January 8, 2008

• EVIL GIFTS

  Much of what I have to say below applies equally to xanga minis as it does to facebook gifts.

  Three
  friends of mine and I were discussing the other day the phenomenon of
  facebook gifts and all similar facebook applications over dinner. We
  talked about how impressive it was that facebook is able to make so
  much profit from selling tiny little images to people. It’s
  counterintuitive at first. You wouldn’t think this kinda thing would
  really work. But it does. It works very well.

  In the words of
  one of my friends (paraphrasing) “So many facebook applications just
  provide people with ways to say ‘Hi’ to each other over and over again.”

  And
  he’s right of course. That’s what the gifts are too. But when you think
  about it that way it isn’t really surprising at all that gifting
  applications are so popular. In a way a gift is just a mechanism to
  convey a symbolic message to someone. It’s that way in the real world
  as well as in the virtual world. And that message might well be and
  usually is just something like “Hi!”. And it could also be something
  different like “I like you”  or “I want to be closer to you” or “I
  appreciate you” or “I love you” or “I miss you” or “Thanks”. 

  Really,
  most gifts in the real world are as much or more about the symbolic
  message they convey than their functional value. I mean what functional
  value do cut flowers really have? They look nice, but they die almost
  immediately. So if it were all about the functionality what would the
  point be? Similarly for stuffed animals. And jewelry. And even
  clothing, although it has a very basic function, the value of it does
  not depend on the functionality. Often the uglier clothes that nobody
  wants may be more functionally effective at providing comfort or
  warding off cold than the nicest of clothes.  And don’t get me started
  on the greeting card industry.

  No. A pixilated gift is pretty
  much the same as a real life gift only it’s just a heck of a lot
  cheaper to send. But you can convey the exact same messages through
  such a gift. “I like you”. “I appreciate you.”, “Hi!” etc.  And since
  it’s easier you are more likely to do it. 

  But what’s hard to
  do in the online world is send different kinds of messages. You can’t
  say “I hate your guts!” or “I really don’t want to know you”  or “I
  wish you were dead!”.  Well you can do that last by sending someone a
  poisoned apple but generally it’s more difficult to send more
  interesting or unique messages through the existing facebook gifting
  applications. And very difficult to send a more diabolical message.

  Set that aside for a moment.

  In
  the gifting applications you try to mimic the real world. Facebook
  tries to make the application’s objects as similar to real life objects
  as possible. They try to make it as similar in style and feel as buying
  someone a real life gift. Even the gift scarcity is a mechanism to make
  it feel more like the gifts are something real and tangible that you
  are giving away. So in a sense people are bringing their real lives
  into facebook and putting it online for everybody to see. But there’s
  another thing you can do in virtual worlds. Rather than mimicking the
  real world you can go beyond it. You can do things online that you
  can’t do in real life or that are too dangerous or disruptive to do. 
  Anyone who has ever played a video game where they can go around
  beating up on the cops or shoot down aliens using super powered laser
  rifles knows this. You can role play online.  You can be more or less
  than you are in the real world or just different than you are in the
  real world. You can break the rules. You can be… dare I say it…
  EVIL?

  One of my friends gave me this idea during that
  conversation so all credit goes to him, I just developed it some more.
  He mentioned in passing that you should totally be able to Re-Gift in
  facebook. And I agreed. That’s be cool. It’d be a little evil though.
  And from that seed was this idea born.

  There should be an EVIL GIFTING application on facebook.

  Here’s how it would work.

  The basic mechanics would be the same as a normal gifting application.

  It
  would be like free gifts in that the gifts are free. That’s just my
  personal preference really since I don’t believe in paying for this
  stuff. The application would work just the same if you made people pay
  $1.00 for each gift.  But the latter is a lot harder to implement, plus
  it would impede early adoption of the application I think. So better at
  first at least to make the gifts free. Another alternative would be to
  give each user an allowance of sorts of virtual money every day or
  every week that they can use to buy gifts or save up in order to buy
  more expensive gifts.

  Each gift would be a tiny image like
  usual. And like facebook gifts each gift has a limited supply and can
  ‘run out’.  You buy a gift. You give it to one of your friends. You can
  add a caption if you want. All like normal. Except no private gifts. 
  Well at least not at first. Private gifts add problems to this system
  that I’d rather not deal with at first.

  It’s very important that
  the gifts themselves be well drawn and interesting just like a normal
  gifting application. In fact this application should be able to
  potentially replace your existing gifting applications if you want it
  to. It should be functionally as effective as any other gifting
  application for the simple purpose of giving pleasant messages like
  “Hi”.

