Creating desirability in games
How to merchandise rarity and covet-ability in games
Every player is used to rarity: scarce resources that take hours of scavenging to find or legendary cosmetics that cost an arm and a leg. Rarity is so common (see what I did there?) that a lot of games even use the same color scale to refer to rarity: white, green, blue, purple, orange, red in ascending scarcity.
The merchandising and mechanics behind rarity and desire, however, are often pretty ubiquitous: rarity simply means that something is harder to find, typically with a lot of luck involved. If you stumble upon an orange SMG in the wild, you just got lucky. If you receive a rare skin in a loot crate, you just got lucky. While that’s fine, and it keeps people opening (and buying) crates, there are a lot of ways to establish rarity and desirability to incentivize different kinds of player behaviors. This flavor of rarity is a big part of traditional games, but web3—where the value of a game item can be dictated by different attributes—requires diversity in rarity models beyond the simple “there aren’t many of these to find.”
Different rarity mechanics also open opportunities for new kinds of gameplay or meta-gameplay; things that create paths to engage and reward different segments of players, deepening a game’s overall ecosystem to be attractive to new and complementary user categories. I used many of these mechanics while running the collectible item marketplace for Animoca, a sort of collecting metagame that appealed to a wide range of player groups, each attracted to different aspects of rarity. Having “something for everyone” was crucial for the success of the game’s ecosystem, giving casual to hardcore players lots to do, creating a dynamic marketplace and trading function, and rewarding replayability as gamers chased the next big thing.
Not all of these mechanics will work for all games, but it’s good for developers to consider several as they aim to enable aspirational ownership in their titles and incentivize certain behaviors. Let’s dive in.
Creating and using rarity
Luck: Let’s start with the OG. Obviously rarity means scarcity, but by scarcity I’m referring to the aforementioned “luck” idea, the reality that the likelihood of finding or unlocking something is based on predetermined odds. This can unfold through the likelihood of finding something out in the world or unlocking something in things like loot crates.
Developer benefit: Rarity in loot crates keeps people opening, and likely buying, loot crates. Scarcity in an open world also keeps players searching, leading them to new places and deepening the gameplay experience.
Limited-time claims: Time limited events are super popular in games. These can be daily tasks (like one Worlde every 24 hours) or seasonal or even one-off events (a one-time Arianna Grande concert in Fortnite). Item claims or purchases during limited time events create rarity in an interesting way: while there may be unlimited items claimable during the event, that item will never be “printed” or offered again thereafter. It’s an option to create rarity in a somewhat more egalitarian way, since everyone is offered the opportunity to get an item, but if you snooze you lose. These items also add a layer of community amongst players, like a t-shirt that you can only get by going to a live event, there’s a sense of “we were in this together.”
Developer benefit: limited-time events bring a crush of users into your game in a short span of time (if it’s a one-off event) or create a daily habit-forming loop that boosts retention by giving players something to do every day (like a daily claim or task).
Misprints: This is kind of a twist on luck, but it’s something that gamers really love. Most players find game glitches hilarious (except when it impacts their own gameplay), so imagine being able to bake a “glitch,” or what currency and stamp collectors call a misprint, into a game. Four “Inverted Jenny” stamps sold for $4.8M in 2014 because the plane depicted on the stamps was printed upside down. Subtle imperfections can be used, anything from a wink-wink typo, to cosmetic abnormalities, to even something that purposefully backfires or misperforms (e.g. a gun that only shoots bubbles).
Benefit: Like easter eggs, players love a reason to pay attention to details and find something that others don’t see. For game developers, this can be used to their advantage, either by having players buy and open more loot crates looking for a misprint, or boosting engagement and play hours through time spent scouring the game, shop, or marketplace for differences.
Degradation: In a similar vein as misprints, degradation is also something that shows, in theory, a “human’s hand” in creation. Some people love things in mint condition, others find a bit of wear and tear attractive. In watch collecting, for example, one collector would place more value on a perfectly preserved watch, while some would eye one with a funky patination or even dial damage that reveals the “soul” of the watch over the decades. Game items can be made the same way: months of usage and scrapes can turn a formerly beautiful skin into something entirely new. This not only proffers rarity (maybe no two items degrade in the same way), but it also suggests status, like I’ve survived this many battles.
Benefit: Degradation actually works for different segments in opposite ways. For those who like things new and shiny, beaten up items will send them back to the primary market to look fresh again, while players who like some wrinkles will spend more time deep in gameplay, or sourcing even nastier items from the aftermarket.
