WEBVTT

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My name's Seth Priebatsch.
I'm the chief ninja of SCVNGR.

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I'm a proud Princeton dropout.

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Also proud to have relocated
here to Boston,

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where I actually grew up.

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(Applause) Yeah, Boston.

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Easy wins, I should just name
the counties that we've got around here.

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I'm also fairly determined
to try and build

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a game layer on top of the world.

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This is sort of a new concept
and it's really important,

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because while the last decade
was the decade of social,

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the decade where the framework in which
we connect with other people was built,

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this next decade will be the decade
where the game framework is built,

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where the motivations we use
to actually influence behavior

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and the framework
in which that is constructed,

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is decided upon,
and that's really important.

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I say I want to build a game layer
on top of the world,

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but that's not quite true,

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because it's already under construction;
it's already happening.

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And it looks like this right now.

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It looks like the Web did
back in 1997, right?

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It's not very good. It's cluttered.

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It's filled with lots of different things
that, in short, aren't that fun.

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There are credit card schemes
and airline mile programs,

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coupon cards and all these loyalty schemes

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that actually do use game dynamics
and are building the game layer --

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they just suck.

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They're not very well-designed.

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(Laughter)

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So that's unfortunate.

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But luckily, as my favorite action
hero, Bob the Builder, says,

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"We can do better.
We can build this better."

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And the tools, the resources
that we use to build a game layer,

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are game dynamics themselves.

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And so the crux of this presentation
is going to go through

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four really important game dynamics,

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really interesting things,
that, if you use consciously,

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you can use to influence behavior,

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both for good, for bad, for in-between.

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Hopefully for good.

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But this is the important stage
in which that framework will get built,

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and so we want to all be thinking
about it consciously now.

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Before we jump into that,
there's a question of:

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Why is this important?

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I'm making this claim

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that there's a game layer
on top of the world,

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and it's very important
that we build it properly.

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The reason it's so important
is that, in the last decade,

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what we've seen has been
building the social layer,

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has been this framework for connections,

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and construction on that layer
is over, it's finished.

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There's still a lot to explore,

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still a lot of people
trying to figure out social

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and how we leverage this
and how we use this,

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but the framework itself is done,

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and it's called Facebook.

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And that's OK, right? A lot of people
are very happy with Facebook.

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I like it quite a lot.

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They've created this thing
called the Open Graph,

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and they own all of our connections.

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They own half a billion people.

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So when you want to build
on the social layer,

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the framework has been decided;
it is the Open Graph API.

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And if you're happy with that, fantastic.

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If you're not, too bad.
There's nothing you can do.

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And that's a real thing.

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I mean, we want to build frameworks
in a way that makes it acceptable

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and makes it productive down the road.

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So, the social layer
is all about these connections.

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The game layer is all about influence.

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It's not about adding
a social fabric to the web

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and connecting you to other people

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everywhere you are and everywhere you go,

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it's actually about using
dynamics, using forces,

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to influence the behavior
of where you are, what you do there,

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how you do it.

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That's really, really powerful.

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And it's going to be more important
than the social layer,

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and affect our lives more deeply
and perhaps more invisibly.

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So it's incredibly critical
that at this moment,

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while it's just getting constructed,

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while the frameworks
like Facebook or Open Graph

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are being created
for the game-layer equivalent,

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that we think about it very consciously,

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and that we do it in a way
that is open, available,

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and can be leveraged for good.

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So that's what I want to talk
about for game dynamics,

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because construction has just begun,

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and the more consciously
we can think about this,

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the better we'll be able to use it
for anything we want.

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So like I said, the way you go
through and build on the game layer

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is not with glass and steel and cement.

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And the resources we use are not
this two-dimensional swath of land

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that we have.

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The resources are mindshare,

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and the tools, the raw materials,
are these game dynamics.

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With that, a couple
game dynamics to talk about.

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Back at SCVNGR, we like to joke

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that with seven game dynamics,
you can get anyone to do anything.

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Today, I'm going to show you four,

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because I hope to have a competitive
advantage at the end of this, still.

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(Laughter)

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So the first one,
it's a very simple game dynamic.

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It's called the appointment dynamic.

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It's a dynamic in which to succeed,

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players have to do something
at a predefined time,

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generally at a predefined place.

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And these dynamics
are a little scary sometimes,

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because you think, "Other people
can be using forces

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that will manipulate how I interact:

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what I do, where I do it, when I do it."

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This sort of "loss of free will"
that occurs in games

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can be frightening.

