Game design that goes viral
Sana N Choudary
Social Fest
October 24, 2009

What you think you are here for
To learn
what social hooks are about
get ideas for some quick fixes
So you can go back to what your enjoy and are good at focus
on game design

But actually...
There are no silver bullets
Why?
Anything that worked in the past has diminishing returns over
time because:
users get desensitized over time
Facebook changes technology rules

What do you have to do to succeed?
Build virality into game play
Provide social media and marketing support
Look at analytics and constantly iterate and optimize (not
covered in this presentation)

Who am I?
Sana N Choudary aka traffichoney.
Work with traditional game developers
Help them use and optimize Facebook viral channels and
social media marketing to build popular social apps
Curious?

How?
1) effective in game virality
2) social media and community marketing

What is virality?

Virality defined
techniques that use pre-existing social networks to
increase customer acquisition to your application
through self-replicating viral processes, enhanced by
the network effects of the Internet--paraphrased
Wikipedia

Why viral loops are important?
Gets past Facebook allocations limits
Exponentially increases number of users to monetize
Viral factor discounts customer acquisition cost

Casestudy: Farmville

What is Farmville?
Facebook farm game where you
grow, harvest, and sell fruits and vegetables
rear farm animals and sell them or their produce
buy other decorative farm items
Have your friends as farming neighbors
Top Facebook game since August
More than 51 million monthly active users (As of Oct 1st)

Keys to success
1) effective in game virality
2) social media and community marketing

Viral Channel 1: Minifeed
Photos

Viral Channel 1: Minifeed
In game acts

Viral Channel 1: Minifeed
Rewards

Viral Channel 1: Minifeed
Status messages

Viral Channel 2: Newsfeed

Viral Channel 3: Invite with a twist
Add and Remind neighbor

Viral Channel 3: Invite with a twist
Send gifts

Other support
Cross promotion

Community marketing
Blog

Community marketing
Application fan page

Social media marketing

Caveats
Spending millions upon millions of dollars on
advertising. They're reportedly spending 50 million
dollars a year buying up facebook's ad inventory. Good
at viral growth, user engagement, etc. But also
spending dollars
Intensive Cross promotion and leverage

Summary
Incorporate viral elements within game play--EARLY!
Dedicate resources to community and social media
marketing--focus on small measurable goals and results for
whatever time you can spend on this.

Q & A?

Think you have the next transformative game
idea?
Consult for a very limited number games that I think are
creative and have solid business potential.
Contact:
Sana N Choudary
www.facebook.com/traffichoney
@traffichoney
traffichoney@gmail.com
Do keep in touch!
Blog:
www.traffichoney.com
weekly post dissecting virality elements and marketing of
a top social game