Understanding games as media: from McLuhan to Flanagan

The understanding of games as a media phenomenon finds one of its foundational theoretical milestones in Marshall McLuhan’s seminal work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). In the chapter dedicated to the subject, titled "Games: The Extensions of Man", McLuhan proposes a rupture with the trivialized view of play, elevating games to the same epistemological status as any other medium of communication. According to the author:

games are popular art, collective social reactions to the main drive and pressure of any culture. Games, like institutions, are extensions of social man and of the body politic, as technologies are extensions of the animal organism (MCLUHAN, 1964, p. 235).

This definition articulates two essential theoretical movements. The first concerns the collective and participatory nature of games: unlike other media, the game presupposes the subject's active adherence to its formal structure, what McLuhan terms interplay, meaning the dialogic quality that transforms the game into a system of symbolic exchanges among participants (MCLUHAN, 1964, p. 242). The second movement refers to the modeling function of games in relation to the culture that generates them; as the author notes, "games are faithful models of a culture. They incorporate both the action and the reaction of whole populations in a single dynamic image" (MCLUHAN, 1964, p. 235).



In this sense, the game does not represent culture from the outside; it is culture in operation, codified into ritualized rules, tensions, and resolutions. McLuhan articulates this thesis within his broader conception of media as extensions of the human body and mind. Every medium prolongs a human faculty: the wheel extends the foot, the book extends the eye, and games, as media, extend the social nervous system, offering models of collective participation that escape the fragmentation of specialized labor. This is precisely why the author states that "games are situations contrived and controlled extensions of group consciousness, which permit a release from customary patterns, as if society were holding a conversation with itself" (MCLUHAN, 1964, p. 244).

This perspective finds contemporary resonance in the work of Flanagan (2009), who situates digital games within the broader framework of hegemonic cultural media. Flanagan points out that digital games can be considered a contemporary medium, and that computers and video game consoles have become a highly significant cultural vehicle, reaching diverse audiences across different economic and social classes, ages, and genders (FLANAGAN, 2009, p. 1). The convergence between McLuhan’s and Flanagan’s theses lies precisely in the affirmation of the game as a mass communication system, not merely by the volume of transmitted messages, but by its capacity to engender forms of cultural participation and identification on an expanded scale.

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References:

FLANAGAN, Mary. Critical Play: Radical Game Design. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2009.

McLUHAN, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

THE ART OF FAILING WELL: Jesper Juul and the paradox at the heart of games

There is something strange about the way we play video games. We load them up knowing full well that we are going to fail — sometimes spectacularly, sometimes painfully, almost always repeatedly. And yet we keep going. We press continue. We retry. We lose an hour to a single boss fight and call it a good evening.



Jesper Juul, in The Art of Failure (2013), offers one of the most lucid and uncomfortable explanations for this behavior: failure is not a flaw in game design. It is the point.

Two kinds of failure

Juul opens his analysis by drawing a crucial distinction that any thoughtful player will immediately recognize:

"two types of failure: 1) real failure occurs when a player invests time into playing a game and fails; 2) fictional failure is what befalls the character(s) in the fictional game world." (JUUL, 2013, p. 25)

The example he gives is about Red Dead Redemption (*spoiler alert*). To advance the story, you must die with John Marston. There is no other way. The character's death is narratively mandatory; it is a fictional failure scripted into the architecture of the game. But the player's experience of that moment is something else entirely: real time invested, real emotional weight, and a loss that is simultaneously required and felt.

This double layer (the fictional and the real running in parallel) is what separates games from most other media. When you watch a film and the protagonist dies, you grieve. When you play a game and your character dies, you also grieve, but you also feel responsible. You were there. You were in control. The controller was in your hands.

Why we want to fail (at least a little)

This is where Juul's argument gets genuinely counterintuitive. He identifies two coexisting desires at work in the player:

"In games: 1) Immediate desire – desire to avoid failure; 2) Aesthetic desire – desire for an experience that includes partial failure." (JUUL, 2013, p. 43)

These two desires are in direct tension, and that tension is productive. You want to win — every instinct pushes toward success. But a game in which you never fail is not a game; it is an animation. The resistance of failure is what gives victory its meaning. More than that: partial failure, the stumble before the climb, is aesthetically desirable. It structures the experience. It creates the narrative arc that makes the eventual success feel earned. 

