I have zero experience with gaming but I am curious about something. For those of you who have been gaming for at least several years do you find that the reward trigger is needed less frequently but needs to be more intense, or do you find the frequency of rewards you require doesn’t change much. Please describe the best you can.
I’m going to relocate this one over to The Game Room from IMHO.
What do you mean “reward trigger”?
Heck, what kind of “gaming” are we talking about?
This question almost reads like it’s talking about gambling?
Speaking purely in terms of game design, it’s actually best if the rewards are both
- measured out over time at regular intervals
- random
You see games catering to both elements all the time, but especially in MMOs. In World of Warcraft, for example, there are two thing you’re doing when you’re out on a quest: you’re looking for specific components (to either finish the quest or for materials to make things) and you’re looking for experience (to level up).
The experience is the fixed reward. You kill x number of bears, you get x*y amount of experience. Simple, but dull way of progressing, also known as “grinding.” Lots of Korean-made MMOs make grinding for experience a core gameplay mechanic, as it keeps people engaged for a long period of time.
But when you kill the bears, they may have something on the body that you can loot (also known as drops). The tables behind the scenes that determine what gets dropped is randomly selected: could be that rare material you’ve been looking for. Could be a quest item. Could be something totally unexpected (boots? Where was he keeping it?) This random reward system is a little like gambling: totally random rewards for doing a mundane task.
There are also usually high-risk high-reward scenarios. I could attack that bear over there that is only a moderate challenge, and get a moderate reward. Or I could attack that dinosaur that could eat me up in one gulp, but possibly get a great sword. There’s also a chance that even if I defeat the dinosaur, I won’t get the sword, but I will have established that I can beat him, and thus keep attempting to get the sword.
The best games mix it up like this; few games just use one approach for offering a reward. By using multiple measures, they guarantee at least some “progress” (at least in-game; real-world progress is your own problem), with a chance for a sudden leap in progress occasionally.
It’s interesting to note that the leap in progress can be purely ornamental (and thus easier to balance; you can flood the game world with cosmetic rewards and not have to worry about how it affects gameplay). “Team Fortress 2” for example, rewards players with hats. “Overwatch” rewards players with costumes and lines of dialog. There might also be a level associated with playtime (which does nothing but show off how long you’ve been playing).
To answer your question more directly: frequency of rewards is critical to game design. (Very) simply put: the mundane tasks need to reward the player evenly, and the exciting tasks need to reward the player randomly.
I feel like this question proceeds from a false assumption. Not all gamers play games for a discrete “reward trigger”, not all games are designed around such triggers, and even gamers who favor “Skinner Box” type games like World of Warcraft don’t exclusively play games like that. AFAICT, even WoW transitions from Skinner Box into rewarding teamwork and strategy in the late game. If nothing else, I think you’re going to need to clarify the term “reward trigger”.
It sounds like your question is focused on the idea that gaming is inherently addictive, and that gamers play to get their next fix. I do think there is some merit to that idea, since gaming is partially centered on consuming content and moving on. But the nature of the content being consumed is rarely a nice pat on the head and a feeder pellet.
I play games for a lot of reasons, and rewards come in many different forms. Many games reward critical thinking or skill improvements (Braid, Pac Man, Mario Bros, Portal); the reward is in solving a puzzle or mastering a technique. Some primarily reward exploration. Some reward ingenuity, like Minecraft. Some are minimally challenging but reveal a story that can be shaped by the players choices (Dreamfall, The Walking Dead); in this case, the reward is the unfolding story. Some primarily reward grinding, and probably fit best into your “reward trigger” model; I try to recognize and avoid these games. Most games are some combination of the above. Actual rewards vary, but many games reward the player with continued progress (more story, tougher challenges, more content).
I haven’t noticed a need for games to be constantly one-upping themselves, with more and more extreme or frequent rewards. If a game has a story I find interesting, I play to experience the story and perhaps make some choices. If a game has fun mechanics, I play to master those mechanics. New content is new content. It’s either interesting and worth playing, or it’s not and I ignore it.
People don’t watch movies for only one reason, it’s the same for video games.
You actually answered my question very well, I wasn’t really sure how to phrase the question as I have almost no experience with games. I play some free cell and some soduko but thats about it. The rewards I experience are very subtle.
