So for the last two weeks i’ve been studying Farmville from a product standpoint for a new site that i’ll be working on. They use very clever behavioral psychology tricks to get the user mentally and emotionally invested in the game. Once they’ve become invested, they’re pretty much hooked and willing to spend hours building their virtual farms and gathering neighbors who help them farm. I’ll try and cover everything i’ve learned from studying the game mechanics of each phase. However, i’m only a level 5 farmer, but I’ve talked to several people who are at higher levels to understand what other dynamics keep pulling them in. Most of my learnings have been gleamed from reading ‘Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion’ by Robert B.Cialdini. It’s a great read which I think that every entrepreneur should review. It’ll help you understand ways to keep the user on your site and emotionally invested in your product.
The first hook I’ll talk about is commitment. There are studies that show “Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment” (from Influence Ch.3). Farmville’s first use of this technique is a very subtle status bar at the top of the screen (view the png in the browser to see it enlarged)
It’s very subtle, but if you look at the copy, it says you become a dedicated farmer. I find the wording to be very interesting. It’s not that you only become a farmer, but a dedicated one. Psychologically, once you’ve committed to be a dedicated farmer, i’ll bet you’re more likely to continue to build your farm. Once you do complete it, you’ve committed yourself to the game psychologically. The next thing you know you’re probably a level 51 farmer who’s spent hundreds of dollars on gasoline for your tractor.
If you think about it from Zynga’s point of view, they could have easily asked for this information at other points or on another interaction in the game. Instead, they’ve decided to wrap it into the game design, always reminding you to become a dedicated farmer, and always of course entirely voluntary. As covered in the book, there can’t be an excessive reward for the voluntary action that you take. A person is less committed to an idea if there’s monetary compensation, as they believe it’s an ‘out’ for what they’re doing. Instead, if there is a reward, it’s typically a reward that is more or less insignificant in the scenario. In Farmville’s case you’re actually not rewarded anything for completing the status bar.
Practical Use for Product Designers
In any of your products, you need your users to voluntarily commit to be dedicated users. An even stronger commitment would be to share there commitment with their facebook friends and twitter followers. Once they’ve openly committed to becoming a user, the will most likely continue to be a dedicated user since they’ve already committed to doing so.