Juul pushes this further on page 45, offering a deceptively simple formulation that reframes the entire philosophy of play:

"Games are a perspective on failure and learning as enjoyment, or satisfaction." (JUUL, 2013, p. 45)

Games are not about succeeding. They are about the experience of learning to succeed — and that learning is, in itself, the pleasure. This has profound implications for how we think about difficulty, accessibility, and the design of failure states. A game that punishes without teaching fails its own purpose. A game that challenges while guiding turns failure into a feedback loop, and that loop is fun.

The emotional contract

There is another dimension to all of this that Juul does not let us ignore: emotion. We are not passive processors when we play. We are invested — sometimes uncomfortably so.

"We are emotionally affected by games, and we are aware of this before we start playing." (JUUL, 2013, p. 56)

This is remarkable if you sit with it. Before we press start, we already know that we will feel something. We anticipate frustration, excitement, satisfaction, even grief. We consent to being emotionally implicated. Games are, in this sense, a form of voluntary emotional exposure — and the management of that exposure, how much failure a player can absorb before the experience sours, is one of the deepest challenges in game design.

Responsibility and the fictional world

The most philosophically rich passage Juul offers on the subject comes near the end of the book, in a reflection on fictional tragedy:

"The problem with fictional tragedy also showed that it is failure that makes us feel responsible for the events in the fictional world." (JUUL, 2013, p. 117)

And then, almost as a counterpoint:

"Hamlet dies but it is not our fault." (JUUL, 2013, p. 118)

The contrast is sharp and clarifying. In theater, in film, in literature — we witness. We may be moved, we may be changed, but we are not culpable. Hamlet's death happens to him. In a game, your character's death happens because of you. The failure is yours, even when it is fictional. The agency that makes games uniquely engaging is the same agency that makes their failures uniquely personal.

This is why the death of John Marston lands differently than the death of any movie hero. You did not just watch it. You lived it, failed at it, and then had to choose to press continue.

What this means for design

Juul's framework has direct implications for anyone thinking seriously about game design. The management of failure — its frequency, its cost, its legibility, its emotional register — is not incidental to the game. It is the game. A well-designed failure state teaches, resets, and motivates. A poorly designed one exhausts, obscures, and alienates.

The games we remember most vividly are often those that failed us most meaningfully. The boss that took forty attempts. The level we thought was impossible. The narrative moment that demanded we lose before we could continue. These are not bugs in the experience. They are the experience.

Jesper Juul's The Art of Failure is a short book with a long argument, and that argument is this: to understand games, you must understand failure not as a negative outcome to be avoided, but as the generative force that makes play meaningful.

We load the game. We know we are going to fail. We press start anyway.

That is not masochism. That is game design.

#GoGamers

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Reference:
JUUL, Jesper. The Art of Failure: an essay on the pain of playing video games. Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 2013.

What was the Video Game Cultures conference like?

Last week, I attended the Video Game Cultures conference in Prague, Czech Republic. It was an excellent three-day event with a lot of content to consider and reconsider in the fields of game design and gaming studies.

I presented my work Minimal resources, maximal horror: a study of the game IRON LUNG, and had the opportunity to admire great ideas from all my colleagues there. I hope soon I'll be posting the complete article here in Gaming Conceptz.

A special thanks to my friend Daniel Riha, who captained the entire event and gave us an epic welcome in Prague. Here are some good photos from the conference.









#GoGamers

Some notes on my recent reading in game design

Last week, I completed reading The Game Designer's Playlist: Innovative Games Every Game Designer Needs to Play by Zack Hiwiller. This book proved to be particularly engaging due to its innovative "playlist" approach. The format functions as a comprehensive compendium, showcasing the rich variety within the field of gaming.

I have extracted two key points from the book that I intend to utilise in a future article. These points are outlined below.

The element that separates games from other art forms is its requirement of audience participation. No game exists in a bubble distinct from its consumption by players. Although more traditional media need to consider the social and cultural framework in which the media will be consumed and interpreted, game authors also have to consider how the consumers will interact with the media itself. Authors generally are not concerned with how quickly the reader reads; musicians don’t generally concern themselves with the specs of the listener’s stereo. But game designers need to consider the actual act of playing as an element of their art. It is in the act of playing itself that games are uniquely qualified to deliver meaning. P.69

 

As we discussed in the previous chapter, one of the features of games that positions them in a different space from its more static media brethren is that the interactive nature of games opens the doors to new rhetorical and aesthetic effects stemming from that interactivity. A game can be beautiful aesthetically, but it can also be beautiful in how its systems function. P.86

We remain steadfast in our dedication to expanding our knowledge and expertise in this field. 🎮 🎲 😀

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Source: HIWILLER, Zack. The game designer’s playlist: innovative games every game designer needs to play. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2019.

