The Freakanomics blog is worth subscribing to, if you haven’t already. Via it comes word of a neat experiment: in the psychology department coffee room at Newcastle University, prices for tea and coffee were posted on the wall, and an “honesty box” (i.e., in which to place your payment) was set nearby. This sort of experiment is fairly common, but the twist was that, in some weeks, a photo of flowers appeared above the price list. In other weeks, it was a pair of human eyes, staring directly at the person reading the price list. In weeks with eyes on the list, staff paid 2.76 times as much for their drinks.

This brought to mind my earlier post on the wonderful book Predictably Irrational, which noted that you could dramatically cut down on cheating in exams if you simply asked students to recall the Ten Commandments before they took a test, or — more pointedly — by reminding them of a school honor code. (You had to do this right before the test — it couldn’t happen weeks before and still retain the effect.)

A long time ago, I wrote an article for Gamasutra exploring the possible design of a feedback/rating system that would discourage antisocial behavior in MMOs. That system, which still may have merit, pales in comparison to the wonderful elegance and simplicity of these psychological tricks. And given that (1) one of the biggest challenges for online, anonymous systems like MMOs (and LIVE) is antisocial behavior, and (2) companies are spending tens of millions of dollars on these systems (if not more), why aren’t more companies hiring psychologists and behavioral economists as consultants or full-time employees? The cost seems justified, given the potential benefits.

(Actually, I’ve heard of a few MMO developers hiring economists, but I think that most are focused on the optimization of in-game economies, as opposed to tackling anti-social behavior. There is a relationship between the two, but they are not equivalent.)

I just landed in Sweden for the Nordic Game Conference and I’m trying to stay awake for several more hours in order to get my body accustomed to the time difference. So I apologize if this reads incoherently; I’m truly half-asleep right now…

While on the plane here, I finally finished reading Dan Ariely’s new book, Predictably Irrational. Dan was one of my professors at MIT and is an all-around great guy. His book does a wonderful job of explaining how human beings are consistently irrational in many situations (such as when we make purchase decisions), and more importantly, it explores the implications of this irrationality for individuals, businesses, governments, and society at large. I don’t recommend books very often, but this is one that everybody should read. It is business book, self-help guide, and profound social commentary all in one tidy package.

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As I mentioned several months back, my friend Ethan Mollick and I are writing a book tentatively titled For Fun and Profit: How Games are Transforming the Business World. As our publisher’s deadline approaches, I’d like to occasionally bounce early draft excerpts off of you all in hopes of getting useful feedback. And, to be honest, I find it difficult to maintain this blog and write my book simultaneously, so I’m cheating a little bit. :-)

My first draft excerpt has nothing to do with business, per se. It tackles the thorny issue of games and violence. Ethan and I feel that we cannot ignore this issue if we want our book to be taken seriously by a broad range of readers. But we also don’t want to get mired in the issue — after all, there are so many other things we need to cover! So we’ve tried to be brief, clear, and to the point. Tell me: did we succeed in getting the point across?

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Nothing says “the holidays” like plenty of food, drink, friends, and family. And party games, of course. My closet is overflowing with board games and peripherals just waiting to be unleashed on visitors (aka “informal market research participants,” aka “gracious victims of enthusiasm.”)

Guitar Hero remains popular on these occasions (which is no statement against Rock Band — I simply haven’t acquired a personal copy yet. Much as I’ve enjoyed my three fruitless visits to EB…) And yet, Guitar Hero 3 failed me as a party game until I finally gave up on “principle” and unlocked a couple cheats — specifically “no fail” mode and “unlock all songs.” So now I’m having more fun with my friends and family, but I’m a “cheater.” Oops.

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I watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated a few days ago. Very interesting documentary (if “preachy”, but aren’t they all?) I recommend that you see it. All the issues raised in the film can be applied to the video game industry, and all are worth discussing, but I want to talk about just one, brief part. In the film, one person argues that (and I’m paraphrasing here): “violence with no gore should be reserved for adults, who can intellectually handle the fiction of it. Violence with realistic gore is what should be considered safe for kids.”

