"A lot of letters", or do the players want to read

Do users who play social games (including on mobile devices) want to read in-game text? With such a question, Gamasutra journalist Frank Cifaldi turned to the authors of Indiana Jones Adventure World from Zynga.

Popular wisdom says that social players do not particularly favor texts, but is it so unambiguous? Steve Williams and Jonathan Meyers, who developed Indiana Jones Adventure World, are sure that gamers love to read. 

You work with Zynga, I’m sure you’ve done a lot of research, run thousands of tests and are ready to answer what social players like to read?They love two things.

The first is when the names of real places, people, etc. are mentioned. Especially effective if they are somehow connected with the game. When we reported that Marion Ravenwood would appear in Tibet, people almost went crazy. 

The second thing: everything related to calls to action – tasks, promotions, and so on. As it turned out, the players see them, even if they are “buried” in the text, are not obvious. This means that people, at least, look through what is written, grasping the essence. 

Ultimately, have you learned how to optimize texts?Yes, but to do this, I first had to work hard, experiment, and do focus testing tightly.

It was especially interesting to watch those who claimed that they could not stand reading in games – every time we managed to “immerse” them in the text, we rejoiced. We started by doing a lot of descriptions to create an atmosphere of adventure, but it didn’t work well. As a result, we came to the conclusion that it is better to formulate tasks briefly and clearly: go there, do this.

And yet, in your speech at GDC Online, did you mention that social players like to read?There is such a popular opinion that no one likes to read.

We found out that this is not true. I call the text a collectible thing, because users literally search and find texts, and then tell friends that they have found the so-called “Easter egg”, i.e. they have found some cool element that is not directly related to the gameplay, a kind of hiding place.

So what does this mean? Is it possible to write texts more suitable for social games?

I think so. In general, I think that soon we will see a new kind of social games that will more actively use the achievements of games from our past. And I am more than sure that there will be a lot of text in them. The industry is big, not only Zynga is on the market, many will come to the conclusion that there is a place for narrative in social games.

Our generation reads a little, but the next generation will read more. They are already reading and writing a lot on their smartphones. It seems to me that thanks to this, the art of writing is becoming relevant again. My daughter is nine, but already she writes much better than I have ever written. After all, she constantly writes on her phone, in other places. So, apparently, the games will soon have interesting times. 

Is it all because of mobile devices?Exactly.

People today are more likely than ever to deal with text in their daily lives. If you used to read from time to time, now it is a constant occupation for many of us. For example, what could be better than reading while traveling? It used to be only possible to stare at the wall opposite. This is out of the question today. 

But at the same time, people began to read small texts more. That is, on the one hand, they read more, but, at the same time, less. All right.

I used to work on MMO games. In my second project, the maximum number of characters in the quest was 512. And this number was unreasonably small for us. No one can tell a story while keeping within 512 characters! In my third MMO, the limit was already 256 characters. No one can tell stories like that! But, of course, we managed to keep within this minimum. In another MMO, which I also worked on, we called the texts tweets: the text could not be more than 140 characters. And, you know, it turned out that you can tell interesting stories with a length of 140 characters. 

In other words, screenwriters should liken their texts to Twitter posts? Yes. You have to polish them to this condition.

In a social game, the text should not be verbose – no philosophy or anything like that is needed. At least in the games we are talking about now. 

And in your game – how many characters maximum in one text?

I need to check, but I don’t think it’s more than 150. As a rule, we use about 123 characters.

Almost like on Twitter.Yes, the number 123 is very close to a regular tweet.

It seems to me that its creators just realized that two sentences are all that is needed.