the gamer brain using psychology in game design to boost fun and profitability erik asmussen
TRANSCRIPT
The Gamer Brain
Using psychology in game design to boost fun and profitability
Erik Asmussen
Topics!
•Using psychology to make games fun
•Using psychology to make money
•A case study (in progress)
Who’s this guy?•Started developing iOS in
March 2010
•Left regular job in July 2010
•13 published apps, 2 in active development, a bunch more in planning stages
•No formal CS background
•Studied Psychology and Neuroscience instead
Using Psychology to make games
fun
Why do we game?•We spend thousands of
hours/dollars gaming every year, for limited benefit.
•Gaming has a very high level of intrinsic reward.Why are games
fun?
i.e. “Fun”
Our Rat Brain
Rat Brain Psychology
•Motivation comes from the “Four F’s”:
- Feeding
- Fleeing
- Fighting- Reproduction
• Gaming emulates the conditions that trigger these responses
Rat Brain Games: Feeding
•Games that require planning for the future, allocation of resources, and constant attention to maintain stasis
Rat Brain: Fleeing/Fighting•Games that create (and
resolve) tense emotional states, require fast reflexes and heightened attention levels
Rat Brain: Reproduction
•Exaggerated Physical Characteristics
•Competition and Dominance
Skinner Boxes•But simple stimulus/response behavior can
not explain (the majority) of games’ appeal
Higher-level Motivation
•Three main sources:
•Autonomy
•Mastery
•Purpose
Drive, Daniel H. Pink, 2009
Autonomy•Having the ability to direct your
own actions, explore where you want, determine your own tactics
Mastery•Self-improvement, purposeful
training, learning from feedback, becoming more proficient
•Gaining an understanding of a novel environment and its rules
•Telling < Showing < Self-discovery
Purpose
•Achieving something that ‘matters’
Flow• A state of consciousness of
concentration and deep enjoyment
• Triggered by ideal challenge level and high motivation
• Happens with work too (e.g. Game Development)
• It’s the context that determines motivation, not the action itself
• Developers can control games’ context
• But the real world is too complex for optimal autonomy/mastery/purpose scenarios
Using Psychology to Make Money
Emerging Revenue Models
•Classic Model:- Make a game players enjoy- They will tell their friends, and buy future games- Profit!!
• New model:- Make a free game that players will check out- Hook them and make them spend real money to purchase in-game items- Profit!!
Freeconomics
Manipulation and Morality
•Freemium games are where these boundaries of game design morality are really getting tested
•Good game design will frequently tap into a number of these (human and rat brain) sources of intrinsic motivation
•Using motivation to increase game satisfaction vs. using motivation to increase revenue
Manipulation and Morality
•They are not inherently ‘good’ or ‘evil’
•Too much rat brain motivation begins to feel like manipulation...
•...but if the gamer ultimately enjoys the experience, is there a problem?
•Lots of grey area
The Basics
•People will pay for things that have value to them
•If you want to make money, you need to add or create value
•Value is heavily dependent on context
Creating perception of value
•Value can be created by applying expertise in order to process raw materials into an end product of higher function or aesthetic appeal
•But game designers can create value from thin air
How do you create value in a game?
•Enhances gameplay/empowers player- Bigger guns, novel maps, new challenges
•Remove barrier or something annoying- Faster reloading, fast travel, bypass grinding
•Scarcity
•Opportunity Cost (double XP)
•Save real-world time- “Smurfberries”
Smurfberries (cont’d)
•Any in-game currency that saves you time, and can purchase powerful in-game items
•Can only be earned in rare situations, by completing annoying tasks, or by paying real money
•Your own time has extremely high value
= Selling your own time back to you
The false dilemma
•Player can either:- Wait for a really long time- Do some annoying thing- Pay real money
•Of course, player can also:- Not play the game
•“Do you want to clean you room before or after dinner?”
Anchoring•One option that is
cheap, another that is more expensive but a ‘better value’
•One very expensive option to make the other ones seem cheaper
Player Disempowerment
•First five or six levels progress extremely fast
•Next level takes a MUCH longer time to complete (“The Wall”)
•Player becomes accustomed to positive reinforcement of leveling, it is now withdrawn, feels urge to speed up process
Reinforcement Schedules
BOOORR
RINNGG
BOOORR
RINNGG
Reinforcement Schedules
•Reward timing is very critical
•Random Rewards = extremely high response
•They just have to not know it’s coming
Don’t be evil
•These tactics are effective, but are they moral?
•How will you balance making money vs. making the game you want to build?
The Arms Race•Need to make money! But more and
more resistance to paying upfront.
•Both gamers and developers making the ‘rational choice’
The Arms Race•So how much will game design change
in order to make money?
•Can you still design the game you want to build, while incorporating these elements?
•Will players begin resisting freemium as well?
•What’s the next phase of this battle?
A Case Study
Initial Challenges
•No Money
•Do everything myself
•Don’t know what I’m doing
Progression
Earnings
•Rough equivalent of minimum-wage job
What have I learned?
• Single-player experience is important
• Polish is critical (e.g. visual feedback)
• Small & focused is a better approach
• Turn-based much better than simultaneous multiplayer
• Users are (almost) never happy = scope creep
• Good reviews ≄ High Sales
• Game forums are your friend
• Good idea to supplement with other work
Pricing Strategies
•Paid
•Free
•Free->Paid
•Paid and Free
•Paid->Free->Paid->Free->Paid->Free (Periodic Sales) works the best
The power of app sales• Get picked up by twitter-bots and auto-blogs on mainstream
media sites
• Helps if you have a few contacts in the media to magnify
• 60k free downloads in a weekend vs. 20k lifetime (paid and free)
The power of app sales
•Hilariously, Colony Lite (which was free the whole time) had about 50 downloads during the same period
Other Tips
•Download top app store games and see what they do well
Other Tips•Iterate! Keep building new stuff all
the time
Source: www.streamingcolour.com dev survey
Other Tips
•Get an artist
vs.
Luigi GuatieriMe
A New Approach•Extremely
simple mechanic
•Designed to make the primary action as rewarding as possible using psychological principles
A New Approach
Will it work?
•TBD
•But it’s a great game design exercise
•Pros:- This perspective can help solve game design challenges
•Cons: - Artistic Compromise? Maybe evil? Or just being practical?
Summary• As a game developer, you have entire control
over the motivational context for players
• The Four F’s and Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose, can increase user enjoyment and revenue
• Create value for your players
• There are other, sneakier tactics you can use to affect players’ behavior, please use responsibly
• Game design is being changed based on new revenue models
• Iterate, start small, polish, and try app sales