  New gifts come out periodically. You have gifts that have
  some correspondence to the events of the day, such as holiday gifts
  that are released around the holidays or gifts pertaining to current
  events in the news and so on. And you can have sponsored gifts too that
  are advertisements for particular companies if they so choose.

  So
  basically all that’s normal. Here’s where it starts getting fun. Rather
  than just being a gifting application it will also be a kind of game. A
  game in which gift ownership is not static, and gifter behavior is not
  always benevolent. You can be nice as normal sure.  But you can also
  be… EVIL!

  RARITY -   Each gift will have a rarity value. Right
  now I’m thinking 5 levels but maybe more or less would be appropriate.
  The levels would be:  common, uncommon, rare, legendary, and unique. 
  Rarity obviously determines how many of the gift are out there for you
  to get and give but also tells you how much of an impact it will have
  on your score. The more rare a gift the cooler it will be too. What do
  I mean by cool? Read on.

  STATS -  Every player who plays this
  game has certain stats that they can display on their profile. These
  are kinda like their score. Again just brainstorming now, but I’m
  thinking the stats would be these:  Stealth, Reputation, Benevolence,
  and Notoriety
  You can choose to try and get high numbers in any or
  all of these stats though some like Benevolence and Notoriety are hard
  to increase at the same time. There will a kind of ranking page where
  you can see how you stand in these stats compared to your friends, your
  networks, and all of facebook.

  ACTIONS -  The following are all
  of the actions you can do in this game/application.  At least all that
  I have come up with right now.

  Buy and Give -  You can buy and
  give a gift as normal.  Increases your benevolence rating and
  reputation depending on gift rarity.

  Buy and Horde – You can buy a gift for yourself. Does not increase any stat.

  Regift
  - You can take a gift in your possession and give it to someone else.
  If that gift was given to you by someone other than yourself then your
  notoriety increases. Your benevolence increases in either case but less
  than if you give a new gift to someone.

  Personalize -  As a part
  of the gift buying process you can personalize certain gifts. That is,
  you can put a special message on the gift, like for example having
  someone’s name appear within the gif image of a bracelet gift. This way
  it will be all the more deliciously evil when someone re-gifts such
  personal gifts =D.

  Steal – You can attempt to steal a gift in
  someone’s possession. Your stealth rating determines your percentage
  chance of succeeding and/or getting caught.  There are four outcomes:
  1. You fail to steal and are not seen.  No effect on your attributes
  2. You fail to steal and are seen. Your benevolence deceases. Your notoriety increases slightly.
  3. You succeed and are seen.  Your benevolence decreases. Your notoriety increases greatly. Your reputation increases.
  4. You succeed and are not seen. Your notoriety increases greatly.

  Counterfeit
  -  You can attempt to create a cheap ripoff of any gift and hoist it
  off on your unsuspecting friends.  Again like stealing. You have a
  percentage chance to succeed. And each person who receives a
  counterfeit gift has a chance to detect that it is a fake. Most
  counterfeit gifts also deteriorate over time. Meaning the longer they
  are in circulation the more likely they are to be noticed as fakes and
  eventually they break down and become destroyed.

  Lock Up -  You
  can lock up your gift within special gift items called lock boxes.
  These reduce the likelihood of anyone getting at your gift to do
  nefarious things to it. Also this can send a sort of signal to your
  friends who gave you the gift about how important the gift is to you. 
  You have several levels of locks to choose from.  Basic Lock, Strong
  Lock, and Impenetrable Lock. Rarity is uncommon, rare, and legendary. 
  (It might be a good idea to let every player start off with at least
  one of each lock and be able to acquire more, that way when players do
  get an important sentimental gift they don’t feel as if it is
  hopelessly doomed to be stolen from them)

  Destroy! -  This is my
  favorite. You can smash somebody’s gift and send its tattered remains
  back to that person!   Each gift would have one or more associated
  destruction image that it becomes when you destroy it. So like a gift
  that is an image of a book would when destroyed turn into a pile of
  ashes. Again you only have a percentage chance to succeed in destroying
  gifts though certain gifts could make it easier to destroy other
  gifts.  You can also break into someone’s gift store and rather than
  steal,  destroy THEIR gifts.

  GIFT HISTORY – Every gift has a
  history associated with it of where it has been and who has owned it
  and what has happened to it. So you can amuse yourself by looking
  through your gifts and seeing how many times they ‘ve been regifted,
  counterfeited, attempted to be destroyed, or stolen.

