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The Seven Deadly Sins and PENS: a comparative analysis

PENS is an interesting research that aims to overlap the concept of “fun” to focus on the psychological needs that videogames can satisfy. This Thesis develops metrics typologies that can evaluate the player’s satisfaction degree, an important issue for game developers that need a profound comprehension of the psychological dynamics in the game activities. Competence, autonomy, relatedness are key factors in a videogame experience and can be linked to the seven deadly sins theory applied to videogames. It’s even possible to move forward in this argument, developing both theories in the social games sphere, true field of application for modern game design.

Game-Design Evolution – The Seven Deadly Sins Theory

The second of the series of posts about the new objectives of game designers: today, game designers have to consider revenue issues and business models since the beginning of their creative processes.

The lead designer of Settlers Online, Teut Weidemann, maintains that the first step for a game designer is to identify what makes a mechanic funny: it must be able to attract users.
But, at the same time, it is necessary to consider the monetization power of that mechanic, since monetizing has become a crucial and essential part of game design.
The technique adopted by Weidemann is interesting, but it is also cynical. It is based on the exploration – or rather, on the monetization – of human weaknesses, that he called The Seven Deadly Sins. Not only because of his name, it has caused a lot of reactions within the community of developers; however, in our opinion, it is a correct logic.

VANITY
Players love competition, and even more, they love to boast and to show how good they are and the goals they have achieved. Competing and cooperating at the same time is a very powerful dynamic which gets players to try to improve, also considering the progress of the others. This dynamic leads to the next sin….Read More