PlayAbly Podcast Episode 20: Designing Play: Why Every Brand Needs a Game Designer (and What Makes a Game Great!)

What does a game designer really do, and why does it matter for your brand? In this episode, we sit down with Seema, our Head of UX and Game Design, to uncover the psychology behind great game design and its impact on customer engagement.

From building shoppable games that drive conversions to creating immersive ecommerce gamification strategies and interactive ecommerce quizzes, we dive into how thoughtful design can transform your brand experience.

Welcome to the PlayAbly Podcast, where we dive into the art and science of gamification, customer engagement, and driving conversions. 

At PlayAbly, we turn passive audiences into active customers through shoppable games and playable experiences that transform how brands connect with their customers. Book your free demo here.

Thanks for tuning in to the PlayAbly Podcast! Ready to engage your customers like never before? PlayAbly creates branded Shoppable Games that drive results. Don’t forget, mention the podcast during your free demo, and get $500 off (book here). Learn more at playably.ai

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Transcript

PlayAbly Podcast Episode 20: Designing Play: Why Every Brand Needs a Game Designer (and What Makes a Game Great!)

Kajal: [00:00:00] And we're back with another episode of the Playably podcast. Joining me once again is our head of UX and game design, Sima. Sima, welcome once again to the Playably podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. And today we're talking about something just super special and so awesome.

And that is your background. I know that. I think we were at the NRF conference two weeks ago when somebody who is at another company that does something with games was like, what is a game designer do? Why do you need the game designer? Which is very concerning considering they're making games for their clients as well.

But so I think it is important to talk about, you know, what, what does the game designer do? And you know, you've been doing this for a really long time, and then you came from like the arts and museum spaces doing it there. So Sima, please tell us about your life. 

Seema: This is your life, Sima. You know, I think what's interesting is in some ways, everyone's sort of been [00:01:00] a game designer, like, If you've ever tricked out, we did an episode a few weeks ago about Monopoly, and if you've ever, like, put two Monopoly boards together, you in some ways have designed a game, and I think a lot of people, like maybe for a baby shower, or you're, like, school project, you've done things that you sort of game E.

And I think that one thing that happens is a lot of companies will do something like use a spinner, my least favorite thing, or use like a scratch board, which I don't mind scratch boards. but I think that the problem actually is that because we all think we kind of can do it, we don't realize that There's actually a lot of psychology that goes into game design.

And so I have been doing this for like, 25 years. And I think the biggest thing I have learned is that good game design is a special skill. And if you don't have it, you should have somebody else do it. Because a bad game, and we've all been to [00:02:00] parties where like, They try to, have a game, and it's a little bit like a bad joke where you have to explain it.

And a bad game is just, it's like, why are we doing this? And I have been to so many showers, maybe it's my gender, and my age, but I've been to so many showers, where I'm like, this is not a game, actually. 

Kajal: And I think a lot of things, like, can make it bad, where it's like, the experience is bad, it just doesn't cover everything, and it's like, oh, what happens if this thing happens?

It's like, oh, I don't, I don't know. I can't imagine, like, I can't remember how many times I've had the rules to White Elephant explained to me, and it's, like, different every single time. And I'm like, oh, okay, like, let's just establish everybody, like, we're all getting on the same basis. 

Seema: Yes. and I think that's one of the things that happens like one of the things people I was talking to a friend of mine Who did come out of gaming and it used to be That in many nonprofits, they would have people who did gaming because games are actually underlying a lot of interactives in [00:03:00] museums or I did a thing where we did all these digital games during Covid or whatever.

So games are very universal in education. There's probably no elementary school class you've taken that didn't have at least one gamification like if you're doing a reading challenge, that's gamification. So if you've ever done like, read ten and you get a blah blah blah, that's even for 

Kajal: kids.

The Pizza Hut, you get your personal pizza every ten bucks. that's right. I took advantage of that. We were poor, so I really liked it. 

Seema: I did like that. I didn't know when it stopped, so I didn't know if you had that one. I definitely had that one. But, I think that one of the things that happens is that people play them, but they don't understand them.

And so like, the first thing we're both talking about is a win state. And if you have to explain the win state, and White Elephant's a great example of it, What's the win state? Right? Cause actually, the white elephant is the lose state. 

Kajal: Yes. 

Seema: Right. And that's why it's confusing.

'cause the name is the Lose not the Win, right? Like whereas Monopoly, the [00:04:00] monopoly is the win, right? To have a monopoly on a color means you're winning. And so I think like there's like those things that are so simple and now I say it and you're like, of course. But like if you're not a designer, you wouldn't think about that, right?

So I think that's a huge part of what's challenging. I think the bigger thing that I was talking to somebody. Who's a game designer, I can't even remember who it is. And we were talking about how hard it is. I used to work with a lot of students to teach them game design. And they really wanted to prove they were smart.