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So with each dynamic,
I'm going to give three examples:

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one that shows how it's already
being used in the real world,

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so you can rationalize it a bit;

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one that shows it in what we consider
a conventional game --

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I think everything is a game,

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but this is more what you'd think
of as a game played on a board

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or on a computer screen;

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and one of how it can be used for good,

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so you can see that these forces
can be very powerful.

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So the first one, the most famous
appointment dynamic in the world,

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is something called, "Happy Hour."

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So I had just recently
dropped out of Princeton

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and actually ended up
for the first time in a bar,

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and I saw these happy hour things
all over the place.

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And this is simply an appointment dynamic:
come here at a certain time,

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get your drinks half off.

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To win, all you have to do is show up
at the right place at the right time.

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This game dynamic is so powerful,

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it doesn't just influence our behavior;
it's influenced our entire culture.

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That's a really scary thought,

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that one game dynamic
can change things so powerfully.

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It also exists in more
conventional game forms.

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I'm sure you've all heard
of Farmville by now.

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If you haven't, I recommend playing it.

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You won't do anything else
for the rest of your day.

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Farmville has more active
users than Twitter.

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It's incredibly powerful,

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and it has this dynamic
where you have to return at a certain time

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to water your fake crops, or they wilt.

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And this is so powerful
that when they tweak their stats,

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when they say your crops wilt

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after eight hours, or after six hours,
or after 24 hours,

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it changes the life cycle
of some 70 million people during the day.

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They will return, like clockwork,
at different times.

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So if they wanted the world to end,
if they wanted productivity to stop,

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they could make it a 30-minute cycle,

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and no one could do anything else, right?

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(Laughter)

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That's a little scary.

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But this could also be used for good.

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This local company called Vitality

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has created a product to help people
take their medicine on time.

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That's an appointment.

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It's something that people
don't do very well.

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They have these GlowCaps
which flash and email you

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and do cool things to remind you
to take your medicine.

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This isn't a game yet,
but really should be.

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You should get points for doing it on time

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and lose points for not doing it on time.

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They should recognize they've built
an appointment dynamic,

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and leverage the games.

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Then you can really achieve good
in some interesting ways.

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We're going to jump onto the next one.

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Influence and status.

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This is one of the most famous
game dynamics, used all over the place.

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It's used in your wallets, right now.

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We all want that credit card
on the far left, because it's black.

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And you see someone at CVS or --

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not CVS -- like, Christian Dior --

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(Laughter)

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I don't know. I don't have a black
card; I've got a debit card.

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(Laughter)

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So they whip it out and you see
that black card, and:

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"I want that because it means
they're cooler than I am,

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and I need that."

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And this is used in games as well.

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"Modern Warfare," one of the most
successful selling games of all time.

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I'm only a level four, but I desperately
want to be a level 10,

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because they've got that cool red badge,

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and that means that I am somehow
better than everyone else.

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And that's very powerful to me.

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Status is really good motivator.

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It's also used in more
conventional settings,

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and can be used more consciously there.

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School -- and remember,
I made it through one year,

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so I think I'm qualified
to talk on school --

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is a game; it's just not a terribly
well-designed game.

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There are levels. There are C.
There are B. There's A.

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There are statuses. I mean,
what is valedictorian, but a status?

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If we called valedictorian
a "White Knight Paladin level 20,"

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I think people would probably
work a lot harder.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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So school is a game,

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and there has been lots of experimentation
on how we do this properly.

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But let's use it consciously.

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Why have games you can lose?
Why go from an A to an F or a B to a C?

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That sucks. Why not level-up?

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At Princeton, they've actually
experimented with this,

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with quizzes where
you gain experience points,

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and you level up from B to an A.

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And it's very powerful.

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It can be used in interesting ways.

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The third one I'll talk about
is the progression dynamic,

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where you have to make progress,
move through different steps

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in a very granular fashion.

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This is used all over the place,
including LinkedIn,

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where I am an unwhole individual.

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I am only 85 percent complete on LinkedIn,

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and that bothers me.

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And this is so deep-seated in our psyche

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that when we're presented
with a progress bar

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and presented with easy,
granular steps to take

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to try and complete
that progress bar, we will do it.

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We will find a way to move that blue line

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all the way to the right edge
of the screen.

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This is used in conventional
games as well.

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I mean, this is a Paladin level 10,

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and that's a Paladin level 20.

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And if you were going to fight
Orcs on the fields of Mordor

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against the Ra's Al Ghul,

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you'd probably want to be
the bigger one, right?

