007). In regard to the criticism provided by the academics (e.g., Bogost, 2010; Sheffield, 2011), our findings show that social games do provide meaningful and rich experiences for their players, but are not without their limitations. Social network integration and the free-to-play revenue model can cause playability problems, which stem from the contradictory goals between the designer and the player. Social games are not considered to be especially social, but the limited social features are nevertheless important to the players. In regard to in-game monetization, this study has revealed mainly negative attitudes toward in-game purchases, as none of the interviewees wanted to use real money in social games.

In the future, the presented findings could be operationalized into measurable variables for further quantitative studies, thus giving more accurate information on the phenomenon and the possibility to compare findings among a larger variety of demographics. On the qualitative side, it would be important to study those who are willing to pay for social games, as their perception and playing habits might be vastly different from the ones interviewed in this study.

Video games are often discussed in relation to educational possibilities and social games are no different in this sense. For example, NASA has launched educational games on Facebook (Melanson, 2012) and the European Union has funded the development of the ENERCITIES (Paladin Studios, 2010) game, which focuses on city building and sustainable growth, while featuring Facebook integration. However, these educational games are a far cry from the commercial social games, which are designed for making profit, sometimes with dubious game mechanics as explained by Zagal et al. (2013). Professor Alf Rehn (2013) noted that commercial free-to-play social games teach kids a “money talks” attitude because any shortcoming can be overcome with a micropayment. More ironically, Rehn calls social games as begging simulators where friends can be seen as assets, downplayed to the level of simple tools and means for advancing without actual gameplay effort (Rehn, 2013). This can be a grim example of unintentional stealth learning as described by Whitton (2010). The educational potential of social games is an interesting question, which can be approached from at least two perspectives: What do current social games teach, if anything, and does the social network integration enhance educational games in some way. Whatever the case may be, there is some relief in the knowledge that at least millions of FARMVILLE players now know what a tomato usually looks like.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank our funding partners and our informants for making this research possible. Special thanks go to our colleagues, friends, and reviewers for their invaluable comments and guidance.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes, 40336/08), University of Tampere, and our industry partners Veikkaus, RAY, Digital Chocolate, Everyplay, and Moido Games.

Author Biographies

Janne Paavilainen (MsEcon) is a project manager and games researcher at the Game Research Lab, University of Tampere. He is interested in game usability, playability, and game experiences. He is currently doing research on free-to-play games and working on his dissertation on the subject of design and evaluation of social network games.

Contact: janne.paavilainen@uta.fi.

Juho Hamari (MsEcon) is a researcher at the Game Research Lab of the University of Tampere, as well as at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) and a doctoral candidate in information systems science at the Aalto University School of Business. His research is focused on consumer behavior in gameful environments covering subjects such as gamification and virtual economies.

Contact: juho.hamari@uta.fi.

Jaakko Stenros (MSocSc) works as a game researcher and is a doctoral candidate at the Game Research Lab, University of Tampere. He is an author of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009), as well as an editor of three books on role-playing games, Nordic Larp (2010), Playground Worlds (2008), and Beyond Role and Play (2004). He lives in Helsinki, Finland.

Contact: jaakko.stenros@uta.fi.

Jani Kinnunen (MSocSc) has worked as a researcher at the Game Research Lab of the University of Tampere, Finland, since 2007. His background is in sociology and media culture studies. He has participated in several research projects about gambling and gaming. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis on social aspects of gam(bl)ing.

Contact: jani.kinnunen@uta.fi.

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