Because they're students. And like, that's a natural student behavior. And I totally respect that. So they'd make them too complicated. And I used to say, like, direction should only be three. Right, like, do this, do this, and do this. Done. If you have more than that, it's too far.

Like, I could tell you Uno. Match the card. Finish all the cards. Yell Uno when you have your last one. Literally three things. [00:05:00] Now, I know there's a lot more to Uno. I, we play very competitively at my house. But if you summarized it, that would get you to understand Uno. 

Kajal: I was gonna say, there's a lot of board games 

Seema: I know, but I think that those board games are for a very specialist audience. That's the other thing, like when we're building our games here, I mean, I've built really specialized games. I worked like my favorite, one of my favorites is I built a game with a team of people about the Silk Route, which is the route that like, it was really from, let's say, 600 to 900 is like the height of the Silk Route. And they traded from China all the way to Venice, but instead of going straight across, they would go like a relay race. And so we did a board game that did it, and the rules were you can't go more than two stops, you have to make more money, and your camels can't die.

Like that, that's it. Right? Like that, that's all you need. And that helped you understand this huge complex, but it didn't help you understand everything. Like they're not gonna get any, like [00:06:00] all of it. And I think that for a lot of brands, one of the things, especially like, we've had these conversations with these very specialized brands, and they have so much to tell me, and I'm like, they can't hear that.

If they're not reading your like a badass page, they're not going to do it in a 

Kajal: game. I think that goes with sort of the theme of the game when we're thinking about like what type of game to build people when they're like using a spinner, but they have a really complicated project that are products that people don't understand.

And then on their product page they have, yeah, just a bunch of texts that's like, this is how it works and this is everything. And I think one of the ways that we really excel is taking that and turning it into an interactive game so that people can learn while having fun or winning or whatever 

Seema: Well, it is a win, right? Buying it is a win. I think like one of the things I find so interesting is they'll explain the product to us and it takes 10 minutes and then we're like we need something that's fun to explain it and they're like why and I was like You just took 10 minutes to explain somebody [00:07:00] It's like you just proved it and I think what's so funny is They don't realize the game could show their passion better than that text You know, I mean, like, my favorite game, and I, before this podcast, I was trying to think of what's my favorite game, and I've done so many over the years.

And one of my favorite ones was, we did a murder mystery party. Now, I will tell you, a murder mystery is not necessarily a game. So, there are murder mysteries that, like, don't actually have a solution. So, they're like a Miss Marple or something, where you actually can't solve it. You know how, like, some of those books don't have, all the clues, so you can't put it together?

Kajal: And 

Seema: then somebody comes and is like, you're at a party. and the answer is, you know, like that kind of thing. That isn't a game. Ours was basically like clue the board game. And the reason I loved it actually was because it was pretty simple. I mean, yes, like you had to find the clues and whatnot, but actually if you found the clues, it was easy.

It was like a logic puzzle and you just crossed [00:08:00] them off and you figured it out. Because a good game should feel doable. I don't mean it should be easy. But it should feel accomplishable. Like you can win. Yes. Exactly. 

Kajal: Exactly. And I know we talked about a lot about the, the motivations of different players and the Bartle.

player personality. So we won't get into that on this podcast because I think I mentioned it on every single other podcast. Definitely with John, but I'd love to talk about like, you know, the game mechanics versus sort of that storytelling element or the theme element and like, how do you balance that?

Seema: It's hard. I always would prefer storytelling to like, I'd rather a simple game mechanic with a better storytelling, particularly in this facet, like where you're trying to sell something and it's really quick, I've done really complex games. And I will say that storytelling is a lot easier with a role playing game.

Another favorite game of mine, and I don't know that this will be funny for this audience, but it's hilarious when I talk about it in museums, but [00:09:00] a lot of museums have women's groups. So they're like the volunteers who help with like, you know, finding your seat and whatnot. And they're usually like older women who really mean well, but they don't understand teenagers at all.

And so they would work with our teen group with us. And they were always like, the teens were basically like, it's like running a team where the teens are helping the seniors instead of vice versa. And so we did a game where it was a zombie game. So the women's council was the zombies. And the kids had to help each other not become women's council by learning things about the art.

And the women's council loved it. they thought it was so hilarious because they knew that they meant well. They kind of knew the role that they had. And it was so funny. The women's council. Love being zombies. But the questions were pretty easy, right?

The mechanic was simple. Stay away from zombies and learn things to get like, what do you call it? Be safe from zombies, you know, like an inoculation, [00:10:00] you know? So the game mechanics was simple, but the reason it worked was the storytelling, right?