I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t have kids. I can’t claim that I have a deep understanding of what does and does not negatively impact child development (beyond the obvious things — lack of affection, lack of education, lack of sustenance, etc — stuff we as a society manage to ignore every day in favor of more sensational news.) All that said, this argument struck a cord with me. Let me explain.

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Memorial weekend has slipped by. My folks were visiting from out of town. They asked the usual questions about what I do, and only time will tell if my answers were more satisfying than usual. (I’m think that analogies to retail businesses help.)

We did not play video games.

Given my occupation, why is that the case? Because I don’t currently own any video games that would do a better job of bringing us together (and creating time/space to chat) than old-fashioned, non-digital Scrabble or Blokus. So we played Blokus.

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A hot topic among game designers today is: should designers aspire to celebrity (of the kind possessed by famous movie directors and producers) and if so, how? Raph Koster frequently talks about this, and I believe his rationale is fairly solid. But Raph, who does a good job of reaching out to the community (via his book, press interviews, conferences, and blog), is still completely unknown to the vast majority of human beings who regularly play video games (much less humanity in general.) For that matter, even our most beloved industry icons (like Miyamoto) are basically unknown outside the enthusiast market.

Since I singled out Raph, I should note that he doesn’t always talk about individual celebrity. His use of the term seems to extend to corporate brands (i.e. what Rockstar aspires to in every regard, from their name to their products.) But it’s hard to turn a corporate brand into anything even remotely resembling a mega-celebrity brand (i.e. Steven Spielberg). Across all entertainment industries, there are few examples to aspire to.

So if a celebrity-level corporate brand is generally out of reach, and some of our most outspoken and engaged/engaging game designers are still unknown outside hardcore circles, what can be done to harness the celebrity power that designers and companies crave?

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Jeff Orkin, the brain behind the exceptional AI in F.E.A.R (and current PhD student at MIT) is working on a cool new project and needs your help:

The Restaurant Game is a research project at the MIT Media Lab that will algorithmically combine the gameplay experiences of thousands of players to create a new game… Everyone who plays The Restaurant Game will be credited as a Game Designer… Designers will be ranked based on how well they play their assigned roles… There will be only one Lead Designer… This project attempts to address two frustrations I experienced as a professional game developer. 1) Convincing human social behavior is difficult to model with existing hand crafted AI systems. 2) Play testing by people outside of the development team typically comes too late to have a major impact on the final product.

Real-time communication in modern MMORPGs is a funny thing. With rare exception, it tends to resemble anything but “role-playing”. MMO user text generally consists of acronyms (LOL, ROFL, etc), poor grammar, and a million little references to the outside world (”hang on, my dog is barking.”) Speech is, in some ways, even worse — nothing like the screech of a petulant 10-year-old (or the sound of a toilet flushing in the background) to disturb the illusion of fantasy.

Outside the context of self-policed, dedicated role-playing servers, this may be impossible to “fix”. I put “fix” in quotes because it’s unclear that this is a problem of any real significance — it’s quite possible that the majority of potential players really don’t miss the opportunity to role-play more deeply, even in the “perfect” environment for it. But my gut tells me that, at a bare minimum, there’s room for something more than what’s available today.

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Last week was an interesting one for enthusiasts of user-generated content.

“You” rock

Time Magazine named “you” (as in everyone) the person of the year. Not surprising, but notable in a “cultural signpost” kind of way. Do “you” feel good about yourself yet?

You rock (with a little help from Microsoft)

Microsoft officially launched XNA Studio Express and the Creators Club, then followed with a number of interviews that declared an unambiguous commitment to UGC. Just a few short years ago, most people in this industry thought that users were good for nothing more than their wallets (plus the occasional UG multiplayer map.) Now Microsoft is dedicating real resources to helping regular people make video games from scratch.

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