Week 9 Session: Comparative Market Teardown
Pick two of the course's three case-study markets and find one design choice in each that the other explicitly avoided.
26 April 2027
Before the session#
Read Week 9’s lecture and its comparison table. Pick, in advance, which two of EVE Online, World of Warcraft, and Old School RuneScape you’ll dig into — you won’t have time to research a third during the session.
In the session#
Working in pairs, dig one level deeper than the lecture’s table: find a specific mechanic (not just “EVE is more transparent”) and articulate why the other game’s designers plausibly rejected it.
- 10 minutes: pick a pair, confirm your two games
- 30 minutes: research and draft the comparison
- 15 minutes: present to the room
Afterwards#
This session’s research skill — finding a specific, real mechanic and arguing why it exists — is exactly what the Scandal Case Study Essay (due this week) asks you to do for a documented market incident.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- names one specific, correctly-described design choice in each of two case-study games (matching mechanism, sink strategy, or manipulation safeguard)
- explains a plausible reason the other game avoided that same choice
Teaching team
- Marcus Whitfield-Reyes — teaching associate, studio lead