For years Valve has offered badges for contributions from community such as reviews of games and for creating a detailed profile filled with a large friends list. Perhaps the cleverest and most effective however was their introduction of virtual trading cards. The trading cards are awarded to players randomly as they play the corresponding game; the concept of the cards being awarded randomly prevents gaming the system and promotes the actual playing of a game. On face value playing games does not seem to foster a community, however this does encourage people to buy their games through the Steam service and subsequently publishers will be more enthusiastic about releasing their games through Steam.
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| An example of a Steam trading card. |
The amassing of a trading card collection could be seen as only offering intrinsic satisfaction to a user which is why rewards are offered for collecting a full set. A full set cannot be amassed purely from random chance as there is a limit to how many cards are gained this way. This fosters further engagement with the community in an effort to trade for cards that a user needs. Once a set has been collected for a game then they can be used to form a badge. This badge offers a greater user level and allows you to show off as a more active member of the community. This recognition is a proven method of fostering an online community.
A trader will also be rewarded with a background to make their profile look good as well as special emoticons that can be used in the forums and in instant chat. This is a classic example of an extrinsic reward system that encourages people to continue spending their time in the community and thus making the service more valuable to both user and the company behind the community.
Nice post, shedding some light on the trading card system of Steam.
ReplyDeleteThe virtual trading card is a nice system to give incentive for the user to buy more game and play the game more. It's like the achievement system in the game but with more usage.
Like you said the card itself have several purposes like for crafting badges and trading with other but you can also sell the card to other people for steam currency.
Thanks for your comment Leonard. Selling the cards for money is a good point that I forgot to bring up. That also gives an incentive to play games for people who don't necessarily want to collect the cards.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Nathan! I've been hearing about these Steam 'badges' for a while now, primarily through some gamer friends' Twitter posts. Like Leonard pointed out in the above comment, the badges seem to work somewhat like XBox's 'Achievements', or Sony's 'Trophies' by adding that little bit extra incentive to completing certain tasks in a game. The added community aspect, however - coming to the fore in the badge trading between Steam users - really makes this system unique. I'll have to look into it more - although I do wonder if it's perhaps a little draconian to 'force' people to trade with their fellow users if they want a full set. At any rate, it seems Valve has their figurative finger on the collective pulses of community-minded gamers. Do you think they'll extend this badge system to the Steam Box consoles to be released later this year? If so, the big boys in the home gaming world might have to play a little catch-up...
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Wyatt. I think they would include it in the Steam Box. As far as I know that is going to run an identical copy of steam as what you get on PC. As for the forcing people to trade for a complete set, there are financial reasons for this; you can buy and sell cards on the marketplace and Valve takes a cut off every sale. Not the most altruistic system ever but no-one seems to mind as most cards cost about 20c.
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