Guiding Principles For Teen Games
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This talk shares insights identifying common qualities of games that may promote teen thriving with positive psychology practices. iThrive utilized a two-tiered approach to find these qualities and create a road map for developers to design for positive psychology practices. Experts at a series of think tanks, lead by McDonald, deconstructed the positive psychology concepts into guidelines for positive psychology constructs, both in terms of what systems and features might help and harm the promotion of these practices in players. A semester’s long study with design students, lead by Rusch, revealed that games with the strongest positive psychology components were those that had the most emotional impact, and few game features. Insights from both investigations will be shared, including exemplar games that align with a set of positive psychology practices; the common qualities those games share; and design tips for creating products that can support teen thriving. Positive psychology practices promote positive youth development, but how can these practices be embedded in games? Drawing from insights collected from industry experts and game design students engaged in a semester-long study, we constructed a road map of the qualities of games that might lead to positive psychology habits.
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Guiding Principles For Teen Games
- 1. Guiding Principles for Teen Games Susan Rivers, PhD Executive Director & Chief Scientist and Heidi McDonald Senior Creative Director #thisishowithrive @iThriveGames
- 4. Empower teens to thrive with great games MISSION
- 5. Competencies Skills, knowledge, practices Agency Sense of influence over world & life path Integrated Identity Sense of personal consistency across personal & social roles ThrivingTeens
- 6. Meaningful Experiences Competencies Skills, knowledge, practices Agency Sense of influence over world & life path Integrated Identity Sense of personal consistency across personal & social roles ThrivingTeens
- 9. ➔ Don’t tell me what to do ➔ Don’t tell me what’s wrong with me ➔ Don’t tell me what I should do ➔ Don’t assume I... ◆ don’t know ◆ don’t understand ◆ don’t care ➔ Don’t try to fix me ➔ Don’t try to manipulate me ➔ Don’t treat me like a child
- 10. Standing out Fitting in Measuring Up Committing
- 17. The Matrix Project Explore and identify features of games that might promote teen thriving. Doris Rusch Associate Professor Game Design DePaul University
- 18. The Matrix Project GAMES Journey This War of Mine To The Moon Papers, Please Gone Home Empathy Gratitude Growth Mindset Purpose Resilience Cooperation Contentment
- 19. “In general, although the Matrix collects a lot of really good data, I feel like it leaves out some of the most important subjective data about positive emotional reactions to games. Two vastly different games can allow the player to have a positive emotional experience, and I think the Matrix doesn’t really get at the subjective nature of the players’ experience with the game. ...” - Jack Bogaard
- 20. Great story Plots that have twists and turns and details that aren’t obvious at first Emotionally powerful scenes that force you to take actions that are conflicting Multiplayer games that facilitate cooperation in and outside the game with real players Changing emotions throughout a game Realistic scenes of tragedy Relatable issues Games where your choices affect other’s perceptions and feelings of you Likeable characters you care about Ability to choose your own path Sandbox games that allow creation Provided escape from real life issues Quests that provide a sense of purpose Shocking outcomes The Matrix Project: What are elements of Meaningful Games?
- 21. The Matrix Project: Meaningful Games facilitate players’ experiences, they don’t bully them into it.
- 25. Literature review Scientific summary, for Design Hive pre-reading What games exemplify this practice? Narrow the list to a curated list. Identify common themes or mechanics. “Design Recipes” for developers.
- 30. How will you make meaningful games for teens? www.ithrivegames.org Share with us! Join us!
- 31. Thank You Susan Rivers, PhD Executive Director & Chief Scientist @susanerivers susan.rivers@ithrivegames.org Heidi McDonald Senior Creative Director @Death_Bow heidi.mcdonald@ithrivegames.org #thisishowithrive @iThriveGames
Editor's Notes
- Welcome everyone, introduce self.
- Many of you know me from wearing goofy hats at conferences. Today, I’m wearing a Sorting Hat, from out of the Harry Potter series.