  ATTRIBUTES
  -  Many gifts have certain attributes that effect how they interact in
  the gift world. For example lock boxes can be associated with a single
  gift and decrease the probability of someone being able to steal it.
  Some gifts would have other attributes like INDESTRUCTIBLE or CANNOT BE
  COUNTERFEITED.  Other gifts give you bonus points to your stats. And
  still others can be used to help you with your actions.  Here are some
  random brainstorming about certain kinds of gifts:

  Steath/Ninja Suit -  Uncommon – increases your stealth
  Lock Picks – Rare -  can unlock any non impenetrable lock without being seen and without damaging the lock
  Hammer
  - Common – can break basic locks but you will always be seen when you
  do this. The lock is destroyed and cannot be reused.
  Flint and Steal – Uncommon – you can use this to burn gifts
  Knife – Common – increases your chance to destroy gifts, especially live gifts
  Crown – Rare – increases your reputation
  Appriaser’s Lense – Rare – guaranteed chance to spot any counterfeit gifts in your possession
  Counterfeit Tools – Uncommon – increases your chance of counterfeiting a gift

  And so on and so forth…

  LEGENDARY and UNIQUE GIFTS - 
  The
  legendary and unique gifts are sort of like facebook-wide gifting
  events that all players can follow. These gifts have a lot of
  attributes and do a lot of stuff and are very desirable as a result.
  You usually get these through unusual ways. Here are some examples I
  came up with.

  OLYMPIC TORCH -  Legendary -
  Olympic torches
  spawn periodically. (Every four years? Every four months maybe?).  The
  goal of this gift is to touch as many facebook users as possible in as
  short a time as possible. They appear in the store for free and anyone
  can pick it up.  Once you pick it up though you should regift it as
  soon as possible. The sooner you regift it the more your reputation
  increases. If you hold onto it for longer than your notoriety starts to
  increase.  If a torch is held for four hours by the same person than it
  returns to the store to be picked up again and that user loses their
  opportunity for the massive reputation boost they would have had and
  gets a big notoriety increase.  Note if you give the gift to someone
  who has already held the torch you get less reputation points. 
  Facebook wide messages are sent out periodically telling you the status
  of the olympic torch.

  If you destroy the olmypic torch breaking
  the chain than your notoriety will skyrocket to maximum value and a
  notification will go out to all of facebook so that everybody knows you
  did it. Then you have to face the vengeance of the facebook community.
  The olympic torch would be pretty hard to destroy though.

  THE ONE RING – Unique -
  Radically
  increases your stealth rating.  The longer you hold the one ring the
  more more your notoriety increases and the more your benevolence
  decreases. The one ring is indestructible. The one ring cannot be
  regifted.  The one ring is extremely difficult to counterfeit.

  The
  one ring spawns in a random users possession. The higher your notoriety
  the more likely you are to get the one ring. A message will appear in
  your news feed that says something like “The One Ring has fallen to
  you.” When a user in your circle of friends receives the one ring all
  of your friends get a notification in their news feed saying that they
  feel the presence of  the one ring. You aren’t told exactly which of
  your friends has the one ring. You just know it is nearby.

  If
  your benevolence increases too high or you fail to do things that
  increase your notoriety the one ring will abandon you and jump to
  another user. In addition if long periods of time go by without the one
  ring changing hands it will nevertheless jump to a different user.

  If
  you successfully steal the one ring you get a nice boost to your
  reputation and notoriety. Of course stealing the one ring is very
  difficult to do. Both because users have a strong incentive to lock up
  the one ring and because it makes the user invisible. Of course the one
  ring does not like to be locked up so the stronger the lock in which
  you store it the more likely it is to jump to a different master.

  EXCALIBUR – Unique -
  Indestructible. Difficult to Counterfeit.

  Excalibur
  is the only item that can cut through an impenetrable lock, destroying
  it. It can also destroy any gift that is not unique. Holding excalibur
  radically increases your reputation.  You can only hold excalibur if
  you have a sufficiently high benevolence score and sufficiently low
  notoriety score. If your notoriety increases too much or your
  benevolence decreases too much  a message will appear in your profile
  saying something like “You have been found unworthy. The Lady of the
  Lake has taken back Excalibur from you. “

  Similarly you get
  Excalibur when it is randomly bestowed upon a user with high enough
  benevolence rating. As you might expect a message appears saying “The
  Lady of The Lake has bestowed upon you the great sword Excalibur. Guard
  it well.”

  If Excalibur is stolen from you. Your reputation will suffer greatly.

  ***********

  You
  get the idea. The thing that would make this application the most fun
  would be coming up with new and unique ways to have the items interact
  with each other and with the community. So that the game becomes sort
  of an exploration of the gift world. The key is that there has to be a
  LOT of weird stuff that happens. Unexpected stuff. So that it’s like
  finding easter eggs in the application every day. And you can also send
  unique messages through this application. Messages you can’t send using
  a normal gifting app. More evil messages to be sure, but also just more
  interesting messages.