#GoGamers

From ancient games to modern mathematics: the birth of probability theory

The seeds of probability theory were sown in the fertile ground of games of chance. Archaeological evidence suggests that dice and other rudimentary games employing randomness date back to ancient civilizations, possibly even predating written records. Early references to such games can be found in historical and mythological accounts, hinting at their deep integration into various cultures.



It was the desire to quantify the uncertainty inherent in these games that spurred the development of probabilistic concepts. A pivotal moment occurred in the 17th century when a gambling dispute between French mathematicians ignited a correspondence that laid the groundwork for modern probability theory. This exchange, primarily between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, addressed the fair division of stakes in an interrupted game, prompting them to formalize ideas of expected value and chance outcomes.

Following these initial explorations, mathematicians like Christiaan Huygens built upon this foundation, establishing frameworks for analyzing games of chance and laying the groundwork for the wider application of probability in various scientific disciplines. The journey from rudimentary games to sophisticated mathematical concepts highlights the enduring human fascination with both chance and the quest to understand it.

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Source: JOHNSON, Steven. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2016.

#GoGamers

Newzoo's gamer segmentation: an overview of the nine unique personas

fast post just to share this inspirational study about the gaming market and the potential personas we can find inside it.

Click here to download the content.



Now more multi-dimensional and fragmented than ever, gamers aren’t just playing games; watching esports and game video content is an equally important part of the puzzle. Hardware and peripheral ownership is, in many cases, another vital component of the fun. These new dimensions of gaming demand a new segmentation that captures all its unique, passionate fans.

#GoGamers

The new Angry Birds game is a master class on hyper casual game design

I have already discussed this subject here and here, but, from time to time, I like to bring it up again just to remind myself of the huge potential of hyper casual games in the contemporary scenario.

The inspiration for this text was the new Angry Birds mobile game named "Dream Blast". Created by Rovio Studio, the game is an excellent example of how it is possible to create an interesting gaming experience using hyper casual game design. 



The game mechanics consist of a very simple touch-screen gesture where you must destroy two or more connected balls of the same color. If you destroy four or more balls, you will create a red bird. If you create two red birds side by side they will become a yellow bird; and, finally, if you create two yellow birds side by side you will create a big black bird. Each one of them, when touched, explodes in a different way destroying more or less of the scenario. 

The interesting part of the gaming experience comes from how the levels show interesting and varied challenges just by using a touch movement in the screen. The video below shows the intro and some of the main features of the gameplay:



Obviously, Dream Blast uses a business model based on virtual coins that the player can earn by playing or just buying them from the game store. 

Another interesting point of this subject is: how platforms like Google Stadia and Apple Arcade will change the "ecosystem" of the hyper casual games. Will they attract this kind of players to simple experiences with multiscreen possibility? But that’s a subject for another post.

#GoGamers

Uncertainty

I have already discussed in this post and this another post how anxiety and fear, which are disturbing feelings by definition, can play a major role in the designing of digital games. People’s desire to experience horror/terror games, or games that present many stressful situations, has created an interesting and profitable market niche, congregating a large number of players who are really enthusiastic about this kind of experience.

There are other disturbing feelings that can be strategically used in the process of game design. Today I would like to talk about uncertainty in games.

In this context, I ought to mention the book Uncertainty in games (2013), written by Greg Costikyan—the man behind classic games like Paranoia and Toon RPGs.

Costikyan (2013, p.16) argues that in real-life situations—like when we’re shopping online, electing a congressman or using software for work—we want no uncertainty, “we prefer simplicity, surety, and consistency.” While we always look forward to eliminating uncertainty when it concerns quotidian situations, products, and services, when it comes to games “a degree of uncertainty is essential” (COSTIKYAN, 2013, p.16), for it is a key factor in creating an immersive and entertaining experience for players.



How would you imagine a version of Dark Souls where enemies could be killed by a single weak blow from your shitty level-one weapon? Would you like to play a Super Mario Bros. game that lacks deadly cliffs and requires jumping just to collect coins?

Costikyan (2013, p.17-71) analyzes different kinds of games and explains that sometimes uncertainty comes from programmed random results; other times, uncertainty lies within opponents and how they perform; ultimately, uncertainty may result from the player's own abilities in the game.

I strongly recommend the book cited herein, and I would like to invite you to analyze ten of your favorite games (digital or analogic) in the light of this post. Try to figure out what kind of features caught your attention in those games—uncertainty was probably one of them.

