Snag'em: Creating Community Connections through Games

It is difficult for new community members to make the connections that would be most beneficial to them - connections with seasoned members of the community, or members of other groups. To address this problem, we have created Snag'em, a web-based social networking game that helps people create, monitor, and strengthen connections with one another. In contrast to existing social games, Snag'em facilitates offline interaction to create an online social network. This paper discusses the design of Snag'em, the use of game mechanics to engage academic community members in social interaction, and the results of two preliminary studies along with the design implications of each.