Because that's like the fun part. A lot of people get into when they're doing games is they get so tied up in the mechanics. Actually, that's the same problem with the spinner. They're like using a mechanic and not a story. And the other problem with mechanics is once you figure it out, it's a bore, right?

like, I think like one of the things I find really like, the thing I always think when I have, family that are young or people that I know who are young, when they figure out Candyland is really, like, kind of a bore. You know, because, they lived on the storytelling, right?

They wanted the cards and they loved the gummy bear and the lady and the blah, blah, blah. And then when they figure out the mechanic, the storytelling kept them for a long time, right? So, it's, like, good storytelling. But, if you're, playing dice? And you're just throwing dice, like you figure that out, there's no storytelling.

Kajal: So the storytelling is really what encourages that replayability and the ability to keep people in. I know at the [00:11:00] company that we used to work at, Unity, what made us a really good team. was the fact that we had the ability to know who the players were of the different games and give the tools so that game developers could make the game harder and know, okay, this person plays a lot of games and we're going to start them on level 15 versus starting someone who's never played games on level one.

And that way they were able to keep the games more sticky, get them to buy more in app purchases, yeah. Absolutely, and we do a lot of that with data. 

Seema: Like, we do a lot of that with data, so we can basically split audiences in the back end, and with data, kind of figuring out, not about gameplay, but about the products they want, for example.

Or like, The kind of version of Tinder, they're going to get these products instead of those products, let's say, so I think that, like, it is about knowing, but I also think, and I, I didn't, I'm, I'm like the only one who didn't work at unity, but I will say from my experience about gaming, I was talking to somebody at the, we were at, you know, at NRF and I was talking to this guy and he was just, you know, like, I don't know, we're chatting and he was [00:12:00] saying, Oh, I'm from originally from New Hampshire.

And then I'm in Columbia. And I said, Oh, you moved for love. And he was like, how'd you know that? And I was like, but it's because, like, I've talked to it, like, I mean, I must have in my lifetime talked to, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people by now. And I, you know, like you actually, part of building games is understanding people.

There's an empathy and there's like a thing that I think a lot of, it's just a skill that people, some people have, they've accrued. And actually, like, I'm, I like have talked to enough people, but we use that same kind of data analysis. It's to also predict what game is the right one for them. Like, we're not, you know, we always say to brands, like, we're not, it's not like there's magic in here.

Like, we're using data. it's predictable. 

Kajal: Right. And I, yeah, I think that that really helps the games feel, you know, like the audience wants to play them. They enjoy playing them. They have a positive association then with the brand. Exactly. And then that's 

Seema: The positive association. Oh, like we [00:13:00] used to do this.

Game, we had a big, I used to run, we used to run this big event that had like huge, like 5, 000 room space, and we'd build like a giant mousetrap game, or a giant, I mean like huge, or giant snakes and ladders What's funny is I do think Mousetrap as a general rule is not a great board game.

Like people, it's like not actually that fun. So sometimes you can trick people by doing something amazing. Like putting in, like, this was scale that was amazing. And I do think like design can trick people to like things. I think Mousetrap actually design tricks you and then when you put it with scale.

But something as simple as like we would have You know, checkers, checkers with art. People loved it because they understood it and it was like, they were like, oh, that's fun. I know that. 

Kajal: And they would just play. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of our games, we reskin them, we rebrand them so that it is an understandable mechanic that.

Can get used and then we overlay the story on top. 

Seema: I mean like I know that I've said [00:14:00] this before but I love our game where you just run and jump and grab things and we can reskin it in lots of ways but I do think It goes, I mean, like, you know, original Nintendo, it's, you know, Mario, all those games are kind of the same, right?

You're just, trying to get across a level and take a thing. Isn't shopping that? Right? Like, shopping is that, right? Like, you're just trying to, get across Target X department store and get the thing you want. And I think, re skinning it, it's like, why would we come up with some other metric when half the platform games are literally just running across a thing and grabbing a thing.

Kajal: Oh my god, that would be so much fun. Just a game of Yeah, a live store and you have to like, because I mean, we talked about the supermarket sweep thing and yeah, 

Seema: I would love a supermarket to hire us to do a supermarket sweep. I would love it. 

Kajal: We'll give you guys a discount. If you have a grocery store.

Seema: Yes, that's right. We will give you a discount and we'll make it so much better than the old supermarket sweep. [00:15:00] It'd be so fun and what would be fun is particularly for like my local grocery store They have a lot of great deals like they could only sweep in the store brand That'd be so fun.

But again see like we just designed a game within an easy metric Yeah, and we added the story right the store brand That's that is like what we do like we can do this so quickly because this is our job. 

Kajal: Yeah And I think it's fun too, because I know during the, the discovery meetings, the onboarding meetings, everyone has an idea for a game, especially if they're, they're the founder of their company, they've been there for forever.

