Kate Compton, Chelsea Howe, Cat Manning, Ziba Scott, May Ling Tan, Kelly M Tran
In an increasingly busy, noisy, and isolated world, more and more people turn to games to socialize and connect. Games and similarly shaped interactive experiences can shepherd social interactions. When designed and implemented well, those interactions can be powerful, fulfilling, and safe.
Despite being inherently social creatures, there are many factors that can prevent a player from moving beyond a solo experience to take advantage of a game’s connected features. Perceived social risks, frictions, and anxieties can hold players back from pursuing modes of interaction that have the potential to meet their needs for connection.
This paper aims to explore what design elements provide permission for players to play together. We want to uncover ways in which we can meet players’ needs for social presence, self-expression, and interaction with minimal friction and risk.
First, we provide a high-level review of the different types of social needs that players may hope to have fulfilled by a multiplayer interaction.
Second, we define many of the common social threats that can prevent a player from engaging in social features or that can sour a promising interaction.
The third and most significant section is a toolkit we have compiled of game designs that have had success in mitigating social threats to smooth the path for players to meet their social needs.
It is the authors’ hope that this paper will help you identify opportunities and dangers in your own social interaction designs and find inspiration and solutions in the examples we have gathered.
This paper is not about systems of governance or social structures (guilds, clans, etc)
This paper is not about building trust or relationships over time (friendship formation, etc)
This paper is not about social signalling and identity expression (avatars, etc)
This paper is not about prosocial design (only kind/nice interactions, etc)
Fundamentally, social needs originate from the inherent human desire to be loved, accepted, or belong to social groups, big or small [1].
For this paper, however, we are exploring the context in games where players can have different social needs, both fundamentally and at specific moments:
| I want to be near (social ambiance, co-presence, parallel play, proximity) I want to express (creation, performance, articulation of thought, catharsis) I want to be perceived (heard) I want to be responded to (acknowledgement, validation, judgment) I want to interact with others (affect / be affected by others) |
Any of these needs fall on a spectrum from hard yes to hard no (for example, you might want to be near but not perceived, or you might want to be perceived but not responded to).
These needs provide opportunity for design explorations that can expand players’ tools to feel socially rewarding when interacting with others:
a.k.a “I want to be near (social ambiance, co-presence, parallel play, proximity)”
For players who may want to be part of a social ambiance but prefer a low-stakes experience, this need is similar to co-working in a bustling cafe or reading a book in a public park. The player appreciates the presence of others and the social opportunity it brings, without the pressure or commitment to interact or collaborate directly with each other. As games increasingly serve as “third places” for online communities, this kind of ambient, low-commitment social presence is becoming more common.
a.k.a “I want to express (creation, performance, articulation of thought, catharsis)”
Self-expression is an important part of being social: for people to share a glimpse of who they are (self-identity), their worldview, thoughts, and emotions. The process of bringing these internalities to the surface is cathartic and bonding, opening the door for people to form connections over shared perspectives and interests.
However, the authenticity or freedom in self-expression is affected if the person believes their environment is unsafe. By being their true selves, a person is trusting the other with personal information, opening themselves up to judgment and potentially rejection [2]. The theory of social verification proposes that because of this fear, people will strive to make their internal beliefs, perceptions, and subjective reality align with those of people around them because of the need to belong and be accepted by others. [3]
Games provide a layer of anonymity which is a safe space for self-expression, especially for marginalized people who may not find that in real-life environments.
The need for self-expression can be further broken down into two other subsections:
This is the desire for one’s presence, thoughts, or actions to be noticed by others, but not necessarily responded to. The closest real-world equivalent is tags in modern graffiti, where taggers will leave pieces of their signature to be seen.
The art of choosing a great graffiti tag. 90 Degrees Art.
Another equivalent to this is the read receipts or seen status on messages, which lets the sender know that their message was perceived, but does not guarantee a response.
