Keeping your players engaged and interested in your game over many months or years is a constant challenge. In this article, I examine one method of getting your players excited about logging into your MMO - group contests.
What is a Group Contest in an MMO
Perhaps this is not the best term, but a group contest is a type of event where players compete as a group rather than individually. The prize is also awarded to the group. Possible examples are a contest between classes and the winning class gets a new ability, a contest between factions where the winning faction gets a special event or something cool added to their capital city, or a competition between guilds where the winning guild receives an enhancement to their guild hall. What is important is that players are competing together for the benefit of the whole rather than the individual.
This article will also provide a practical, real world example of a recent group contest that took place in Threshold RPG.
Social Identity Theory - The Power Behind Group Contests
The real power behind group contests is known to psychologists as "social identity theory." This theory has been most notably studied by psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner. This topic was also the subject of a recent blog post on The Psychology of Video Games Blog: "Tajfel and his collaborators theorized that people have a natural tendency to construct identities based on group membership. Part of who you are –and how you communicate that to others– is defined by what groups you belong to."
One of the most interesting examples of social indentity theory from that blog post was the "Demoman versus Soldier" competition for Team Fortress 2. Whichever class scored the most kills over a given span of time would receive a new in-game weapon. If one doubts the power of social identity theory, one need only read the quoted soldier player's post from the Team Fortress 2 official forums: "Gentlemen, I have NO IDEA what this weapon is. I don’t even know if I’ll WANT it. But BY GOD, I know what’s IMPORTANT, and it’s that WE get it and the DEMOMAN DOES NOT."
Players will go to great lengths to win something in any game. That is well and widely known. Social identity theory shows us that they will go to even GREATER lengths to win something for a group they are a part of - especially if they win at the expense of another group they believe they are opposed to.
Why Are Group Contests so Rare in MMOs?
The short answer is "laziness." The long answer involves supposition and deduction based on many years of observation and experience. Current MMO developers appear to have all but abandoned what was once a common and beloved type of content - the developer run event. This is truly a shame since dynamic, developer managed events can make a game world feel more like a world and less like a game. Dev events run the gamut from extremely labor intensive, heavily interactive plot lines to more free form events where developers get the ball rolling and then apply only a gentle nudge when needed.