It included this juicy quote:
Quote:
If you're intentionally making dull games with variable ratio extrinsic motivators, you have my pity.
OHHHH! Oh no he DIDNT. He did NOT just say that! *snaps fingers while wiggling hips*
Ok, maybe it's not that juicy without some context...
So the big talk of the conference is Farmville; and by big talk, I mean, the talks I've been paying attention to. I don't know if it's actually the big talk or not. A lot of people play it though. And they gave a couple of talks here, and inspired some other people to talk about their game. People tend to take notice when you have 62 million players.
Now, what Farmville relies heavily upon are extrinsic motivators, which is a lovely phrase we can use to make a simple concept sound very complicated. What is an extrinsic motivator?
If I were to tell you to move a pile of bricks from my lawn into my garage, you would probably rightly say "kind sir, please f*** off, that is dull and hard work". However, if I were to say, "I will pay you 50 bucks to move bricks into my garage" you might reconsider it. The 50 dollars are an extrinsic motivation. It's a reward for a task. This is how you get people to do dull things.
The opposite of extrinsic motivation is intrinsic motivation. This is a fancy way of saying you're going to do something because it's a satisfying activity in of itself. Like, you might make a painting because making a painting is it's own reward. You enjoy it. (In this example)
So to vastly oversimplify: work needs extrinsic motivation, play operates off intrinsic motivation. Except when it doesn't.
Let's say you're a game designer, and you're making a MMORPG. And you realize your game mechanics basically involve clicking on things a lot until they're dead. It gets old kind of quick. What can you do to keep players engaged?
The easiest thing to do is add rewards that drop at random times. So now, one in every 10 monsters drops some cool gear... and you get XP! It feels like you're accomplishing something. So now you're clicking on lots of monsters, not because clicking monsters is fun, but because you want free shit. Who doesn't want free shit?
In this case, the cool gear is the extrinsic motivator, and the fact that it only drops every once in a while means it's working on a variable reward schedule, which makes it way more engaging.
It turns out that this is pretty much like a slot machine: you're just pulling a lever and waiting for something good to happen. It hooks you, because there's the chance that you might hit the jackpot, so you keep pulling. And every once in a while the machine gives you a small reward to keep your hopes up. And it only happens at random intervals so you can't anticipate it: hence the variable part. If it happened at predictable intervals, you'd lose engagement, because then you would know which lever pulls are meaningless.
So in a sense, MMORPG addicts aren't that much different from gambling addicts, it's just a much cheaper addiction. In terms of money anyway.
In any case, most of the design talks I've been to this year (especially the social ones) have included some element of how to do these rewards better. Which I've enjoyed, because this is very useful knowledge, and not inherently bad in of itself. On the other hand, it's also an excellent way to hide the fact that your game is not actually that much fun. In fact, if you use these motivational hacks masterfully, a lot of people will fool themselves into thinking that your game is pretty fun... because they can't stop playing it. And they wouldn't be still playing it if it wasn't fun... right?
(I should take a moment to point out that what I just said above is my own opinion, not Chris Hecker's or GDNet's. Also, I actually did very much enjoy those other sessions.)
Of course, extrinsic motivators and variable reward schedules aren't inherently bad, and I don't mean to suggest as much. But I did like that Chris Hecker took the time to tell people that making something addictive isn't the same thing as making something good.