  Here are just some random examples of weird stuff that could happen.

  Let’s
  say yesterday a set of PET gifts are released.  So you have stylized
  images of cats and dogs that people can give to one another.

  Scenario
  1.  Matt gives Mindy a pet dog gift. He personalizes it so that the
  dog’s name Fido appears on the collar of the image. Mindy absolutely
  loves the gift. So she locks it in a Strong Lock Box and displays it
  prominently on her profile.

  Then every day for the next few
  days, on Mindy’s profile she gets a message that says “Fido whines
  pathetically.” She doesn’t know what is wrong so she gives Fido a dog
  treat gift she received earlier from a friend. The message appears
  “Fido cheerfully eats the treat and licks Mindy appreciatively.” Mindy
  thinks the problem is solved. But the next day the whining and barking
  continues.

  Little does Mindy know at the same time all of her
  friends who have the application are getting a message on their news
  feed too. It says something like “You hear the whining of a poor
  trapped animal? Will you save it?”

  Eventually Mindy’s friend
  John can’t take it any more. He uses his Ninja suit and uses his thief
  picks to steal Fido from Mindy secretly. John gets a boost to his
  reputation and benevolence and with no increase to his notoriety. A
  message appears on his profile. “Fido wags his tail and barks
  appreciatively! You rescued him!”

  John quickly regifts Fido to
  another friend who he knows doesn’t know Mindy in order to ensure that
  she doesn’t find out about his theft.

  Scenario 2.  Beth
  gives Linda a stylized cat gift that she thinks is cute. She names it
  Tom. Linda can’t believe that Beth would do such a thing! She’s
  allergic to cats and absolutely *hates* cats. So she takes her knife
  and chooses to destroy the cat gift. The message appears “Linda cuts
  open Tom with her knife, spilling its entrails upon the ground.” The
  image changes to cat lying dead on the ground with a knife sticking out
  of it.  Still not satisfied. Linda decides to use her flint and steal
  on Tom too. The message appears: “Linda cooks up Tom’s remains over a
  fire creating a delicious cat treat.”  The image changes to something
  like an image of something resembling cooked meat.

  Beth receives
  a notification that she has received a new gift. She checks her profile
  and is horrified to find a image of cooked meat with a collar showing
  the name of Tom.The  unique caption Linda sent reads “I hate cats. But
  they sure taste delicious!”

  It’s possible Linda has other issues with Beth than just her dislike of cats. =)

  Scenario
  3.  Jenny gives Michael a gift of a little pet dog image that she
  thinks really suits him. She even names it Michael. Michael just thinks
  Jenny is annoying and really doesn’t like the dog very much at all and
  absolutely hates that it was named after him. His friends make fun of
  him as a result. And he wants to get rid ofthe pet. So first he
  secretly tries to regift the dog Michael to one of his other friends.

  He’s shocked when the next day he gets a message. “Michael was lonely and returned to his true master.”  WTF!

  Michael
  tries a couple more times but the dog Michael keeps coming back.
  Michael has some sort of affinity for Michael. Michael, the person,
  starts to get frustrated. Finally he decides the only option is to take
  Michael out.

  Only Michael doesn’t have a knife or any gift
  that is useful for killing a pet Dog.   He first tries the only gift he
  has. A bouquet of flowers!

  “Michael hits his pet Michael over the head with a bouquet of flowers!   Michael barks playfully and licks Michael cheerfully.”

  Oops.
  That didn’t work!  OK. No other option. Michael chooses to destroy his
  gift Michael with his bare hands and dispose of it quietly.  Only he
  fails!

  “Michael lunges at his pet and tries to strangle it!  Michael dodges and runs away in terror back to Jenny’s arms.”

  Uhoh! Now not only does Jenny know that Michael didn’t like her gift but also she knows that Michael tried to kill it!

  Hehe. 
  See? It can be all kinds of crazy stuff like this. It would be so much
  fun just trying different things and seeing what happens. And just as
  much fun inventing different crazy scenarios to throw wrenches into
  people’s expectations of how a gifting application should work. Anyway,
  I’m sure you can all think of clever new gift ideas that would make
  this application a lot of fun. The key would be putting in so much that
  people are kept perpetually entertained to the point that they look
  forward to each new set of gift releases.

  I really think
  something like this could end up being a really popular facebook
  application. And it would be big fun both to make and use. Do you
  agree? Would you use an application like this?

  A better and more catchy name might be a better choice. Any ideas? 
   
  Anyway, that’s that.

  Your general opinions are much appreciated. Feel free to pass this idea along.

  • 4:26 pm
  • 2 Comments