This is the sequential effect of needing to be seen/perceived, where the player who is seen expects some form of feedback to their actions or being. This expectation is that the response is positive in nature because it signals acceptance, validation, and belongingness. This is why in games, social media or communication tools, reactions of likes, emoji responses, or upvotes are so popular.
In bad actors, the feedback can manifest as a strong, emotionally charged response that is usually negative in nature. Disruptive players, for example, have their needs fulfilled when their victims are enraged or distressed.
a.k.a I want to interact with others (affect/be affected by others)
This need is specifically tied to the desire to leave a mark and directly have an exchange with another player, which is most commonly seen through multiplayer actions.
In games, these exchanges can be immediate and experienced synchronously when players are playing together, or asynchronously if the game makes room to capture and log the players’ actions.
Due to the immense importance of social interaction to us, both biologically and as individuals/societies, players wind up having a multitude of anxieties and real or perceived threats around social situations. At the core, we believe all players have a desire to be valuable and connected to others.
This paper investigates solutions to the following social threats:
Wrong Answers
“What if I say something dumb?” By providing an incorrect response to an intellectual challenge or a test of familiarity with a game’s subject systems, a player might negatively impact progress or enjoyment for others while gaining a reputation as unintelligent or an outsider.
Blank Slates
“How did anybody even do that?” Unlimited systems for user content creation can create a mistaken impression that the gap between a new player and an experienced contributor is impossibly wide. New players may even attribute the perceived distance to their own creative or intellectual failings.
Negative Judgements
“What if they don’t like me?” There are many subtle matches that can be misaligned when making new social connections. Are players bringing the same level of energy and openness? Are there non-obvious norms and taboos? Are individuals’ fundamental tastes in media, jokes or other personal preferences incompatible?
Harming Others
“What if I accidentally upset someone?” Motives for playing games and existing in online spaces are varied enough that it can be difficult to predict another player’s desires. Forming teams with mismatches in goals or abilities can create situations where an attempt to help becomes a hindrance must either be suffered or awkwardly corrected.
Responsibility
“I don’t know what everybody wants!” Leadership roles can carry the psychological burden of feeling responsible for everyone else’s happiness. A leader’s own enjoyment may be diminished as they concern themselves with their audience’s reception of their choices.
Social Trapping
“I’d really like this to be over now.” Preferred durations of interaction vary enough to create tension between players. In person, supplemental communication channels and actions such as looking at a watch or leaving to refill a drink can provide graceful resolutions. Without similar tools in games, it can be daunting to begin an interaction of indeterminable length.
We propose a toolkit of potential designs that serve the social needs of players while mitigating the experience of social threats. These solutions can be used alone or in combination. This toolkit provides examples and guidance, and is by no means inclusive of all solutions.
Each solution might address a number of needs and threats, indicated in each entry. They can be used individually or combined as needed for any particular game or project.
Knowing that a player’s actions cannot negatively impact those around them, whether deliberately or unintentionally, decreases the fear of causing harm. A shared sense of social presence can be enough to satisfy players’ social needs. With this, any potential harm is minimized or eliminated.
In Elden Ring, players might view the notes of others or see where players before have fallen. This can give a sense of sharing a world and journey with others, and can even be helpful (or humorous).
Similarly, in Death Stranding, structures left behind by others, like bridges, ladders, and shelters show up in your world. Their presence reminds you that others are playing, even contributing, but no one can sabotage your progress. Appreciative players can like the structure as a response to the effort.
Even in the case of players directly interacting in the same world, harm to other players can be minimized by only allowing certain behaviours or mechanics. In Journey, for instance, players lack collision with one another. This means that trolling behaviours, like sending one another flying off a cliff, are impossible. Players can only have positive to neutral physical interactions.
Minimized Expectations
Ensuring that the player feels like other players don’t expect anything reduces the fear of not meeting the expectations of others or disappointing them. These expectations can extend to how players join, how players act while there, and how players exit the space (“Do I need to wave or say goodbye when I leave?”). A sense of dependency or neediness of others also implies expectation.
