Fascinating TED talk from TEDxBoston; I especially liked the 4 "game dynamics" he is describing:

1. Appointment dynamic: You have to do something at a given time in a given place. Like taking care of your Farmville plants. Or taking prescription drugs.

2. Influence and status dynamics: People all want to have the black credit card that conveys status; and gamers want to become a level 10 warrior in Modern Warfare.

3. Progression dynamics: Sites like LinkedIn use progress bars to incentivize their membes to complete profiles. And almost every game has levels that you have to go through one after the other, often with increasing difficulty and complexity.

4. Communal discovery: Players have to collaborate to achieve certain tasks.

It seems to me that all these dynamics also apply to communities. At Sandbox, we are thinking a lot about how to build and maintain the perfect community - and these four dynamics can be very helpful. Appointment dynamics can be events, where community members come together at a given time (Fabian calls this "emotional peaks"). Influence and status dynamics are also very often in play - every online forum has different "levels" of contributors, depending on how much you have posted, or how good your contributions were rated. Progression dynamics are, as far as I can tell, less used in communities; but the idea that you actually evolve in a community over time and, step by step, have access to higher levels or features, is appealing. And of course, communal discovery is central in communities: Only by having a shared goal and collaborating to achieve it can the community actually form.

I'm sure that there are more similarities between game dynamics and community management. Any thoughts?