Facebook Applications and Playful Mood: the Construction of Facebook as a Third Place

Valentina Rao
Factory Girl Games Via del Castellare 16 56040 Pomaia (Pisa) Italy +39 340 6647469

inarao@factorygirl.it ABSTRACT
This papers goal is to consider the status of Facebook Applications and indirectly of casual games in social networks, in relation to the various definitions of game and play employed by digital game theory. The focus on the affective elements of fun and playful mood serves as an argument to draw a comparison between social networks and the socialization areas defined as third places. The elements of play in Facebook Applications, while not always corresponding to the strict definitions of game or play proposed by game theory, take a crucial part in setting the mood of social networks, and participate in the larger (ritual) game of identity construction of the social network place as a virtual third place. something completely different, applications that seem t o carry a share in the responsibility for social interaction i n social networks. Facebook Applications are a prominent example of this phenomenon: used both as individual entertainment and as socialization tools, they are often seen as unsatisfactory game experiences by the users, while their status as games is being reconsidered by developers. Are Facebook Applications and its clones in other social networks like MySpace and Bebo.com some sort of casual games, are they just for the fun, how do they participate of the general cultural trend incorporating play elements in nonplay settings? This paper would like to propose an interpretative framework for a better understanding of Facebook Applications and similar play-like and play-related products and practices i n social networks. The anthropological investigation of play and playfulness focuses on the characteristics of Facebook Applications and on the analysis of the users experience, and is supported b y elements from psychology of play. This research would like to contribute to the discussion o n casual games from a different angle, in the common theoretical frame of a contextual interpretation of game situations, as Mayra puts it, a holistic model of game experience, viewing player experience as something that does not only take place during actual gameplay, but as a more comprehensive phenomenon. [2]

Keywords
Social networks, third places, playful mood, Facebook Applications, casual games

1. INTRODUCTION
Novel cultural practices emerging within the context of an increasingly participatory culture are establishing play as a central cultural value rather than an alternative to or escape from everyday reality. Jenkins positions free play at the core of new economic and media strategies built around participation, and designates play, intended as the capacity to experiment with ones own surroundings as a form of problem solving, as the main skill to be developed by future generations[1]. The diffusion of play in traditionally serious settings such as education and social interaction, the rise of hybrid products that blur the distinction between everyday reality and play space, and the increasing importance of playfulness or playful mood in domains other than game design, challenge the established notions of game and play, forcing game researchers to look for unconventional, larger perspectives. Many social networks participate of this tendency by featuring a growing range of applications, that sometimes are indistinguishable from casual games, and some other times are
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2. FACEBOOK APPLICATIONS AS CASUAL GAMES?

There is still much confusion about the status of Facebook Applications: marketed as games of some kind until recently, at the beginning of 2008 Facebook managers introduced the new category Just for Fun, to accommodate those applications that didnt fit the Gaming category. In fact, the ambiguity both categories present is often being resolved by indexing the same applications in different categories at the same time. Consequently, some of the same popular applications can be found in very different categories, while most applications found in categories different from gaming present (rather weak) play features similar to those officially labeled as games. This seems to confirm a basic problem in the definition of Facebook Applications by kind of usage, problem hidden b y the prevalence of thematic categorizations. When Facebook Applications are complex enough to fulfill the definition of games, they are usually casual games,

that is easy to learn, online, no multitasking, for all (no violence), fast rewards, forgiving the player error, simple controls and simpler gameplay (sometimes just one click) [3]. Table 1. Casual Games Genres and F.A. Over 150.000 Users Action Jetman, Speed Race, Petrol Head, War Book, Oregon Trail, Vampires, Zombies, Fight Club, Jedi vs Sith Growing Gifts, Hatching Eggs, Free Gifts, Booze Mail, My Aquarioum, Cities Ive visited, Moods, Acebucks War Book, Friends for Sale, Hotties, Acebucks, Compare People Vampires, Zombies, Slayers, Pirates vs Ninjas Scrabulous, Quizzes, Movies, Hot or Not, What is your stripper name? What color are you? Texas Holdem Pocker, MindJolt Games

