Our second look at Player Dynamics is part of an ongoing effort to make Player Dynamics more transparent. The first post discussed the current state of Player Dynamics design. We will now discuss how Riot can help all employees think like a Player Dynamics designer.
Multi-mindedness
This simple phrase can be used to help anyone quickly adopt Player Dynamics-thinking regardless of their role.
Multi-minded is a term that can be used by non-designers. It is conceptually similar with design-thinking or human-centered design. These approaches are focused on creating user-friendly products, while Player Dynamics – which is multi-minded – focuses more on creating products for social use.
Multi-mindset is a practice that allows you to operate in both work and life with a variety of mindsets.
- Behavior doesn’t happen in isolation
- Behavior is the function of a person within an environment. This environment can often be influenced by other people.
- Everybody has different biases (cultural, personal, etc.). These biases can influence how we see the world and interact with it.
- Inclusive strategies create better products and healthier social settings for more people.
Multi-mindedness is a sign that you think like a Player Dynamics designer.
Multi-mindedness is essential in product development. It involves negotiating and orchestrating the interaction between people and spaces to create healthy interactions.
Multi-mindedness is like hosting an open house (an analogy that I wish I had come up first). It creates the right environment for everyone to feel comfortable and safe, so they can have fun. Single-mindedness is like believing everyone wants the same party as you. Imagine that millions of people come from all corners of the globe to attend the party. Each person has their own ideas about what the ideal party should look like.
Player Dynamics is a firm believer in this approach, but it doesn’t have to be limited to designers. Multi-minded companies have a higher chance of creating products that resonate with global audiences. They also create a more inclusive and diverse environment for product development.
Multi-minded product development
A diversity-first approach to product development allows you to be multi-minded.
This approach requires you to make a commitment to your team and to provide enough perspectives to ensure that the experience is as enjoyable and memorable as possible for everyone.
No group should be overlooked if there are the right structures and systems in place. Product-thinking can incorporate accessibility, identities, cultural biases and personal safety needs. The right systems will ensure that we have a global mindset, and not just focus on the area we live in. This is natural and easy.
What Player Dynamics tools are available to help you in your diversity-first endeavor? We don’t have the time to go into detail but here are some highlights:
- Personas. Research backed fictional characters that can represent subsets your audience.
- Behavior subgroups. Histogram based on common behavior patterns.
- POV statements. Allows you to incorporate multiple points-of-view into an inclusive problem statement.
It’s a good idea to combine the above tools with some other tools that help you understand the context of the information and make it more useful.
- Interactive journeys. Experiencemaps of multiple people displayed in parallel. These can be wireflows or high-fidelity slide presentations.
- Multi-perspective prototypes. Side by side lo-fi prototypes. These prototypes allow us to design and evaluate experiences through multiple perspectives. Great for developing real-time social interactions.
- Conflict canvas. Useful tool to evaluate a feature’s potential for disruptive or positive behavior using the lens of common types group conflict.
Combining all of these tools can make us more multi-minded and help us put diversity first.
Conclusion
This topic is complicated and real, as you can see. We get it. These games are our work, and we play them. We listen to the concerns of communities. We don’t turn a blind eye to the problems and seek long-term, truly meaningful solutions that improve the experience for everyone who plays our games.
This is our goal: to show you how far we will go to improve game experiences and foster better gaming communities. These lengths can sometimes lead to philosophical, scientific, or academic conversations that don’t satisfy. There is no quick solution or magic bullet that will change the behavior of players in a way that pleases all. Trust us, we have tried. We are always looking for new ways to improve things. Old methods produce the same results.
Unfortunately, even though we try to design the game well, there is always the possibility that someone in your team has a bad day and takes it out on their fellow players. We will continue to intervene whenever disruptive behavior occurs in our games.
This problem cannot be solved by playing whack-amole with bad actors. The solution will not be found in a single component or system. It must be comprehensive and cover the entire company and ecosystem. It will include a variety of changes and philosophies that are incorporated into the core games. These changes will hopefully result in more GLHFs being added to your games than FFs.
It will take some time.
We are not the only ones who are working on this challenge. This challenge is being tackled by over 250 companies. Because we all want the same goal, we are committed to sharing our best practices.