Twitch creates a sense of shared presence in a crowd. There is no social expectation on the platform that people watching need to chat or interact, so viewers are free to watch the streamer and chat interactions without direct involvement. Because viewers are anonymous, there is also no established social status and therefore no set expectations.
In Kind Words, players write letters expressing their need for help, but they will have no indication of who or how many people read them, and what they think.
On the flipside, players who choose to respond in kind will have no idea whether the recipient read their reply. what they thought, nor have any way to reply. The nature of the game deliberately obfuscates feedback, thus removing the expectation of gratitude or reciprocity.
Despite fully anonymized, ephemeral exchanges, the community is reported to be positive and welcoming, due in part to its genuine and heartfelt content. Players who participate in writing can thoughtfully share their opinions and feelings without judgment. This coincidentally also removes a critical aspect that fuels the motivation of disruptive players who thrive on the feedback of their victims in distress
Animal Crossing: New Horizons features a Dream Suite, a way of exploring other players’ worlds without needing to interact with them directly. Dream visits let a player explore another person’s island as if walking through a diorama, with no social obligations, no host waiting to be entertained. While visiting a Dream Island, the visitor’s actions have no impact on the host. As a result, it’s common to see players sharing their island’s address and information to strangers on forums as a way to showcase their creativity.
This can even apply to games played in real space. In Pokémon Go, spotting others at gyms or raids is optional. If you choose not to join, no one is disappointed; they are clearly self-sufficient.
Finally, limiting agency in some social cases can actually invite participation. Voting and other forms of collective decision-making allow people to have collective agency toward a shared goal or objective.
In games like Helldivers 2, the entire community is assigned weekly warfronts or planets to liberate, and every single player contributes to the goal just by completing campaigns. The only agency individual players have is strategically picking which planets and enemies they’ll be facing, but beyond that, the outcome of the weekly goal depends on the decision of the rest of the player population.
Knowing that there is a set time or duration to the interaction.
Everyday life is full of small interactions that have a limited duration. For instance, when a meal at a restaurant is over, and the check is paid, it’s generally an acceptable time to end the interaction around a meal. When a campfire burns out and no one attempts to keep it going, the night is probably over. We can find examples in games, as well. Not having clear, acceptable social markers can be a cause of anxiety for those who don’t want to end up “trapped” in a conversation or interaction.
In Sky: Children of the Light, Shared benches and candles mark time-limited social encounters, so players know they won’t be trapped indefinitely in an ambiguous interaction.
For players who seek social spaces because they appreciate the presence of others and the social opportunity it brings, showing evidence that their behaviour is not unique and that presence is valid helps. Helping players know that they are welcomed and not personally responsible for initiating their presence can reduce the sense of self-consciousness, reducing social risk.
A couple of ways to achieve ambient social validation are explored with the following sections:
Ensuring that when a player shows up in a space, they don’t arrive at a space that’s empty or feel like they “failed” at attempting to be social is critical.
Splatsville, the public hub in Splatoon 3, is an example of a game that provides social validation that feels low-risk. Snapshots of avatars of real-life players are scattered throughout the hub in idle poses, intermingled with NPCs in the game to populate it. Players are allowed to submit drawings, which will be displayed over their heads, adding a touch of creativity to their vibrancy.
In FromSoftware games like Bloodborne, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring, bloodstains litter the levels that players explore. These bloodstains are the last few moments before another player’s character encounters death in the game and serve a multitude of purposes. Not only do these vignettes teach players about the dangers that lie ahead of them, but they also help players feel like they’re not alone in their journey and that other players suffer misadventures and failures too.
Small gestures or signposting through having a formal or informal reception process can help people know that they are welcome to the space or to express themselves. Providing those affordances through the game’s aesthetics of level design are some low-lift ways to do this.