order to access the Application, or by proposing primers for confrontation with others. A class of applications not present in Table 1 can be recognized in all those games and implementations designed to represent physical actions, such as Hug Me, X Me, Superpoke, to name but a few, and several others devoted t o dating. While they hardly be called games, still they can be seen as props for social play, as the users, even without playing them, play with them or through them. Most Facebook Applications feature asynchronous multiplay, a concept introduced by Bogost to designate those situations in which players play a game in sequence, rather than simultaneously, and breaks in the game are a way t o accommodate real life necessities and game expectations. In fact we can talk of representation of asynchronous multiplay rather than actual interaction between different players: when one user engages in play, the opponent i s notified of having being challenged by the first user and of the outcome of the challenge, but in reality the outcome of the challenge isnt affected by either of the players, and the challenged is allowed to respond to the challenge only b y initiating a new game, not in the same contest. In this sense the presence of other Friends to play with in the single application seems more a symbolic representation of the Other in the application experience, analogue to the Greek chorus in ancient Greek theatre or Friends icons in blogs and Chats, rather than an encouragement to engage in social play, with the aim of giving a feeling of community and participation without actual co-presence or interaction. Possibly the effect of such mutual involvement can be seen beyond the single application, as boasting with others or comparing points and scores is a common motive to engage i n the use of Facebook Applications [note]; still an actual asynchronous play isnt really taking place most of the time, although its representation seems to play a major role in the structure of most applications. Do Facebook users who use Facebook Applications see themselves as players? Facebook users seem to share the same denial of casual games players, who dont see themselves as gamers [3]. In Facebooks case the players opinion is reinforced by the scarcity of game features in the applications, such as rules, visual texture, gameplay engagement developing in time, and complex interaction [6], and by the fact that the lusory goal i s most of the time preposterous. Bogost pointed out the ambiguous meaning of casual, that can denote indifference, spontaneous, unpredictable acts, or fleeting, short-lived, indicating temporary commitment and irregular activity, suggesting that casual games be casual as in casual sex, (fleeting activity not to be repeated with the same person) instead of as in casual Friday, repetitive activity in which short individual sessions contribute to long-term mastery and repetition. [8] While the use of Facebook Applications can be labeled as casual (indifferent, short-lived), their functioning in the larger context of Facebook is in fact closer to the Casual Friday metaphor. Even when the application is played only once, the results of the game, unless otherwise determined b y the user, are permanently or semi-permanently shown in the

Simulation

Strategy RPG Puzzles/Qui zzes Parlour games, gambling

At a closer look, most Facebook Applications are even more stylized and simplified than most casual games, requiring an average of one or two-clicks actions and supplying a random outcome mostly independent from skills, usually in a very short span of time (seconds). Frequently, the actual gameplay is substituted by a text offering a narration of the events and their outcome, as some sort of prize in exchange of the minimal (one click) engagement required. [4]

Figure 1. Textual reward after two-clicks interaction in RPG/action game Vampires The narrative quality underlying several Facebook Applications questions their essence as games: Frasca defines games as simulations, which allow the player to perform actions that will modify the behavior of the system [5], as opposed to representations, that can be interpreted in different ways but cant be affected by the viewers actions. Not all Facebook Applications present a representative structure in place of gameplay, but the occurrence is frequent enough to suggest their role is not to be fulfilled completely in the single player experience. Facebook Applications feature several elements of social play, making the participation of the users Friends compulsory in

users profile, as boxes or as micro-stories in the mini-feeds (minimal chronicles of every action related to the user or her Friends in Facebook), hence contributing through their persistence to the users identity, as expressed by the profile. Finally, much of the enjoyment seems to happen contextually, that is, is not confined within the boundaries of the gameplay but rather to be found in the broader scheme represented b y Facebook, making the whole Facebook experience comparable to what Kuittinen, Kultima, et al. define as an Enlarged Game Experience, including all relevant experiential factors existing outside of the play sessions. [3] It is difficult to consider Facebook as an Enlarged Game Experience, when its game elements, Facebook Applications, can only rarely suit the definition of games. Nor can Facebook as a whole can easily be defined as a game: a recent study on social play in Flickr [18] compares Flickr to a playground, where the main purposes are to join a group, t o pretend, and to master certain abilities, although there are no explicit play instructions. Social interaction in Facebook is much more complex than that in Flickr, as the latter officially concentrates on one act (posting photographs), featuring other social activities as collateral. A possible way to accommodate Facebook Applications with regards to the established notions of game and play can be found in the exploration of the dimension of the merely playful, as a state preliminary to play and game, and in the analysis a specific kind of space designated to host playfulness, the third place.

obvious marketing tools to make the whole experience more appealing? A first hypothesis originates from the basic difference between real third places and virtual ones: while in third places the mood is established as playful by frivolity, verbal wordplay, and wit, and by the feeling of human warmth deriving from being apart together [9], in Facebook the generation and maintenance of a playful mood seems to be partially delegated to virtual aids. A second hypothesis postulates Facebook Applications playing a key role in the creation of the places identity, b y establishing the mood but also by stimulating some kind of actions rather than others, and thus contributing to the ritual construction of the online place.

