Building customer relationship through game mechanics in social games

This chapter examines mechanics of game design in social games that are used in building customer relationship. The developments in the game industry towards service orientation, and increased emphasis on social design, have resulted in overlap of game design and business design. This chapter examines the junction of these domains in contemporary social games, by studying how game design is used in pursuing business goals of the related business models. Several virtual worlds and social games are examined with the support of secondary data provided by experts in the field. The identified mechanics are then categorised and analysed in the context of business model literature on customer relationship building. The results provide several game mechanics that are located in the union of game design and business planning. Moreover, the results imply a new approach to game design in general by exemplifying how the traditional way of thinking about game design is no longer sufficient when the design of engaging mechanics needs to meet with business goals.