#GoGamers

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Reference:

COSTIKYAN, Greg. Uncertainty in games. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2013.

The importance of studying games, or why I travelled half of the world to attend a gaming conference

From July 12th until the17th, I was in one of the world’s most relevant gaming conferences: DIGRA 2017. It took place in Melbourne, Australia, in the fantastic Swinburne University. I attended this event in 2011 in Netherlands (by the way, it was the first time I was in an international conference) and it was a transforming moment in my professional/academic life. This year was not different: another great experience.

When I tell people about a gaming conference, they ask me how this works. First idea that comes to their minds is a place to play the newest games from big publishers, or an event full of gaming events. Well, the idea is very different from that. In a conference like DIGRA, we talk about the game industry, game design and tendencies, but the discussion goes beyond those subjects.

This year, we had excellent debates about sexuality in games, gender in games, gaming classification, historical contexts in ludic experiences, sound design, game design, interfaces, analogic vs. digital games, philosophy inside games, social contexts in games – these are just a few examples of the whole content. How is it possible? Because games – in the contemporary scenario - became a potent media and a very important platform to socialize, interact and cast messages.

DIGRA main panel (july 6th - 2017). Pic by @vincevader

In a conference like DIGRA, the specialists are discussing all these points inside a greater subject: games. One thing is a common sense among all the researchers: it is very difficult to study it, but all of us are trying to create a more serious space to debate this. As a Brazilian researcher, I understand the importance to be part of the gaming studies field, not only in my country, but also in other parts of the globe. Networking is another important keyword in this context.

So, answering the question on the title above: I travelled half of the world to “power up” my knowledge and reach a new level in my academic research. On the next months, I’ll try to write and produce more about all that I have experienced in this event.

Next year, the conference will be in Turin, Italy. Follow the DIGRA Twitter for more information. Keep your eyes open.

#GoGamers

A diagram to explain connections in a board game design process

An excellent diagram to think about the relationships between theme, rules, players and components in board games. The intersections between the different areas point out very interesting ways to ponder about game design questions.


Source: Big Game Theory site

#GoGamers

Using Instagram as a gaming platform

Is it possible to create games using Instagram features? The answer is: yes.

The Turkish cookie brand Biskrem created the "Biskrem Instagram Adventure", a game that uses features from Instagram, such as maps, photos, videos, hashtags, tagging, search, direct messages etc..

The narrative is very fun and mixes aliens with time travel. Check the video case below to better understand the promotional idea.



This example dialogues with the advergaming concept we’ve already discussed here and here. It's another good case of how we can put entertainment and ludic content in marketing/communication campaigns.

And an important thing: this is the post number #250! Epic win!

#GoGamers

SHARING THE GOOD NEWS

Cengage Learning has just launched my new book in Brazil, today. GAME CULTURA: COMUNICAÇÃO, ENTRETENIMENTO E EDUCAÇÃO (GAMING CULTURE: COMMUNICATION, ENTERTAINMENT AND EDUCATION) is a study addressing educational aspects, narratives, questions and marketing strategies involving games. The final words were written by Uruguayan game designer and researcher Gonzalo Frasca (¡Gracias!, @frascafrasca!).



CLICK HERE TO BUY!

#GoGamers

The core structure of a QUEST

Today’s post is about one of my favorite subjects: quest design. A good quest could create immersion and, consequently, an emotional attachment in players. In order to discuss the creative process of quests in games, we will bring some ideas from Jeff Howard (2008) from the book “Quests: design, theory, and history in games and narratives” (one reading that I strongly recommend for all game researchers).

I’ll try to synthetize some nuclear thoughts from Howard in this post. First of all: the space where the quest happens is fundamental to merge the player’s imagination with the narrative. Space for quests should be fantastic (an alien world, a steam punk city), dreamlike (the oneiric realm of Bloodborne, the mysterious ambient of Back to Bed), allegorically arranged to convey ideas through their layout (puzzle games), organized to create a sense of progression through difficult ascent, and labyrinthine (HOWARD, 2008, p.50).



To construct the spaces of the quest is essential to keep in mind some considerations: embedded meaning (allied with plot, narrative etc.), a balance between challenging obstacles and exploration and a sense of progression, and the organization of spaces according to “quest hubs” (HOWARD, 2008, p.58).

