Rafting: A Business Model for Player Behavior

About the Rafting Model

The Rafting Model gives developers a simple, memorable, and scalable way to approach player behavior work. The model is built around the well-established business practices of white water rafting companies.

The Rafting Model answers the following questions: 

1. What is a developer’s role in player behavior?
2. What player behavior work should be done (and when should you do it)?
3. How do you plan player behavior work?

While the Rafting Model was originally created for online multiplayer games, its concepts apply to a wide range of social experiences. 

How gaming is (and isn’t) like rafting

Rafting is an outdoor adventure sport that’s provided as a service by companies. Rafting participants must work together to navigate a series of shared challenges (the rapids), which requires a lot of trust (in the company, equipment, and participants), teamwork, and communication. The sport is fun, friendly, welcoming, accessible to a wide range of ages and abilities, and is as safe as possible. We emphasize “safe as possible” because people are going through rapids with inflatable boats — there’s obviously some risk involved! But that risk also provides the rewards. 

Rafting and gaming have a lot in common:

Attribute	Rafting	Games
Service	Outdoor adventure sport	Some are considered sports
Service Provided by companies	On location	Online
Shared challenges	Rapids	Core activities
Fun
Range of people Differing ages, abilities, etc.
High risk, high reward	Especially at high-difficulty levels	Especially in high-mastery games

But they also differ in some important ways:

Attribute	Rafting	Games
Accessibility	Proactive work	Often an afterthought
Friendliness	Proactive work	Generally assumed
Inclusion Welcoming to all	Proactive work	Not usually considered
Safety	Proactive work	Often an afterthought
Teamwork	Proactive work	Generally assumed
Trust-building	Proactive work	Not often considered

Rafting companies take a proactive, end-to-end approach to many customer needs, while game companies tend to think about those needs in limited ways at later stages of development. We refer to these approaches as whole-river and downstream. Let’s take a closer look at both, starting with downstream:

In the Rafting Model, downstream means:

• You’ve already launched your game.
• You’re seeing disruptive behavior (players have gone overboard).
• You’re just starting to think about safety seriously for the first time.

Downstream is a bad place for developers to start for several reasons:

• You can only react to problems.
• You have few options beyond penalties (because changing your game is expensive).
• You’ve likely lost players (and trust) already.

By taking a whole-river approach, however, developers can:

• Proactively reduce disruptive behavior.
• Avoid risk and unnecessary downstream costs.
• Optimize the customer experience at every stage.

Undoubtedly, a whole-river approach is better for business than waiting for players to go overboard! 

What is a developer’s role in player behavior?

As player behavior has become more of an industry concern, many game developers have asked: What is our role? The Rafting Model has an answer: rafting guides.

The responsibilities of “rafting guides” in games include:

• Ensuring customers successfully navigate a series of challenges together.
• Helping everyone participate and have the best time possible.
• Providing safety and instruction.
• Fostering positivity, confidence, trust, friendliness, and teamwork at every stage.
• Encouraging everyone to do their best and enjoy themselves. 
• Intervening (and remove people) when necessary.
• Helping customers thrive so the business thrives (see Pro Tips to Make Social Simpler). 

Thriving in the Rafting Model is defined as: when people feel good about themselves, their interactions with others, and getting good at something. These outcomes align directly with those of digital thriving.

Ultimately, developers should craft the end-to-end experience as a rafting guide would, with proactive attention to trust, teamwork, accessibility, safety, etc.

What player behavior work should be done (and when should you do it)?

The Rafting Model divides work into three stages, each with their own focus:

• Upstream — Start things right.
• Rapids — Fulfill the promise.
• Downstream — End things well.

Since it can be difficult to remember it all, we’ve created the following graphic with some highlights: 

How do you plan player behavior work?

Creating a plan for player behavior with the Rafting Model is relatively easy:

• Start upstream — First, focus on what is needed to start things right for individuals and groups (upstream stage). Next, determine what could fulfill the promise of the product once people are immersed in the experience (rapids stage). Lastly, determine how to end things well (downstream stage).
• Work the whole river — Consider how all your choices will work together. Look for features, services, or systems that may provide value across all stages.
• Design for thriving —  At each stage, determine how you’ll help players feel good about themselves, their interactions with others, and get good at something.

With just a bit of thought, you can develop a basic plan like this one:

This example plan includes:

• Upstream
  • Color blind mode — Provides visual support.
  • Party system — Help people self-organize in advance. 
  • Reputation — Trust-building system that is valuable across all stages. 
• Rapids
  • Auto-mutes — Real-time interventions that automatically mute text chat for players using zero-tolerance terms. 
  • High-fives — Low social-risk, reciprocal mechanics for celebration. 
• Downstream
  • Replays — Ability to relive great (or not so great) moments.
  • Reports — Tools for giving post-experience feedback.

You can easily extend your plan to include work across a large organization: 

In this “advanced” version of our plan, we’ve added three social tiers (community, group, and individual) plus some new work items:

• Values (Community) — Culture starts at the top with company values. These will have an influence across all other tiers. 
• Content creator support (Community) — Content creators are the billboards of your game. By providing support for them, you bring new energy and players to your “river.”

Final thoughts on the Rafting Model

By using the Rafting Model and playing the role of a rafting guide, you hopefully have more confidence in your ability to create spaces that help players and your business thrive. Have fun on the river!

Now what?

For more tools you can use with the Rafting Model, check out the Chapters Method and the CGI Framework!