infinity blade 2: hacking the social graph

Infinity Blade 2 ClashMob: Hacking the Social Graph

Joe Graf

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About Me

• Worked at Epic Games over 9 years

• Primarily focused on online features for our games and engine

• Sr. Online Architect at Epic

About Infinity Blade 2

• Franchise introduced in December 2010• Franchise has grossed > $30 million

• Infinity Blade 2– 15 Perfect Scores– More than 20 Game of the Year Awards

• “Simply put, you need this game” --G4TV.com• “An iOS Masterpiece” --Touch Arcade

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About Infinity Blade 2

• Franchise introduced in December 2010• Franchise has grossed > $30 million

• Infinity Blade 2– 15 Perfect Scores– More than 20 Game of the Year Awards

• “Simply put, you need this game” --G4TV.com• “An iOS Masterpiece” --Touch Arcade

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About ClashMob

• Large scale challenge requiring thousands to complete

• Everyone that participates receives the reward

• Bonuses given for social elements– Friends that play– “Like”-ing a ClashMob post on the Infinity Blade page– Retweeting a ClashMob tweet

• In Infinity Blade 2, comprised of mini-games

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Goals for ClashMob

• Increase our player retention– Give them a reason to come back again and again

• Increase reach, awareness, and virality

• Use social interactions to participate– Retweeting a ClashMob tweet– “Like”-ing the ClashMob post on the brand page– Recording your participation as a comment

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ClashMob

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ClashMob Social Rewards

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ClashMob Social Rewards

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ClashMob Social Participation

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Facebook Edge Rank

• Determines whether a post appears in a user’s feed– Only 16% brand page posts are actually seen

• Based upon 3 criteria– Affinity score: how interactive the fan has been with

past content– Weight: based upon the type of interaction

• share > comment > like

– Time decay: how long ago the post occurred

• ClashMob interactions increase edge rank and therefor increase reach

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Facebook Engagement Index (FEI)

• Uses the “talking about” counts as a percentage of total “likes” for the page

• Measures how “engaged” your customers are with your brand on Facebook

• Engagement increases the number of impressions

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ClashMob Affect on FEI

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FEI Comparison

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7 Day FEI on June 7, 2012

Brand Page Reach – Pre ClashMob Launch

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Ad campaign

ClashMob launches

Brand Page Reach – Post ClashMob Launch

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ClashMob Impressions for Non-App Users

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ClashMob Affect on Twitter

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Klout’s Analysis of High Klout Scores

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Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade 2 DAU

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ClashMob Communication Paths

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Google App Engine

Google App Engine

HTTPS


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Google App Engine

Google App Engine

ClashMob Facebook “Like” Support

• To “like” a ClashMob post, the client issues a web request with the post’s ID– The ID is given to the client by our backend server– We use HTTP GET with method=post override

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https://graph.facebook.com/163584600328189_462261520460494/likes?method=post&access_token=<user’s access token>

ClashMob Facebook “Comment” Support

• Commenting is similar to creating a post, but to a specific post ID

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https://graph.facebook.com/163584600328189_462261520460494/comments?method=post&access_token=<user’s access token>&message=<URL encoded message>

ClashMob Twitter Retweet Support

• The Twitter API is RESTful so the game retweets a ClashMob tweet by POSTing to an URL with an ID

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https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/retweet/225319026107228160.json


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Google App Engine

ClashMob Server Facebook Integration

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ClashMob Facebook Brand Page Post Setup

1. Create a Facebook App that does the posting2. Create a brand page for your product3. Login as an administrator of the brand page4. Grant the app permission to post as you

Example response

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https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=<app id>&scope=publish_stream,offline_access,read_stream,manage_pages&response_type=token

https://www.facebook.com/#access_token=AAABmbm...MUZD&expires_in=0

ClashMob Server Facebook Brand Page Post

1. Query for accounts using our stored access token to get the access token for the page

2. Post to brand page using returned access token

3. Periodically, read likes and comment counts to update global participation state

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1. Query accounts

Example JSON results

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{ "data": [ { "name": "Infinity Blade", "access_token": " redacted ", "category": "App page", "id": "163584600328189", "perms": [ "ADMINISTER", … "BASIC_ADMIN" ] }, { "name": "Infinity Blade II", "access_token": " redacted ", "category": "Application", "id": "300673636660678" } ], }

https://graph.facebook.com/me/accounts?access_token=<stored token>


2. Post to brand page


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https://graph.facebook.com/<page id>/feed?method=post&access_token=<page token>&message=<message text>

{ "id": "163584600328189_462261520460494" }


3. Monitor post activity


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{ "id": "163584600328189_462261520460494", "message": "ClashMob: Destroy 27K Plated Sorok to win 10,000 Gold! Like this post to kill an extra Sorok!", "type": "status", "created_time": "2012-07-17T20:00:15+0000", "likes": { "data": [ { "name": "Joe Graf", "id": "635667972" }, { "name": "Chris Mielke", "id": "100000378321704" } ], "count": 5344 }, "comments": { "count": 3600 }}

https://graph.facebook.com/163584600328189_462261520460494

ClashMob Server Twitter Integration

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ClashMob Server Twitter Integration Setup

1. Sign into the account that will send Tweets

2. Create an application to send Tweets

3. Set the app permissions to read and write

4. Create an access token for the app

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ClashMob Server Twitter Integration Setup

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1. Tweet ClashMob information as the account owner

2. Periodically, read the Tweet to get retweet counts


1. Post tweet to account feed


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https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json?include_entities=true&status=<OAuth encoded tweet>

{ "id": 203261300, "name": "Infinity Blade", "followers_count": 31248, "created_at": "Fri Oct 15 22:05:09 +0000 2010", "verified": true, "statuses_count": 1054, "lang": "en", "status": { "created_at": "Wed Jul 18 16:00:50 +0000 2012", "id": 225621159272656900, "text": "ClashMob: Deal as much ...! Retweet to do 2,500 DAMAGE now! #infinityblade", "retweet_count": 953, } }


2. Read a ClashMob tweet for retweet counts


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https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/show.json?id=223172555035508740

{ "created_at": "Wed Jul 11 21:50:58 +0000 2012", "id": 223172555035508740, "text": "ClashMob: Combine gems in the Gem Forge to create powerful, rare gems! …#infinityblade", "source": "<a href="http://infinitybladegame.com/" rel="nofollow">Infinity Blade II</a>", "user": { "id": 203261300, "id_str": "203261300", "name": "Infinity Blade", "screen_name": "InfinityBlade", "followers_count": 31248, "listed_count": 463, "created_at": "Fri Oct 15 22:05:09 +0000 2010", "verified": true, "lang": "en", }, "retweet_count": 984 }

Summary

• We’ve seen that ClashMob has increased our player retention

• We’ve seen that ClashMob has extended our reach yielding impressions outside of our core community

• We’ve talked about how to integrate social networks into the game client

• We’ve talked about how we integrate the game server with social networks

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Special thanks to:Donald & Geremy MustardChAIR EntertainmentWes HuntJosh MarkiewiczEric NewmanIan ThomasSam Zamani

Joe GrafEpic Games, Inc.

Twitter: @EpicCogPatent pending:

61/618,053 & 61/618,024

Questions?

infinity blade 2: hacking the social graph

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