And they're like, here's eight things, but like, I already have an idea for obviously we can't build all of them, but I think it's great that they, you know, think so much about it and it's not something you have to necessarily put. A ton of effort into like, we'll refine it for you. But yeah, if you have ideas like coming to the meeting with them, I think that's great.

So adding games into an e commerce store, you know, we've talked a lot about physical games and there's [00:16:00] additional challenges that come with the store. How do you keep it from being distracting? 

Seema: You know what? This is so funny because so many people ask us this and I'm like, this is actually the easy part.

I think so many, like maybe, because I come out of, I mean I am a game designer, but I'm a UX designer. And there are so many things on people's websites that are just, I'm like, what are you doing here? Like every website, I, you know, and I always say to people when I'm like, oh your website's good.

I said, I don't usually say that, but if I say that, like, you're really good. I think that actually what people don't realize is what are the things that are distracting people and what are actually focusing people. So our games are all specifically to focus you on something. We always start every game with what is your goal and then we will meet the goal with the game and we will bound the game by your goal and the games are very short.

So they're all about like, you know, if let's say you're watching social media video and your brain just goes straight to it, that's what our games are. They are [00:17:00] all of the social, like all of those behavioral science clues, you know, game designers really focus a lot on behavioral science. That's what we're doing.

We are not, and I think that that's where people kind of get confused because In our hobbies we play games to relax But they don't realize that they are relaxing by focusing on that thing. Right, so if you were playing Monopoly to make money, imagine if you were playing a game to buy your brand. It's the same thing.

It's focus. It's just focus on that thing. And the things that their websites are often doing is taking away. Like, the pop up that means nothing. Right? They don't get anything out of it. It doesn't give them any info. It means nothing. Or like my, I am particularly right now focused on how much random text is in websites.

Just, just junk. Junk everywhere. It makes me so nuts. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, nobody cares, nobody cares about, and I think it's probably generational, at least a portion of these people are like my age, where we used to have like a million [00:18:00] pop ups.

 but nobody, it's all, it's like they're doing, everyone's websites are peripheral vision stuff. So it's like this distracting text and pictures that like feel like it's bothering you. And our game is basically center vision stuff. Things that people will focus on, hone in their energy, and literally go to the landing page of the product that's in the game.

So it's like a laser focus kind of thing.

Kajal: And then so final question, and this is a little bit self serving for for playably, but I know we get asked it a lot. And that's about, you know, How we make the game feel authentic and true to the brand. What, I'd love for you to explain sort of like what we do there and how we, you know, we say we reskin it, but what, what does that actually mean?

Seema: This is like the most fun for me, I think. Because we, I love design, and I love, like, the story and the immersion in it. And so what we do is we get your branding family, but we talk to you, and then we make sure it looks like [00:19:00] you did it. And, so, we're very competitive.

I mean, game designers just generally are by nature. Because like, I mean, we're coming up with ways for people to win and we want to win at doing that. So it's like kind of in the nature of it, but like, you know, and I have not done any of these quizzes, games, any of these that I haven't won.

Like we literally, I mean, our whole team, we have like a 90 percent completion rate, like. It's because we're so, so geeks about this. So we take every element we can to make sure it matches what you have. It should not feel different. So yes, it's like colors and font families and stuff like that, but it's actually other very subtle cues.

And like there's subtle cues like some brands, for example, have not just high key colors, but also they put it in very specific places. So we spend a lot of time really looking at your website. And then sometimes actually we will go. To a different look on purpose, let's say, and this is something I actually think brands understand let's say a special ad [00:20:00] like you're doing a special campaign and you've gone to a branding agency who picks out something different, we can match that for you.

So if you're doing a product launch and you want to do something that's in a very different ecosystem, we're there. We will literally match anything, and our goal is, in many ways, that Playably disappears, and your brand shows up. And that's all such subtle cues. And I always think about this, cause like In my team, we have so many discussions.

So many this would be banal to anyone else. But is the button, should it be square too? Should it be rounded a little? Is it 15? Is it 10? Why are they doing it? Like we, we spend a lot of time on those kinds of things. So you don't have to. It's completely white gloves. So you don't have to be like, Nuancing this.

I had somebody who came from brand. When you worked with agencies, a lot of times you were like, Stopped like it just, there's so many times where you're like, Why? Why? Comic Sans? No, not really. But you know, like they're picking something cuckoo. So we don't do [00:21:00] that. We do follow any agency you have or any branding you have.

And so you can just enjoy the, the reap the benefits basically. 

Kajal: Love that. So if you're interested in game, as always hit us up on playadly. aibookerdemo and mention the podcast 

thanks for having me. Thank you Sima for joining and you'll catch you next time