In Webfishing, a cozy game where people hang out next to one another on a virtual island and simply fish, examples of these affordances can be seen in different aspects of their design. As players enter the island, they are greeted with a landing plaza where players can leave drawings and messages on the ground. Unlockable items like the picnic blanket make it feel inviting to sit next to the person who laid it out.
In social settings where expectations cannot be minimized without upending or rewriting entire social norms and culture, having clear rules, regulations, and etiquette can go a long way to helping give people the semblance of fitting in. It provides a safe framework for people to work within, especially when they are newcomers to the space.
Real-world examples of this are setting clear dress codes for an event. It helps guests understand what is expected of them and helps them fit in with the rest of the attendees by following the recommended type of clothes to wear.
In digital experiences, games like Rec Room have diagetic reminders of their code of conduct on the walls next to entrances to rooms in the game. These help signal to players what the expectations of the space and community are, in hopes that those who join the room will abide by them. The enforcement of those rules in digital spaces like Rec Room is usually dependent on player reporting or content that can be moderated.
In games where player expression matters, the fear of putting oneself out there can be alleviated by giving players the implicit permission to do so through:
Large-scale group dances are commonplace in Fortnite ever since music-related content and concerts were introduced in the game. These dance parties are successful because they fulfill two aspects of creating affordances for player expression.
Firstly, players can jump in and participate in a dance quickly and easily with the press of one button to trigger the associated dance emote (as long as they own the associated character skin, for example, the Sabrina Carpenter skin and associated dance emote).
Secondly, to accommodate and encourage players who may join in the dance group at different points in the song and emote, the game synchronizes all the participating players’ emote animations to help players feel successful at fitting in.
In Sky, players can create expressions of themselves for other players to encounter through dioramas assembled from unlocked decoration pieces, compose music, or write notes that are placed in Shared Spaces. These types of generated content are ephemeral and will be removed after a defined period – freeing players from the fear that their creation (for good or for bad) will be immortalized forever. This also allows a wider pool of players the opportunity to gain (fleeting) exposure to their work.
A collective project where everyone just adds a little bit- everyone adds one pixel of a drawing
A sense of collective creativity that might be less intimidating
On the Subreddit r/place, adding a single pixel to a vast mosaic lowers the intimidation of creativity: your voice matters, but you’re never on the hook for the whole picture.
In games where the expectation is that all players have to participate, having mechanics that encourage and reward them for coming along for the ride and having a low skill bar helps. As long as one is willing to jump in, being part of the content generates entertainment and comedy for the group, removing the expectation and anxiety of having to perform well. Examples of games that capture this well are Jackbox Games’ Tee K.O. and Trombone Champ.
In Tee K.O., players are given a tight timer to draw and write slogans for t-shirts that will be pitted against each other. The group will then collectively vote for the t-shirt designs that appeal most to them, and the winner is usually the funniest or creative of the two, proof that being highly skilled at drawing is what it takes to be good at the game.
In Trombone Champ, the premise of playing popular tunes with an arguably funny musical instrument ensures that no matter the player’s skill bar, all attempts are rewarded with comedy gold. Skilled players will be rewarded with a higher score and a marginally better-sounding song, while players who are less skilled are entertained (questionably) with a hilarious outcome.
Safe and meaningful social interactions come in many shapes. Minimalist expressions, explicit invitations, anonymous cohabitations. There are plenty of different approaches that trade off different limitations for unique payouts.
By considering the player needs you’d like to satisfy and reviewing your options for mitigating the social threats associated with your designs, you can craft an experience that is multiplied by its own players as they eagerly take part in your systems.
Our examples are by no means exhaustive, and we hope to inspire more ideas and thinking in this space to help break the barrier for players who struggle with anxiety in taking that first step to interact with each other.
Thank you for fulfilling our social need to be heard by reading this paper, and if you have comments, some of us have a social need to be responded to at: groupemailaddress@example.com