I was looking for a comparison between gaming and other hobbies people enjoy and tend to get somewhat hooked on. When I first got involved in building primitive archery bows I needed a success fairly frequently but I was also much easier to please. As time went on the reward was more like just going in the right direction with something and I was happy with one or two breakthroughs a year.
Actually, I’d lump video games, movies and books together as far as the reasons go.
Some people are in it to do the equivalent of munch popcorn and watch a relatively mindless movie and just enjoy themselves with big explosions, silly one-liners and heroic good guys. People read novels for the same reason, and play some kinds of video games for the same reasons. Others are into the story- they want to be challenged in what they think and how they perceive the world. Some are into the more technical aspects of it- the direction, the casting, the acting performances, the actual word choice and prose on the page, the map design, the game design choices, etc…
Now with video games, there’s an active component you don’t have with movies and books.Some people really like the competitive aspect, while others like to solve puzzles. Still others aren’t into that, and prefer to socialize or craft things.
Video games are definitely not only Skinner-Box style setups; if anything, most games are NOT rewarding enough in that regard to keep on playing them. One of the other motivations usually has to kick in-socializing with other players, interest in the story, or competitiveness, or something else- it’s almost never in-game rewards that keep people playing.
Personally, I tend toward being competitive and puzzle-solving, with a side order of game design (mostly because on occasion I play with some guys who are in the video game industry)
I generally loathe being expected to socialize within the context of a game, and am not terribly interested in the technical aspects except where they drive the game flow. Crafting bores the shit out of me as well.
I will say this- grinding fucking sucks and ought to be banned. Nobody enjoys grinding, and it rewards monotonous playing for hours on end, instead of actually being GOOD at the game.
Thank you. You touched on another aspect of game design I hadn’t considered in my original post, but pieceoftheuniverse did: how reward schedules can be used to increase player engagement. If a game is stingy with rewards early on, e.g. is hideously difficult and/or obtuse from the very start, many players will get frustrated and give up. The rewards of progress and victory are being held out of their reach. But if the game instead takes time to introduce its mechanics and gradually ramp up difficulty, players can get drawn in and later find themselves performing difficult challenges with relative ease. They stay in long enough to be rewarded by watching their skills improve. Just like how most people would probably give up on amateur cycling if they had to start with a sixty mile marathon.
There’s a channel on YouTube called Extra Credits that talks about various aspects of game design. They have a bunch of videos you may find interesting, if you want to learn more about games. I’d link them but YouTube is blocked at my office. There’s one that discusses how Missile Commander used its mechanics to comment on nuclear war (“Narrative Mechanics”). There’s one on how an interesting choice from Mass Effect 2 illustrates how games can force us to ask questions about ourselves (“Enriching Lives”). There’s one on how to use pacing properly, several on mechanics design, and at least one on how to use reward structures.
That is very interesting, I have been working on a novel called the “Collaboration” based on social media, rewards and our addictive nature. I have grown fairly familiar with the mindset of crafters and artists but have no clue how to approach the gamers involement.
Ok, I’m home and fed now, so Extra Credits links. I have vaguely ordered them in terms of potential relevance to your book, AFAICT:
The Skinner Box - Using Operant Conditioning to compel a player to play an unrewarding game
Gamification - How to apply game systems to real life
Sesame Credit - China’s actual, terrifying method of gamifying civil obedience
Candy Crush’s Success
Propaganda Games
Propaganda Games Part 2 - An example of a bad, unintentional propaganda game
Progression Systems - The value added by a good progression system
Challenging vs. Punishing Games - How to make difficult games fun
Humane Design
Exit Points
Play Sessions
Idle Games - Games designed to be played in the background
Bartle’s Taxonomy - Different types of players
Pacing
Enriching Lives - Effective use of moral choice in games
Choices vs. Consequences
Narrative Mechanics
I should probably stop now, but there are just so many good videos on their channel. I hope you find something useful. Good luck!
I can’t thank you enough! I got more than I bargained for.
No problem, happy to help!
The only real rewards I tend to like is based on completing something. The sense of accomplishment is the primary reward–the rest is just the game pointing that out. Otherwise, I can just go to a video and watch someone else. Being able to continue further on in the game is not a reward; it’s just progress.
So the problem with too frequent or random rewards is the lack of any feeling of accomplishment. And I’ve played a lot of games where the only reward is knowing that you beat X level or became good with Y skill. Or, hell, that I’ve finished the game.
