ABSTRACT
The Superfan Layer is often competitive and collaborative, a social experience. Guilds, leagues and alliances give Superfans purpose in the game. There are a variety of ways to foster competition between groups of players in video games. Greer’s point is that successful Superfan games have groups of players coming together and then offering those players a way to compete with other, similarly committed players, either directly or indirectly. For some games, the Superfan Layer is mainly incentivising players to keep playing the Core Loop time and again. An apocryphal story from World of Tanks can illustrate the unexpected nature of a Superfan Layer. World of Tanks is a popular tank-fighting game with a strong following in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The Retention Layer, the Superfan Layer and everything outside the game is the metagame.
