GameSpy Technology is teaming up, superhero crossover issue style, with Dr. Jamie Madigan, author of the increasingly popular ”The Psychology of Video Games” blog, to present a session at the 2010 Login Conference in Seattle, Wash. Conference attendees can watch Dr. Madigan in action on Thursday, May 13 @ 2:30 p.m. in the Waterfront Marriott Harbor Room.  The topic: Why We Do What We Do With Friends (and Screw That Other Guy).  Note: despite the superhero reference above, none of us will be wearing tights to the session. You’re welcome!

Jamie will base his presentation in part on trending data that we have provided him about some of the games we power.  GameSpy Technology’s social and data tracking services have been used in dozens of games to power everything from buddy lists and buddy-based leaderboards to rich statistics gathering and reporting features (both in-game and on the Web). We’re making some of that available to see what conclusions this industrial psychologist (who also knows a few things about hardcore gaming) can draw about what makes us tick when we play online with—and without—our friends.

You can read more about the session on the Login Conference Website and on Jamie’s blog. We’ve been avid readers of the blog—and Jamie’s guest columns on Gamasutra and GameSetWatch—since it launched (having known and respected Jamie for a long while now). We’re excited to be a part of this with him!

In a recent interview about their upcoming racing title Blur, Bizarre Creations Design Manager Gareth Wilson mirrored something that we at GameSpy have been preaching for some time now to our customers: leader boards have evolved from an epic, and for most people, ultimately doomed struggle to hit the top 100 of tens or hundreds of thousands of players to a personal, contextual battle against your friends. Rather than advancing from rank 54,237 to 53,867 out of 253,941, it’s much more satisfying to know that you have the best time on a given track among your friends.

I don’t think the majority of people really care that much about being number one in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, [in Blur] we’re still going to have leaderboards of who’s the best on certain tracks. But PGR3 was a good example of this; you could download the world’s best ghost, and you could race against it and at the first corner, it’s gone. Mere mortals such as me couldn’t keep up with that sort of thing.

I think the whole leader board thing is a bit of a red herring… What’s going to be much more interesting is in time attack, if you’re in my friends list and you do a best lap, [Blur’s inbuilt] social network will inform me that you’ve just done a fastest lap on this particular track.

Using GameSpy’s own ATLAS competition system, developers are free to both track stats in a greater amount of detail and then later create a friends only view of that data, finely boiled down to specific scenarios. The more detail you capture, the easier it becomes for someone to excel in at least one specialty and dominate their friends. They may not have the highest score on a map, but their accuracy ratio may be the highest amongst their online buddies, or they excel at knife battles.

Leader boards shouldn’t just be restricted to the traditional leader board view either. When a match is over, tell players right then and there (while they’re waiting for the next map to load) if they’ve just leapfrogged buddies for that particular map or game mode. That way if they’re online, taunts can fly over a GameSpy powered in-game buddy list with our Presence & Messaging system.

Another fantastic example of this is Valve Software’s use of stats in Team Fortress 2, where the same concept is applied to single player usage. The game forgoes ranked leader boards altogether, opting instead to encourage the player by reminding them of their progress in certain class or weapon based scoring over time. A good player would continue to see reports of incremental improvements months after month, giving them warm fuzzies that will keep them playing. You’re also reminded when your score is up to par with a previous record high, which will drive you to continue to play, so you can finally set a new record. For more of their thoughts on this, see one of their developer commentaries included with the game.

Bottom line, developers are seeing the value in next generation statistical analysis that takes into account psychological player motivations and their social network. If you’ve got ideas of your own for your game that you consider ‘crazy, far out stuff’, contact us. Chances are, we’ve already been thinking about it too, and it’s not as hard as you may think to implement with GameSpy tech.

Last week we had an "Orange Day" and, while the media gushed over Episode 2 I was far more excited about the full version of Team Fortress 2, to be quite honest. Episode 2 will come and go but I suspect I'll still be playing 2fort for years to come. (Just like these die-hards.)

If you haven't had a chance to listen to the developer commentary included in Team Fortress 2 you definitely should. It offers a unique look into the minds of some very talented designers. Miss grenades? Learn why they aren't there. Curious about the choice of art direction when so many other games are going beyond photorealism? Hear why Valve scrapped their approach and went in the opposite direction.

Your personal best is tracked in TF.2

I was especially intrigued by the developer commentary Kerry Davis gave on the design of the stats system. Davis says something I've long maintained: global leaderboards are dumb.

Games usually approach stats by comparing a player to everyone else in the world. This is only really of interest to those who are near the top. With Team Fortress 2, we decided that a better approach might be to compare the stats to the players previous successes, turning them from a world-wide comparative system into a personalized motivational one.

The beginning player gets encouragement and acknowledgment, that while they are not highly skilled yet, they are getting better all the time.
Kerry Davis, Valve Software

What a global leaderboard lacks is context. I'm never going to be at the top of the list so it is irrelevant to me. Why show the top 100 to me as the default view? Are you trying to make me feel bad? Do you want me to give up on your game and go play someone else's game?

(Not only that, but it can encourage exploits and cheating. Witness Bungie outright removing leaderboards from Halo 2.)

By applying a buddy filter, for example, I'm no longer competing against 450,000 anonymous smacktards any more. I'm duking it out for #1 against my 14 closest gaming friends. Better yet, I've now got an acceptable joke about performance to throw out at meetings at my boss's expense. You can see this put to great use in the new Unreal Tournament 3 demo.

Or, if the information is available, a regional or zip code filter could, again, provide some context. Are you the best Madden player in Orange County? (I can assure you that I am not!)

While on the right track, I think Valve takes it a bit too far and eliminates leaderboards all together. Leaderboards themselves, of course, aren't all bad. With the application of a little context the information in a leaderboard can be relevant, interesting and a great community builder.