Finding collaborative game mechanics

Having spent several hours working with an assortment of MMOs it has always been my assumption that it is possible to identify specific game mechanics that enable collaborative gaming. Gamification uses the term game mechanics very loosely about both simple and complex parts of a game, and for now I will adopt this practice until I can establish a better set of terms and definitions. At this point there are three game mechanics that I feel are critical for collaborative gaming to occur.

• 1. User profile
  The user profile is the players base of operations in any kind of game experience today, and for most MMORPGs it includes one or more avatars and their virtual belongings. The players ownership of these avatars and virtual commodities gives them a reason to invest time in the game with the promise of increased value to the user profile. Value being individually different.
• 2. Events
  Collaborative play occurs when there are game mechanics that enable players to ‘play together’. An event here being a game experience where players participate together.
• 3. Rating
  For some winning is important, to others achievements is more important. No matter what motivates a player the game experience needs to be able to give the player some way to measure their successes or failures.

Moving these game mechanics into an open innovation process helps define critical requirements that a gamified application will need include. The player must be able to feel ownership to their participation, preferably through a user profile. There must be events that will let the player participate in a collaborative way, and there must be a way of letting the player see how their participation affects the game as well as how they are rewarded for their participation.