Designing for the Auto-Compulsion Loop (ACL)

Instructional Designers can take a lesson from the popularity of social games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. These social games are played primarily through Facebook and allow players to play asynchronously in competition and cooperation with their friends. A recent study conducted by Popcap resulted in some interesting statistics (via Raph Koster's website):

• There are around 100 million social game players
  
• 24% of US and UK Internet users play social games at least once a week
  
• Slightly more women than men
  
• Average age of 43
  
• Only 6% of them are 21 and younger
  
• They’re not all housewives: 41% of them work full time, and only 11% are homemakers.
  
• 2/3 of them also play other sorts of games — casual or hardcore.
  
• And if they, do they spend more time on the social games than on the casual or hardcore games
  
• And they’re stuck: more than half have been playing for a year.
  
• A third play more than once a day
  
• 2/3 of them play over an hour a week — 12% report over 10 hours.
  
• And they report that their social game playtime is increasing
  
• For half of them, it’s the MAIN reason they use Facebook.
  
• And also, half of them say it’s very unlikely they will spend real money

The underlying phenomenon behind these statistics is in the factors that motivate players to repeatedly engage -- this audience isn't the stereotypical hardcore 20 hour a week WoW addict -- the motivating factors seem to be the granular achievements earned while playing combined with the inclusion of the player's real friends.