The Threshold — Part I
Blueprint for the Revolution by Srđa Popović is a truly remarkable book. Srđa Popović is an internationally renowned activist. He cut his teeth in the late 90s during the turbulent times in our native Serbia. He was one of the founding members of Otpor, the movement that was instrumental in toppling Slobodan Milošević, the notorious strongman of Serbia. Srđa is the world’s foremost expert in organizing non-violent political movements. His book is exactly what the title implies: a practical user manual for organizing societal change!
One of the fundamental things that Srđa mentioned early on in his book is the importance of lowering the participation threshold in the activities of the movement. Any political movement that aims for success needs broad popular participation. This is imperative for all movements, regardless of their political orientation. Humanity is, by definition, a very diverse group of individuals. Even if a large chunk of the population shares the concerns and goals of a certain movement, very few people would usually be willing to take part in the moment activities. This is especially true in dire circumstances of oppression under a dictatorship. Not everyone will be willing to risk their freedom, safety, or even life to participate in a revolution. Not everyone is capable of going on protest marches or has the mental stamina to participate in committee meetings.
Still, there is a vast human potential in people whose worldview aligns with a movement but are not willing or able to participate in all the traditional activities of a political organization. In order to make good use of this potential, you need to lower the participation threshold in such activities as much as possible to allow the broadest possible spectrum of people to participate in your movement.
Take bumper stickers, for example. Sticking a sticker with a political slogan requires significantly less time and energy and poses significantly less risk than going to a demonstration in front of a police cordon. Thus, the number of people able to partake in this activity will be several orders of magnitude bigger than those willing to take more direct action.
This notion of the participation threshold is the reason why I mention this book in the context of game design. Ok, we are not organizing revolutions, nor intend to topple any governments. At least, most of us game designers don’t. However, we are doing something very similar. In general, when we design games or game features, we want them to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Be aware of the threshold. Be aware of the effort that engaging with a feature requires from a potential player! Try to lower it as much as possible.
This threshold can come in many shapes and forms. The threshold might come from simple UX design. Perhaps the player needs to cut his way through a series of popups. Maybe the first-time user experience of your game involves a 5-minute-long mandatory download, or you require the player to create an account. Typically, the learning curve of many games might be too steep for the majority of people. Hardcore and niche games are notorious examples of this. League of Legends, Europa Universalis, and EVE Online, I am looking at you.
This is especially important when designing the social features of a game. If your social feature requires any new player to master a hard set of skills before he can contribute to the success of his clan or guild, or conversely, if a player’s success in a social feature is strictly dependent on the skill and dedication of his teammates, the participation threshold will be very high.
Try to lower the threshold as much as possible! Make it as easy as possible for everyone to participate in a meaningful way.
This doesn’t mean that you should dilute the gameplay to the level of triviality. Consider gift-giving activity in early Facebook games. The participation threshold for this particular type of feature could hardly be lower, but the depth of gameplay and interaction in these features was proportionally shallow.
Ideally, you should pair the low threshold level with a great depth of gameplay that follows behind it. Srđa Popović makes the same point in his book about political activism. Some people will start by sticking stickers, others will progress to writing graffiti or wearing t-shirts with the movement’s insignia, perhaps this could be just a color, orange, or saffron, yet others will progress in taking part in protest marches. Finally, you will find the people willing enough to participate in strategizing and organizing the movement itself. What they are doing is creating a curve of activities, each one requiring more will and effort. Every individual can pick and choose his own comfort level of participation and still contribute to the greater goal of the movement. Furthermore, people can freely slide along the curve and get involved deeper once they feel more comfortable or more skilled.
There is a clear parallel between this concept and the idea of the price curve described by Nicholas Lovell in his book about the fundamentals of the free-to-play monetization model. The free distribution of the game lowers the threshold, and the price curve allows each player to choose his own spending level.
The same applies to gameplay design as well. The most successful games exhibit this property. Fundamentally, this is what the old adage “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master” is trying to say.
PokemonGo offers a great example of this curve of participation. The game ostensibly starts very casually. New players can focus on the very basic activity of roaming around and catching different Pokemon. This activity requires a very low skill level but just enough of it to make it compelling. The ability to spin balls before throwing them by twirling your finger on the screen adds just a bit of dexterity challenge one can master if he chooses to. The true depth of the game starts to unfold as a player starts to build up a collection of Pokemon. At first, the stats of creatures do not matter. One is completely free to ignore them and can focus on simply expanding the collection. The game evolves quite literally with the evolutions of Pokemon, which is the only way how many of the characters can be obtained. The set of rules dictating which creatures can be added to the collection expands further and further adding new layers to the metagame, from the influence of day and night cycle to the addition of raider and exclusive rains and so on. Every player is free to choose the participation level best suited for his playstyle, the amount of effort, or the amount of skill the player is able to invest.
Key Takeaways
- The threshold is the iniotial set of difficulties a player or an use needs to overcome in order to take part in some cativity, such as playing the game or usig a feature
- Lower participation threshold to broaden the reach
- Create a participation curve to cater to various types of players with various skill levels, engagement apetite, etc.