3.2 Playful Mood and Facebook Applications

Playfulness is different from fun or flow, in the sense that it doesnt imply absorption, skills, challenges, or even attention; also, playfulness is a mood, presenting a much longer duration than emotions, such as, for instance, fun. Playfulness can be seen as a disposition, an introduction to play: Playfulness is a more important consideration than play. The former is an attitude of the mind; the latter is a passing outward manifestation of this attitude (Dewey, i n [11]). Meire identifies this attitude as a preliminary to play, that prepares the conditions for the arising of play opportunities and play actions, and distinguishes between playful state of mind and actual play activity [12]. Playfulness doesnt draw a straight line between serious and play activity, and can subsist in serious settings without the subversive potential often attributed to play with regards to reality. Barnett defines playfulness as a mixture of cognitive spontaneity, social spontaneity, physical spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor [13]. Following this definition, playfulness in virtual third places can then be defined through the analysis of its three main qualities: Physicality - Playful mood in real-life third places i s strongly related to the physical dimension: Barnetts physical spontaneity [11] and Bekoffs conception of (animal) play as motor activity [14] seem to correspond t o the human warmth described by Oldenburg as peculiar to great good places, which derives from the (physical) copresence of fellow human beings. Playfulness in online settings on the other hand is affected b y the deficiency in the physical dimension, and needs embedded affordances to reproduce the physical act (say, to buy a beer, t o hug, etc) in a symbolic way. In this sense, Facebook Applications contribute to add physical depth to playful interactions, which would otherwise require physical elements to convey a playful feeling (sound of laughter, back-slapping, buying beer, smiles, in the case of a bar or a caf). Spontaneity - The quality of spontaneity and humor present in third places is also difficult to reproduce in virtual settings; while other interfaces, such as a virtual sandbox or billboard, may allow the user to express herself in an unmediated fashion, Facebooks architecture of participation doesnt offer the opportunity for such a release.

3. THIRD PLACES A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO PLAY AND PLAYFULNESS 3.1 Real and Virtual Third Places
The concept of third places or Great Good Places has been introduced by Ray Oldenburg to describe those socialization areas that allow the expression of the playful spirit proper to human nature [9], in addiction to work and home. Third places can be seen as a contemporary version of the agora, the tavern, the caf, where people can just be together and unwind. MMOs have recently been compared to third places, because of their character of informal sociability and their potential function in terms of social capital [10]. Although several MMOs present most the features of third places, such as accessibility, a neutral ground, social leveling, a low profile, the presence of regulars, the feeling of home, and a playful mood, still massive multiplayer games are built around a lusory goal and games rules and, unlike third places, their main focus is not conversation, although a great deal of conversation can happen and a not-so-vested motive to play can be socialization. Social networks seem to fit the model of third places even more comfortably, as their focus is indeed on conversation and socialization, without game goals and rules as a further motivation. If we consider Facebook the online equivalent of a third place, what is the role of Facebook Applications, other than as

Possibly Facebook Applications can also play the role of a regulated outlet for the individual need for free expression, that otherwise wont have a channel to manifest itself in the specific structure of Facebook. Follett introduces the concept of interactive silliness with regards to Facebook Applications, [15] evoking a gratuitous abundance of rather pointless material to communicate the feeling of exuberance and spontaneity. Inherent sociability playfulness is intrinsically connected to social situations and cannot exist without them. Whether playfulness arises from social situations, or if on the contrary creates a certain kind of social situations and events, playfulness creates the best conditions for the individual t o communicate in a group, allowing people to express personal meanings in social structures (Haste, in [11]). To these characteristics of online playfulness, corresponding to features of playfulness in real life, we should add the representative mode: ultimately, most of the playful actions expressed by Facebook Applications can be seen as representations of actions or performances. The representational quality of most Facebook Applications can be explained in the larger frame of the identity construction, by mutual agreement, of Facebook as a third place, enacted by Facebook users. Finally, playfulness has recently attracted the interest of experience design and usability research [15] as a main design element that usability studies cant ignore anymore. This indicates not only a diffusion of the playful model in online environments, but also the emergence of a normative effort i n building playfulness in experience design. Some of the qualities of playfulness in design are: fast rewards and a lot of positive feedback for user interaction; no negative consequences for experimentation; the ability to build o n someone elses work (open collaborative structures); and what Follett calls frivolous interaction (the already mentioned interactive silliness). It can be interesting to note how some of the qualities of playful design, like certain reward and license to make errors, can be found in casual games design as well [3], indicating some sort of convergence of interests between game industry and non-game designers, in a panorama that doesnt focus on a single product or game anymore but rather on creating wider experiences, inclusive of or based on play.

