Psychology of Games, Level 2

Rewards

After (too) much perusing the internets, from professional to casual bloggers and research, one influencer that has stood out is rewards. People don’t just play games for FUN. Yes, fun is an element, but it’s usually not the main reason why people continue to play a game and derive enjoyment from it. Think about a game, any game, and it probably has a reward of some sort or another: win/lose, points, status.

Rewards is a very broad word, since a lot of elements can constitute a reward while also falling into other categories of game elements: points are a reward, but so is a collector’s item, which also a collectable, or reaching a new level is a reward, but this also falls into the levels element. For now, let’s stick to the overall idea of getting something in return for an achievement.

Gameification of Everything

Let’s revisit Jesse Schell’s DICE 2010 presentation, The Gameification of Everything (previous post), as the concept of rewards as motivators is a main topic. Schell talks about the psychological tricks the new online social and casual games are using to entice people to pay up. One of the main factors is that games are breaking through to reality; they don’t just exist in their virtual binary bubble.
The examples he brings up are the surprisingly and massively successful Zynga games, the likes of Farmville, MafiaWars. The rewards in these games are slightly more tangible (slightly being the key word). If you get points, level up, etc, in these games, you are literally beating your friends, not just a computer. You gain bragging rights, and that in itself is a reward.

Another main factor is pervasive rewards: points for everything, every minor little thing. You play to get points, and the more points you have, the more you play, until you eventually pay. But it is the points, the reward, that is the motivator behind it all.

of Everything!

Other instances of games seeping into real life are mentioned in this article from swtiched.com about Andy Baio’s talk at SXSW. He talks about a status board developed by the company Panic to track their to-dos in a way that looks like a game to motivate people to (literally) work hard. A reward is achieved when they reach zero, or clear all their issues.

Another example is theNike+ running system, where you can not just see a graph of your runs, you can also compete against other people around the world in a 5K on a certain day, or compete to accumulate the most distance in a period of time, and in the end you get… a reward! A trophy, a medal, a motivator to keep using Nike+ (and keep running, although I’ve had mixed results with using it).

Ribbon Hero

Finally, as case in point, I leave you with Microsoft Office’s Ribbon Hero, also mentioned in the previous article. The premise is that people are motivated by rewards, so you get points for doing stuff in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Then, as every app/game/concept has to have a social aspect nowadays, you can compete with your friends on Facebook for the highest score.

To me, any Office program already feels like I’m doing work, and not the kind of work I’d like to be doing, and to try and get points for insignificant things like bolding and underlining is not incentive enough. Of course, I haven’t played it yet, so it’s a very preliminary opinion.

Where is the Psychology?

Points, status, clearing a board, winning a medal, are all rewards, and they seem to motivate people to play a game, or pretend they are playing a game when they are really just working/running/learning. But WHY? The evidence is there, but we have yet to uncover the reasons. That we will learn in our next installment.

Tags: gameification, psychology of games, rewards

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