Learn10

I thought I would add this to the Learn10 feedback, although part of the comments to this blog by Chris Ke Sihai.

This is thinking about how to add to the evoke game mechanics to help facilitate collaboration and motivaton:

The idea of colloboration is a motivator that the game could potentially make use of, but hard to actually do as the tasks that people colloborate on are taking on real world open ended issues (solve hunger) rather than say as in an MMO game task that is closed and specific (e.g. collaborate to gain 10000 wood to build guild hut etc...which for some reason does motivate strongly to contribute as you are helping a higher goal not just yourself). Perhaps one way to get the internal motivator of contributing to a greater goal (which I think most people have) could be to add in constraints. e.g. set closed specific tasks such as form a team of 10 players, try to raise $1000; form a team of 20 players and write 200 amnesty international letters; form a team of 20 players and get sponsorship to build 3 schools and equip local families with goats for livelihood. etc... i.e. mini-evokations, mini but structured and achievable. Some could be set by the game, others could be created by players, but if created then there needs to be a tool with structured fields to ensure the mini-evokation is a closed targetted task suitable for colloboration but achieveable.

A management idea states that targets need to be SMART to have a high probability of being achieved (Specific, Measured, Achieveable, Results-oriented, timed). so perhaps mini-evokations could achieve this and possibly allow more players to engage in the act part of the game but in non-competitive manner ? I don't know but an idea.



Another idea to maximise the impact of evoke is perhaps the following:

If Jane Mcgonigal and the World Bank used their influence to convince Blizzard and other game companies to add just a single quest to games like World Of Warcraft etc... lol that required the players to make a donation or raise money for one specific charity that rotates every so often ! WOW has 8 million players so if the quest item was a good one say somekind of special item or a heal other spell or whatever, then you could imagine it raising alot of cash !! Or imagine if there was a special area in one of these games that only got unlocked if the player base managed to solve some real world problem such as say build 100 schools in a given area of the world ? I bet it would happen !