Gaming with Akoha for good deeds (8)
Since Akoha was publicly unveiled at TechCrunch50, you probably know now about Akoha and its team is trying to build: a social game where members are to give good deeds to friends, and where these friends have to play it forward, thanks to a mission card that traces the “good actions” chain.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because you’ve probably watched the Pay if forward movie:
The video clip shown just above could have been an ad for Akoha, if the actors just had a few Akoha cards in hand.
There’s a lot to be said about Akoha; what’s mind-striking first is that it’s not your typical “web2.0″ website. There’s your typical user-generated content and social network concepts (over)used in the akoha website, but one has to realize that the website are there only to support the game, a game which is to be played in “real-life”. Most of the interactions between the members are supposed to happen during their daily and working lives, which is a welcomed refreshing approach, compared to approaches taken by other web ventures.
I realized then the power of Akoha’s concept. I told the story randomly to one of my friend, and she was excited right from the start about playing the game with friends. And that’s supposed to come from someone who doesn’t have an email address or never (rarely) used a computer before, a friend who usually gives me the blank eye when I accidentally mention “web stuff”.
It’s not then too difficult to imagine the game having massive popularity, people buying card decks, and Akoha distributing them all over the 5 continents.
And then the world changes for the best and we’re overloaded with good deeds… Or is it that simple? Seeing Austin Hill’s past blog posts and actions, I’m sure he’d like to think so. I also think this will work for Montreal and other North America metropoles; hell, they could just get a few celebrities to endorse the concept, and this will be fashionable in a matter of weeks. But I also know that this only works if you’ve more than satisfied your own personal basic needs, and two, if the person is progressist (the I-have-faith-in-humanity type). I’m not sure for instance if this work in certain parts of Africa, or if you even sell the concept to say, a more conservative person.
To elaborate on the previous argument, I’ve once had a friend who kept on saying that if you wanted to improve the world, then just work hard, think of yourself, reap the benefits, because then you’ll share the wealth with your family and possibly, the country too. He used to say that this will bring much more improvements overall than random social actions. An interesting point of view — I like to think that we probably need his and Akoha’s approach.
Of course, we’re far from this today. I’d like to see first a richer gameplay, with maybe character creation and progression, other ways of playing and interacting, missions with other players, in short make the Akoha game fun to play everyday, because after the first played the mission, it’s a barren land, where one feels they’ve “finished” the game.
Hey, look who is back?? ;) Great article, Heri!
Felipe, I got one day free, so I might as well do MTW :-) although not sure about the rest of the week.
Welcome back Heri- as temporary as it may be :)
As for Akoha, I think that if the game shows even a little “virulence” and spreads to a few social circles, it will have a net positive effect. It’s probably not going to work on everyone (pessimists and economists, for example ;) ), but the people it does work for will be doing nice things for each other, and that leads to a slightly better world.
I got the feeling from Austin Hill that the game is more about that than it is the money for him- although I’m sure he’d like to see a return on his investment :)
I have my deck of cards in hand and ready to play. I found the website slightly confusing at first. Their instructions for how to play seemed to make something simple overly complicated. However, when first hearing of this idea I loved it. I think it’s a great way to bring back the “social” factor into people’s lives. The fact that it’s based in Montreal is a definite plus.
I’m worried that it won’t spread outside of tech circles. It seems to me that most people will find that a random act of kindness is less sincere if it’s motivated by an online scoreboard.
anthony, I also had a problem the first time because I didn’t know you were supposed to hand over the card when finishing with a mission.
of course, now that i know it, it seems obvious, back then, it really wasn’t.
anonymous, i disagree. i think it can grow outside tech circles. Although i definetely agree with you about their current scoreboard… it needs to be improved, into something more “real” than simplistic karma points
Maybe instead of karma points, they could use the leaderboard to show the users with the most activity and include a sampling of good deeds that have been done because of each user instead of a points system.
Hi! We’re still in the process of tweaking the game mechanics to make it as fun to play as possible. We’re eager to take feedback like you suggested, @basil so that we can make sure that users really feel like this game lives up to as many expectations as possible.
We’ve also set up a FAQ that addresses alot of these issues which can be found here:
http://community.akoha.com/help/faq
Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to me (sean [at] akoha didot com) if you have any questions or more feedback.
Thanks!
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