Achievement items: There’s a laundry list of ways to build rarity and status into achievements. Milestone unlocks can be awarded to those who hit different progression levels, while skill-based achievements are unlocked for outstanding performance.
Benefit: Obviously, at their core achievement unlocks get players doing, buying, and leveling up more. Developers can design these with different possibilities in mind, however: some will want to keep the sanctity of achievements pure, meaning only those who actually achieve something will get something. But others might open these items up to the secondary market, especially if additional benefits outside of status are granted to achievement item holders (e.g. token-gated features). This can make for a beneficial frenzy on the secondary market, and also a thriving community of grinders who will spend time unlocking more and more achievements to sell.
Collect ‘em all: A different flavor on achievements, collect em all reward unlocks benefit a different kind of player and open up new metagames—perhaps it's not the core gameplay that gets a player a set-completionist reward, but actually a connoisseur who will spend time in the primary and secondary market making sure they have one of each to unlock something special. And it doesn’t just need to be items in your game alone—in web3, cross promotion opportunities abound since developers can incentivize cross selling with partner games.
Benefit: In addition to letting developers tap into an entire new set of players who won’t be there for the primary game but love the collecting meta, these structures also create a lot of secondary market activity as collectors search for the missing pieces of the puzzle. Creating new “chases,” i.e. new collecting lists and awards, can keep that going indefinitely.
Print/edition number: Print number isn’t necessarily rarity unto itself, since there can be an infinite number of an item, but item 1/infinity could portray OG status and be more coveted than another. It’s not only low print-edition items that get to be special, however; developers can do something unique for items 1,513-3,453 and such if they want to, like offer access or a special feature to the runners-up in the edition-number game of luck. Print numbers can play a role in collect ‘em all structures as well, for example by giving weight to having at least one item ranked 1-100 and one item 2,000-3,000.
Benefit: On the lower side of print numbers, this obviously benefits early adoption and speediness on new seasons or drops, helping to prompt the idea of the chase and being timely. But establishing something enticing (e.g. some special item unlock) for those higher-count users provides something new to the little guys and brings a huge influx of liquidity and spending power for those formerly less-fortunate users on the secondary market.
Regional or team items: Games can do what esports could not in rallying communities at the regional or team level with geo-fenced and team-based items. Unlock an item for your city, your clan, etc. Developers can also combine team items with achievements, basically creating the digital equivalent of service bars and combat ribbons on a soldier’s uniform (“Hey, remember when we won at the Battle of Tilted Towers?”).
Benefit: This is perhaps a bit more intangible, but developers can always make use of a little tribalism, which helps increase competition and engagement.
Customizable rarity: Combining items to make something new, something special just for you. Obviously anything completely custom creates a 1:1 unique item that’s inherently rare, but if we’re Gen-AIing tons of custom assets, what’s beautiful to me may not be beautiful (and valuable) to you. So one way to structure this is with customization with restrictions: some games allow for crafting of different items, including avatars, to make something new and special, but with a clear indicator of the underlying value. FOr example, if rare materials are required to craft/breed/create a special item, it makes the aggregate value of the crafted item more valuable, too. Rarer inputs lead to rarer outputs. And there are a lot of ways to structure this, but it can be done in such a way that a lot of the above (luck, collect ‘em all, achievements, etc.) basically have a baby with a new tier of collectibility.
Benefit: Sheesh, the list here is long, especially as more forms of rarity get baked into creating customization, but the real benefit is in retention—players who feel like they can represent themselves in a game in unique ways are more likely to stay in that game, evangelize it, etc.
Even with all the ways to create rarity in games, there’s a lot potentially left up to chance. Without inherent utility or additional benefits of an item, rarity and value is in the eye of the beholder, and the community will decide what becomes aspirational to own. That said, developers do have control in the concentric circles of utility and, most crucially, how they merchandize rarity. For example, if something is rarer is it gold? Does it shimmer? Mods suggest that owning the print edition number that corresponds to your birth year is the coolest thing you can do. While there’s a lot that can be designed for, developers also need to be mindful not to force-feed top down value perception and instead aim to seed affinity through the community, rewards, and gameplay.
I’ve left out other ways to create rarity, but this list covers most of the bases, many of which developers don’t think of, particularly when making hardcore shooter games that don’t delve into areas of rarity that some would expect to find in collectible card games. That said, all of these—and particularly a combo of these—are important to consider as gaming embraces new technologies like web3 to empower the next way of monetization for the industry.
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