After the definition of a space for the quest (based on a previous narrative) it’s very important to tune the characters with the objects of the quest, creating challenging situations. In the Batman’s game, Arkham Asylum, the player wears the hero’s cape to fight the Joker as a final threat. The main narrative has the Joker as the final challenge and, stage-by-stage, there are other villains to stop (Scarecrow, Crocodile, Poison Ivy). For players who want a more immersive challenge, there are a great number of side quests to face: Riddler’s trophies hidden in the scenario, mysterious inscriptions with the diary of Amadeus Arkham and many more.

In games like Arkham Asylum, the balance between main quests and side quests creates an experience for different kinds of players. Some will try to end the game through the main line. Others will finish the game looking for each hidden element in the stages. Think quests for the videogame’s platforms are a challenging exercise and Howard’s book helps us structure this kind of thought more precisely.

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Reference:

HOWARD, Jeff. Quests: design, theory, and history in games and narratives. Wellesley: A K Peters, 2008.

Interview with Jesper Juul

This week we have a special post on Gaming Conceptz. Jesper Juul, the video game theorist, gave this blog a special interview. I had the honor of meeting the author last year at the F.R.O.G (Future and Reality of Gaming) Conference. Enjoy the content! Thank you so much Mr. Juul. May the force be with you. =)



Bio: Jesper Juul is a video game theorist and associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts - The School of Design, and a visiting associate professor at Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT. He has been working with video game theory since the early 1990s, at the IT University of Copenhagen, MIT, and at New York University. His previous books are the video game theory classic Half-Real and A Casual Revolution. He recently published The Art of Failure, a book that combines personal confessions about failure with philosophy, game design analysis, psychology and fiction theory.


1) In your last book 'The Art of Failure' you talk about 'the pain of playing video games' in a very interesting way. What was your primary inspiration source to write about this subject?
Two things: 1) That our interaction with video games is clearly filled with frustration and unhappiness, yet we tend to talk about video games in purely positive terms - good, great, awesome, deep etc.. Why are we not talking about this darker side of game playing, and why do we play games even though it is there? 2) My personal experience as a very sore loser of all types of games. Losing makes me very frustrated, yet why is losing so important to me?

2) 'The Art of Failure' is about video games. Can we use the same ideas for board games and card games?
I used mostly video games as examples, but most of the discussion applies to all games. Video games then add some particular twists, especially in terms of single-player games, where the designer can closely follow the progress of the player and tweak the difficult and failure rates to match the player's current skill level.

3) In your keynote at F.R.O.G. 2013, you talked a little bit about "Gamification". This buzzword became very popular recently. What do you think about this buzzword? Do you think it's a good concept to define the use of game elements in non-game activities? Do you think it's correct to use 'game thinking' instead?
Like most buzzwords, gamification is overused, overhyped etc.. We could try to introduce a different term, but I think we should rather try to live with "gamification" and then explain what its problems are, what the advantages are etc.. I.e. the important thing is not the word itself, but what we use the ideas for, and how we implement them.

Gamification is a good idea in some activities.

It works best for situations where users / students / employees are in need of feedback, and when the gamification system allows the user to exercise sound judgment.

It works very badly in situations where users are meant to be creative, or if they are already deeply, personally committed to doing the best job that they possibly can. In such situations, gamification can become deeply demotivating.

We could call this the paradox of gamification: we associate games with fun and freedom, yet if we implement the wrong kind of gamification system, it becomes 1984, instead, by closely monitoring and punishing everybody who deviates from the path decided by the leaders.

4) The world is going mobile. How do you see the field of mobile gaming for the next years?
For a while, it seemed that traditional games would keep playing on consoles and PCs, and the broader public would be playing on mobile devices. But now this division seems to have almost disappeared. I think we will continue to see more, "deeper" game experiences on mobile devices.

For phones and tablets, the question to me is still whether external controllers will at some point become mainstream.

5) What are you playing at this moment?
My summer playing has mostly been Clash of Clans - there is something deeply compelling about the strategic multiplayer clan experience.

6) Send a final message to the new researchers of the gaming studies field.
There are many, many things that we don't understand about games, players, development and so on. What is the question that you are in a unique position to formulate and then answer?

Video Game Cultures & The Future of Entertainment Conference (Oxford – July 2014)

Last week I was in Oxford (UK) at the Mansfield College for the “Video Game Cultures & The Future of Entertainment Conference”. The event is part of the Oxford’s University inter-disciplinary program, a global network for dynamic research and publishing. There were 3 days of full immersion inside the gaming research universe with excellent content presented by people from 15 different countries.