So I guess I go towards fewer rewards, but I don’t really care too much about the amount of the rewards. If the game is fun, I’ll keep playing. When it stops being fun and becomes frustrating, I’ll stop. (Or, in adventure games, sometimes cheat a bit to get past the frustration and hope the rest of the game is fun.)
Here’s a question for gamers. How much time do you spend on games and at some point do you feel that time might be better spent?
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve played videogames casually since there were videogames. But when I hear gamers talking about buying dozens of games or spending hundreds or thousands of hours on games like Warcraft, that starts to sound like full-time job level time investment.
The vast majority of game players likely don’t have thousands of hours in any game. Doing a cursory Steam search, my personal max is around 150 hours in Mass Effect 2, and some of that is probably it being alt+tabbed while I did something else.
Even then, that’s over 2-3 different 100% completion playthroughs in the 6 years it came out. For reference, Netflix’s Daredevil clocks in about 20 hours, and it only has two seasons of 13 episodes each. It’s going to get even longer with season 3, and doesn’t even take into consideration the other MCU shows people are going to watch and rewatch several times over the next 10 years. And I don’t even know how many hours Game of Thrones is, which I’m sure some of my friends have binged at least 2-3 times.
Games generally don’t take up any more of a person’s time than any other form of long-form entertainment. And they don’t necessarily mean you’re alone, my friend is gone for summer now, but until he left I spent almost every Saturday for several months hanging out with him and playing through the Kingdom Hearts series (not the entire day was always spent on that, we’d usually spend some time cooking and watching things too, but still).
It’s possible I have a ton of hours in Heroes of the Storm, Smite, or Warcraft 3 (not World of Warcraft; extremely different games), because I used to play that socially with a friend for a few hours every week or few days. That’s not really any different from the “poker nights” and such that some people do.
While a few people seriously no-life World of Warcraft, I think for even most hardcore raiders, they generally pick it up a couple times a week to raid with their guild. It’s very much a “poker night” type thing for them as well, it’s just “oh, sorry, my guild raid night is that night” has a bit more of a social stigma than “oh, that’s my hangout night with my old college buddies.”
As for whether it could be “better spent”. I mean, I guess all time spent on entertainment could be spent learning a second language or picking up Quantum Physics or something in theory (though I do spend an hour or two on Japanese per day too). But I don’t feel like I spend more of my free time on games than most people spend on anything else frivolous like TV, movies, or other such things, and all told there are gulfs of time where I don’t even touch games and spend my time streaming Netflix or whatever instead.
Hm, I play World of Spreadsheets [ok, ok, Eve Online…] so I am a bit skewed. I play for social contact, I have been with these guys for about 8 years now [the 26th of June was my characters 8th birthday] and I have a blast chatting with them, mrAru and I even went to EVE Fanfest NorthEast 2016 last weekend and who would think that 100 computer gamers and 2 developers from CCP could have so much fun camping with no internet [and clothing still on…] though there was a beer pong competition, poker competition and other neat stuff going on.
Yes, it has a steep learning curve and probably isn’t for everyone, but when playing PVP it is quite an adrenaline rush.
Well, it’s entertainment time so, provided you’re able to draw a line between downtime and work/family and other obligations, then I don’t see a big issue. Most of my game playing happens in the evening after I’ve put my youngest to bed. If I wasn’t playing a game then, I’d be watching TV or browsing the internet or some other downtime activity. Plus, games can fulfill a variety of outlets: if I’m being social I can play a game with my usual group of online friends and spend a couple hours shootin’ the shit. If I’m feeling creative, there’s games where you’re building or creating stuff. Games designed to tug on the emotions, mindless “get your aggression out” shooters, etc.
Obviously my time would be “better spent” curing cancer or re-organizing the kitchen cabinets if we’re judging on practical results but I wouldn’t be doing that anyway since it’s my relaxation time.
Buying dozens of games can be deceiving since prices can vary so much. We just got off the Steam Summer Sale where a lot of PC games were discounted and I bought 14 games for around fifty bucks. At $3.50 a pop (on average), if I play one for a couple hours and have fun with friends, $3.50 certainly seems like a reasonable price to pay for a couple hours of entertainment. You have people with homes filled with DVDs or books that probably total thousands of dollars (and many go unwatched or read) but if they have the income for it, power to 'em.