While ritual play is typified by a strong separation between the fictional world and prosaic reality, social play also presents pretence, but there is no sense of sacred or untouchable boundaries, the pretence is just a as if [12]. The mild pretence characteristic of social play doesnt belong to any ritual sphere, suggesting that there could be some connection between the relative strength or weakness of the lusory goal and the magic circle: in social play the lusory goal is very weak and dependent on sociability, while strong lusory goals seem to be conducive to stronger efforts in will (will to gain, will to believe, or will to perform suspension of disbelief). A characteristic feature of Facebook Applications is the peaceful co-existence of fictional and everyday elements, without any perceived magic circle; the level of fictionality is very low, emerging rather as an extension or fictionalization of everyday personas and activities, featuring constant reference to non-fictional elements, in an ironic dimension. Furthermore, if we consider social play to be, although in a flexible and relaxed way, still related to a specific group of persons, a specific occasion or a specific although vague goal, such as in the Flickr example, we can regard Facebook Applications as the casual version of social play, being t o social play what casual games are to videogames. Still, there seem to be one more layer to add to fully describe the various functions of Facebook Applications, and that layer belongs to the ritual dimension. When a ritual construction is entailed in play relationships, such as among older childrens and adults play [12], the play scene becomes non-reversible and the whole experience gains a feeling of seriousness, as opposed to playfulness.

4.1 Place Identity Construction and Ritual

An article in the Guardian boldly stated: Facebook is a game: the goal is to win friends and influence people, raising the indignation of Facebook users and gamers alike.1 This apparently uninformed comment, while indicating scarce videogame literacy, in its nave perspective can possibly point to a new angle: from a non-digital perspective the mere usage of an online service takes the features of a game. The single Facebook Application is usually an extremely simple game, and more often a representation; recognizing the representational nature of Facebook Applications hints to a different process enacted on Facebook, that is the symbolic, ritual construction of the place by social agreement. Huizinga defined symbolic and ritual actions as the primary kind of play, a kind of play left behind by the industrial culture, which divided time between work and (mostly organized) leisure [19]. In this context representational items referring to playful situations, such as Facebook Applications, take a more important role than just encouraging play or consumption, or as means to make the experience more engaging; they become a structural element behind the virtual place, in this case a third place, in which the interaction is severely affected b y the mood tone or color. Not all the interactive silliness can be charged with ritual meanings, and there can be representative play also featuring
1 Playing Games with Facebook: the Future of Virtual Worlds, The Guardian, November 15, 2007

3. FROM GAMEPLAY TO SOCIAL PLAY

How can a theory of playfulness and playful objects such as Facebook Applications find its place in current game theory? Much game criticism seems to revolve around Callois notions of ludus and paidia as respectively game regulated by rules and free play[17], both involving some kind of mutual, fictional contract, which Huizinga call magic circle. Facebook and other playful applications on the other hand seem to relate to the realm of social play, which status with regards to the ludus/paidia framework is still undefined. We can make a first distinction between social play as ritual, within the boundaries of a magic circle, following the rule of non-reflexivity (if a player thinks about the fact that she i s playing that puts her in an outside position as an observer who observes the division between play and non-play[16]), and social play as detected among animals and small children, free, reversible (can be interrupted at any moment), involving only very mild make-believe [12][14].

actual gameplay, with consistent lusory goals and engrossment rather than just partial engagement. Still, when superfluous interaction is to be found in a social environment, we can guess its final goal is to define and set the basis for the specificity of the social interaction that i s going to take place, distinguishing the virtual third place from a virtual conference room or stoke market. This simulation of an online environment can be interpreted as ritual play, that is, regressed, non-conscious, with a serious purpose, performed socially to give validity to social situations or social structures. While there is a distinct lack of ingenuity and non-reflexivity in Facebook Applications, similar to that observed in social playful play, the use of Facebook Applications in the larger frame of the social network can pertain also to the ritual play realm, and the game is lets play we are playing.