On the first day, we had a very interesting discussion with René Schalleger about how game designers create interactive experiences that let players explore complex issues of identity, free will and agency. Another highlight from day 1 was Teros Pasanen’s presentation about the Hobbesian state of nature in the game DayZ.



The second day was intense and focused on mobile gaming, gender in video games, serious games, educational games and game design.

On the third day, I presented my paper “Health, consumption and entertainment: the Nike brand embodied as a playful experience” that I wrote with my friend Marcelo Vasconcellos (click here to download).

This kind of event is perfect for networking and to improve our researches. For more information and the complete conference’s content access the official site of inter-disciplinary.net by clicking here.

Another good badge for my character’s sheet. =)

Go gamers!

What is a game?

Researchers of gaming studies field are always discussing this subject. One thing is certain: there’s no absolute answer for this question. A game can be defined in many ways and videogames – specifically – become so complex platforms that is very difficult to reach one single idea about “what is a game”.

The good point is: there are lots of good visions about it. In an excellent presentation made at DiGRA’13 keynote named “The Ambiguity of Game Studies: Observations on the Collective Process of Inventing a New Discipline” the author Janet Murray discusses (among other things) what is a game.

The graph below, from the book “First Person" shows one (of many) interpretations of this subject:



I strongly recommend the complete reading of this presentation. You can find the slides HERE.

Candy, fans and profit

I’m an old school true gamer. I really like to play everything. I can have fun playing The Last of Us in the survivor mode and I can have equal fun playing Zombie Tsunami. One important thing in gaming research is looking at all kinds of games (and players) without prejudice. And this piece is about players, passions, casual games and fans.

Recently I started to play Candy Crush on iPhone. The simple game catches me. Not for the game mechanics (that is nothing new if you’ve played Bejeweled sometime in your life), nor for the thematic/aesthetics (I really don’t like candy) but the game has an excellent idea of business model and how to engage the users in the experience transforming great part of them in fans of Candy Crush.

The video below shows the game mechanics idea and the colourful interface:



King.com – the studio behind Candy Crush - is the largest site for free games online. But “free” requires a good strategy to earn money from other sources and other formats. The most part of King.com games works on a “freemium” model.

Freemium (free + premium) is a business model by which a proprietary product or service (typically a digital offering such as software, media, games or web services) is provided free of charge, but money (premium) is charged for advanced features, functionality, or virtual goods.

In Candy Crush, King.com puts lots of efforts to create a balance between entertainment for players, sharing in social media and selling of virtual goods (extra lives, special powers, etc.). The game offers limited lives to the player and when they are finished the user has two options: 1) wait a few minutes to gather more lives or 2) pay with real money to get new lives (or powers) immediately. The addictive game mechanics create the perfect ecosystem to sell virtual lives and powers that facilitate the journey in the game. Players can also gain new lives sharing Candy Crush features on Facebook (bonus in exchange of advertising).



King.com is trying to create an intense relationship with the players to achieve more profit. More than just users, the company needs fans to grow. As Sandvoss and Harrington (2007) remark, for better or for worse fans tend to engage with their passions not in a rationally detached but in an emotionally involved and invested way.

Jenkins (2006: 41) reinforces this idea about the role of the fan in contemporary participatory culture. Although the author examines television shows and other kinds of fan activity, we believe his ideas may help us make sense of what goes on in the social networking service in question. Let us quote what Jenkins has to say about the way one becomes a fan:

“One becomes a “fan” not by being a regular viewer of a particular program but by translating that viewing into some kind of cultural activity, by sharing feelings and thoughts about the program content with friends, by joining a “community” of other fans who share common interests. For fans, consumption naturally sparks production; reading generates writing, until the terms seem logically inseparable” (…)

As we know, fans have a special role inside social media communities. A community of fans that surrounds a specific platform becomes a fandom, and this audience deserves special attention. A well-structured fandom can become an effective marketing tool for any specific social media platform.

It seems that companies like King.com must understand how to motivate and activate the fandom audiences, as well as how to bring them closer. Meaningful experiences are important in this context because it’s a key for players to spend money inside the game experience. The idea of freemium is surrounded by strategies to engage the player as a fan.

And now let me try to finish the level 89 of Candy Crush.

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References:

GRAY, J.; SANDVOSS, C.; HARRINGTON, L. (eds.). Fandom: identities and communities in a mediated world. New York: NYU Press, 2007.

JENKINS, H. Fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture. New York: NYU Press, 2006.

King.com official site (link here)