But, sure, I see photos of some guy’s room and he has thousands of dollars in gaming systems and collectibles and little statuettes of video game characters and stuff and think “Ehhh…” but I suppose it’s not worse than sports memorabilia or Precious Moments figurines or anything else you can collect tons of. And that stuff is worth money, odd as it is to me that anyone wants a mint-in-box collector’s edition of Dragon Princess Laser-Rider II so who am I to judge.
The question is difficult to answer, because I don’t really think my gaming through in terms of “reward” and I play a lot of different games for a lot of different reasons.
I play pen & paper RPGs because it’s an opportunity to spend time with my mates and have fun together, and sometimes (if the DM is good) actual escapism, feeling like you’re someone else. I play X-Com for mental stimulation and problem solving fun. I play Pillars of Eternity or *The Witcher *or The Walking Dead for their story and visuals more than anything, to feel involved in it and part of it more than I would reading a book about it. I play *Shadow of Chernobyl *for the bleak ambiance and the cheap thrill of vicariously exploring weird, dangerous, horror-movie eerie places. I play *Borderlands *and *Doom *because it’s fun sometimes to just unplug your brain and shoot a bunch of people in the face repeatedly for an hour or two. I play *Dark Souls *because I like getting raped in the mouth by packs of feral AIDS-infected baboons. And so on 
When I think about it, actually the Dark Souls series is probably the one that would best fit the “reward trigger” mechanism. It’s a series of very difficult games where you explore locations filled with monsters and traps placed in fiendishly devious ways by the developers, and bosses that are deliberately unfair to fight. And so you die, again and again, trying to figure out where everything is, how to beat the odds, how to survive against a game stacked entirely and, again, deliberately, against you from the get go. Every time you die is a real punishment and risk, as you risk losing everything you had been collecting so far, all your precious money and experience points. They are games best described as trying to punch through a brick wall with your forehead, except the wall hates you personally and taunts you too.
And yet when you do break through that stupid fucking wall, it’s such a rush ! It’s hard to describe how exhilarating it is beating a tough Dark Souls boss that had killed you over and over for the past two hours for the first time, or when you manage to read and predict the game’s bullshit when you play through them for the first time and learn how it all works and how the game “thinks” (“Uuuh this looks very trap-like. Is this a trap ? It was a trap ! Ah HA ! Dark Souls, you magnificent bastard, I read your book !”).
And then some bullshit trap or stupid boss kills you again, and you’re back in concentrated RAGE mode
Not sure I agree here. The only reward Dark Souls has to offer is more suffering. 
I’d say the much-hated Quick-Time Events (“QTEs”) would work though. The God of War series especially are rife with them.
This is a very game-specific thing so it probably requires some explanation. The God of War series is iconic in that the player character, Kratos, fights against the gods and titans of the old Greek mythology. Some of those beings are absolutely massive in scale, for example when you are fighting Poseidon.
During most of these fights, the player retains agency - movement, attacks, jumping, dodging, combinations and so on. But almost invariably when you have hurt the enemy enough to “finish” them, the game takes away the player agency in favor of a cutscene to give a suitably epic finale to an exiting fight. It’s very cinematic and very exiting, especially after particularly tough fights.
However, taking away player agency entirely would be inappropriate in a game so the game developers have shoehorned in an awkward compromise - the Quick-Time Event. Essentially, you have to press a button at the right time to keep the cutscene moving forward.
Here’s a video of it in practice. Note: Graphic content and endgame spoilers for God of War 3. The ordinary combat starts at about 07:10 and transitions into the cutscene with the QTE at about 09:00, with the QTE indicator itself at 09:45.
That’s probably the purest manifestation of Skinner Box type reward system that I can think of and it’s generally detested.
I wouldn’t consider QTE’s as a Skinner Box style game play. For one thing, you’re forced to complete the QTE to keep the game moving forward and then, for another, there’s no going back.
Skinner Box style play would be a scenario where you can kill goblins and one out of every 300 goblins drops a gem shard and you can combine ten gem shards to make a magic gem. So you just wind up sitting there, hitting that switch (killing goblins), getting a minor rush each time (“Is my shard going to drop?”) followed up by a major rush (“It dropped! Nine more to go…”) to keep you going just as you were about to quit out of tedium. But the actual act of hitting the switch is easy so the reward potential keeps you glued there going tap-tap-tap. Or kill-kill-kill…
Back in the olden days, developers could claim that they wanted these rare drops to be “Easter Egg” type things or semi-unique events to surprise some players. These days, it’s pretty much just to make you waste time.