- We’ve done work lately to create game design resources around four specific prosocial outcomes. We were thinking of a fun way to promote our new resources, when I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one day, seeing all this stuff about the 20th Anniversary of the Harry Potter Series, and had an epiphany: These four prosocial outcomes are actually the basic motivations behind the four Hogwart’s Houses! So, we decided to have a little fun with that this week, here at Serious Play. (Ask people to raise their hands.) Yay! Today, we’re going to tell you more about the work of iThrive Games and how we got to the point of being able to offer design resources for these prosocial outcomes. I’m happy to introduce Dr. Susan Rivers, my boss, and the Executive Director of iThrive Games.
- Can games provide meaningful assets that empower teens to thrive?
- Can games provide meaningful assets that empower teens to thrive?
- We approach meaningful experineces from positive psychology frameworks & social & emotional development / emotional intelligence
- How can we create meaningful experiences through technology, and games in particular? Meeting teens where they are?
- So, my work at iThrive Games is mostly in developer outreach and resource production. I started my career in games at Jesse Schell’s studio in Pittsburgh, PA, where I spent 4 and a half years working on 9 different titles as a designer and writer, some of which you see here.
- One of the most rewarding projects I had the pleasure to work on was PlayForward: Elm City Stories, an HIV prevention game that we did in cooperation with Yale University School of Medicine and Digital Mill. We had some really interesting challenges with that project…
- This was my first experience with serious games, and it taught me an awful lot about the unique challenges involved with developing those. In PlayForward, we had to try to be relatable, while using clinical information. We wanted our game to be a game kids would want to play, as opposed to one they would only play if they were told to play. It was by definition a serious game, but we also wanted it to be fun. There were things we had to think very deeply about in terms of whether two often disparate categories could co-exist, and how. Sometimes, in our quest to answer design questions, more were raised. To me, the importance of this work we do is often in those additional questions that get raised!
- Some of the questions we’re finding right now, with the work I’m doing with iThrive Games: How do we make game that teens want to play? How do we know the games work? How do you test whether games have prosocial outcomes? AND how do you design games to have those prosocial outcomes. You need the games before you can gather evidence for the connection. Constance Steinkuehler, in a meeting we had, said, “Wow, that’s a sexy problem.”
- It’s a Sexy Problem! Like, Aquaman is a sexy problem. You have the least effective, speedo-clad member of the Justice League whose only real contribution is summoning the whale, but now he’s being played by Jason Momoa. Like, it’s Aquaman…but it’s Jason Momoa…but it’s Aquaman…but it’s Jason Momoa…and your brain just goes in circles and doesn’t know what to do with it. IT’S A SEXY PROBLEM.
- At iThrive Games, we are doing a number of things to approach this sexy problem. How do you take the latest scientific findings from neuroscience and social psychology, analyze games and their mechanics, and turn that into any kind of resource information that developers can use? You can have game designers read the science, but how does that actually play out in terms of intention and structural design? We took a parallel approach that informed the production of our new resources. Susan’s going to talk first about her work with DePaul and Doris Rusch.
- We did an analysis of games that the students deemed “meaningful vs. not meaningful” using the Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics framework (MDA) framework. The goal was to ask the question:.Is there anything this group of games have in common?
- We did an analysis of games that the students deemed “meaningful vs. not meaningful” using the Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics framework (MDA) framework. The goal was to ask the question:.Is there anything this group of games have in common?
- Sorry. I just wanted to look at Jason Momoa again.
- A parallel approach we took, to get to the root of what is it, specifically, about certain games that can make them effective tools of prosocial outcomes, has been our Design Hives.
- The Design Hives are a Think Tank I invented that we hold twice a year, rather than once, to keep the momentum going. We invite top game developers and game academics for a retreat full of fun and hard work. If you’re lucky, Colleen Macklin will make you fresh guacamole.
- Here’s the model I came up with, to get the expert output. (Explain the Model)
- People I’ve told about this are SUPER EXCITED and are like OH MY GOD!!! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO *DO* WITH THIS!!!!