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I would.

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And so people work very hard to level-up.

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"World of Warcraft" is one
of the most successful games of all time.

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The average player spends some six,
six-and-a-half hours a day on it,

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their most dedicated players --
it's like a full-time job, it's insane.

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And they have these systems
where you can level-up.

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And that's a very powerful thing.
Progression is powerful.

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It can also be used
in very compelling ways for good.

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One of the things we work on at SCVNGR is:

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How do you use games to drive traffic
and business to local businesses,

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to something that is very key
to the economy?

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And here, we have a game that people play.

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They go places,
do challenges, earn points.

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And we've introduced
a progression dynamic into it,

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where, by going to the same place
over and over, doing challenges,

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engaging with the business,

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you move a green bar from the left edge
of the screen to the right,

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and unlock rewards.

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This is powerful enough that we can see
it hooks people into these dynamics,

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pulls them back to the same
local businesses,

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creates loyalty, creates engagement,

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and is able to drive meaningful revenue
and fun and engagement to businesses.

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These progression dynamics are powerful
and can be used in the real world.

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The final one I want to talk about --
and it's a great one to end on --

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is this concept of communal discovery,

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a dynamic in which everyone
has to work together to achieve something.

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Communal discovery is powerful

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because it leverages
the network that is society

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to solve problems.

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This is used in some famous
consumer web stories like Digg,

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which I'm sure you've all heard of.

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Digg is a communal dynamic

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to try to find and source the best news,
the most interesting stories.

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And they made this into a game, initially.

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They had a leader board where,
if you recommended the best stories,

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you would get points.

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And that really motivated people
to find the best stories.

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But it became so powerful,
there was actually a cabal,

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a group of people, the top seven
on the leader board,

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who would work together to make sure
they maintained that position,

00:10:55.226 --> 00:10:56.671
recommending people's stories.

00:10:56.695 --> 00:10:58.908
The game became
more powerful than the goal.

00:10:58.932 --> 00:11:02.576
They ended up shutting down the leader
board because, while it was effective,

00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:05.504
it was so powerful that it stopped
sourcing the best stories,

00:11:05.528 --> 00:11:08.075
and started having people work
to maintain leadership.

00:11:08.099 --> 00:11:09.866
So we have to use this one carefully.

00:11:09.890 --> 00:11:12.245
It's also used in things
like McDonald's Monopoly,

00:11:12.269 --> 00:11:14.658
where the game is not
the Monopoly you're playing,

00:11:14.682 --> 00:11:18.011
but the cottage industries
that form to try and find Boardwalk.

00:11:18.035 --> 00:11:21.249
There, they're just looking
for a sticker that says "Boardwalk,"

00:11:21.273 --> 00:11:23.331
but it can also be used
to find real things.

00:11:23.355 --> 00:11:25.088
This is the DARPA balloon challenge,

00:11:25.112 --> 00:11:28.453
where they hid a couple balloons
all across the United States and said,

00:11:28.477 --> 00:11:30.907
"Use networks. Try and find
these balloons fastest,

00:11:30.931 --> 00:11:32.577
and the winner will get $40,000."

00:11:32.601 --> 00:11:34.448
The winner was a group out of MIT,

00:11:34.472 --> 00:11:37.068
where they created sort
of a pyramid scheme, a network,

00:11:37.092 --> 00:11:40.521
where the first person to recommend
the location of a balloon got $2,000,

00:11:40.545 --> 00:11:43.476
and anyone else to push
that recommendation up also got a cut.

00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:46.491
And in 12 hours, they were able
to find all these balloons,

00:11:46.515 --> 00:11:47.981
all across the country.

00:11:48.005 --> 00:11:49.729
Really powerful dynamic.

00:11:49.753 --> 00:11:52.576
And so, I've got about 20 seconds left,

00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:54.648
so if I'm going to leave
you with anything,

00:11:54.672 --> 00:11:56.454
last decade was the decade of social.

00:11:56.478 --> 00:11:58.576
This next decade is the decade of games.

00:11:58.600 --> 00:12:01.467
We use game dynamics to build on it.
We build with mindshare.

00:12:01.491 --> 00:12:02.736
We can influence behavior.

00:12:02.760 --> 00:12:04.623
It's very powerful. It's very exciting.

00:12:04.647 --> 00:12:08.004
Let's all build it together,
let's do it well and have fun playing.

00:12:08.028 --> 00:12:11.007
(Applause)