7. REFERENCES
[1] Jenkins, H. 2006 Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. McArthur Foundation [2] Mayra F. 2007. The Contextual Game Experience: On the Socio-Cultural Contexts for Meaning in Digital Play. DIGRA 2007 Situated Play Conference Proceedings [3] Kuittinen, J., Kultima, A., Niemel, J. & Paavilainen, J. 2007. Casual Games Discussion. Proceedings of the 2007 conference on Future Play. [4] Rao, V. 2008 Pervasive Fictions: the Narrative Construction of Facebook as a Third Place, upcoming [5] Frasca, G. 2003. Simulation versus Narrative In Wolf, M. Perron, B. The Videogame Theory Reader, Routledge, London, New York [6] Juul, J. 2005. Half-Real. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA [7] Bogost, I. 2004 Asynchronous Multiplay: Futures for Casual Multiplayer Experience. Other Players Conference, Copenhagen [8] Bogost, I. 2007 Casual as in Sex, not Casual as in Friday http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1937/persuasive _games_casual_as_in_.php?print=1 [9] Oldenburg, R. 1999. The Great Good Place. Marlowe & Company, New York [10] Steinkuehler, C., and Williams, D. 2006. Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as "third places." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4), article 1. [11] Parker-Rees, R. 1999. Protecting Playfulness, In Abbott, L., Moylett, H, Early Education Transformed, Routledge, London, New York [12] Meire J. 2007 Qualitative Research on Childrens Play. In Jambor, T., Van Gils, J. Several Perspectives on Children Play: Scientific Reflections for Pratictioners. Garant Uitgevers, Apeldoorn, NL [13] Barnett, Lynn A. 1991 The Playful Child: Measurement of a Disposition to Play. Play and Culture 4.1 (February, 1991), 51-74. [14] Bekoff, M., John Alexander B. (eds.) 1998. Animal Play: Evolutionary, Comparative, and Ecological Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [15] Follett, J. 2007 Engaging User Creativity: The Playful Experience. UXMatters (17 Dec 2007) http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000252.php [16] Walther, B. K. 2003. Playing and Gaming. Reflections and Classifications. Game Studies, Vol. 3, Nr. 1. [17] Callois, R. 1958. Man, Play and Games, The Free Press. Illinois [18] Jones, S. 2008. Playing with Flickr: Casual and Pervasive Play. Breaking the Magic Circle Seminar, Tampere [19] Huizinga, J. 1949. Homo Ludens. Hunt, Barnard and Co., London

5. FUTURE WORKS
Adapting existing research on playful mood in real and virtual settings to measure playfulness and evaluate the users response to playful and non-playful situations in social networks. Fostering a clearer definition of playful with regards to Facebook and other social networks.

6. CONCLUSIONS
Facebook Applications seem to appeal to the sphere of emotions (fun and playful mood) rather than actions (gameplay); most Facebook Applications seem to offer just the dramatic tale of actions instead of the actions themselves; there are little or no patterns to discover, little or no tasks t o achieve, much reward for minimal engagement. The proliferation of playful items similar to Facebook Applications suggest the emergence of a new kind of digital play, sharing several characteristics with casual games, only i n even more casual ways, implying that their function is to be found at a larger scale, in the creation of playful environments (third places), happening at a social level with ritual modalities. These playful products can possibly be examined in the larger frame of the diffusion of play modes in non-digital areas, such as film and television, areas that are increasingly drawn toward digital games culture by emerging transmedial practices, suggesting a forthcoming convergence in different research areas. It is debatable whether different expressions of playfulness related to participatory culture belong to the game studies field, although they can hardly be accommodated in media studies, which still dont seem to find the tools to confront interactivity. New forms of play inspired by online sociability need new theoretical frameworks; one possible direction for research could be to focus on playful mood and playful environments, with the aim of integrating weak or casual forms of play together with the classic notions of game and play. Further analysis of playfulness, intended as a sort of zero degree of play, could help explaining the growing range of hybrid products that feel like games and look like games, but that are not games, strictly speaking.