Read Chapter 11 of "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses"

[zaphodb2002]

Chapter 11: The Player's Mind is Driven by the Player's Motivation

Needs

• Maslow's Hierarchy as applied to Minecraft
  1. Physiological Needs = Survival Mechanics
  2. Safety and Security = Defense from mobs
  3. love and belonging = multiplayer
  4. self-esteem = game mastery and challenges (true of all games)
  5. self-actualization = freedom of creativity, sandbox

And More Needs

• Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, self-determination theory, mental needs
  1. Competence: I need to feel good at something.
  2. Autonomy: I need freedom to do things my own way.
  3. Relatedness: I need to connect with other people.

LENS 022: The Lens of Needs To use this lens, stop thinking about your game, and start thinking about what basic human needs it fulfills. Ask yourself these questions:

1. On which levels of Maslow's hierarchy is my game operating?
2. Does it fill the needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness?
3. How can I make my game fill more basic needs than it already does?
4. For the needs my game is already filling, how can it fill those needs even better? It sounds strange to talk about a game fulfilling basic human needs, but everything that people do is an attempt to fulfill these needs in some way. And keep in mind, some games fulfill needs better than others -- your game can't just promise the need, it must deliver fulfillment of the need. If a player imagines that playing your game is going to make them feel better about themselves, or get to know their friends better, and your game doesn't deliver on those needs, your player will move on to a game that does.

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

• Intrinsic: "Because I feel like doing it for its own sake", i.e., the sheer fun
• Extrinsic (from internal to external):
  • Integrated Motivation: "Because I'm that kind of person"
  • Identified Motivation: "Because I think it's important"
  • Introjected Motivation: "Because I said I would"
  • External Motivation: "Because I'm getting paid"

Wanna vs Hafta

• pleasure seeking and pain avoiding are two different systems in the brain
• pleasure-seeking:
  • collecting things
  • skill mastery
  • puzzle solving
• pain-avoiding:
  • death and damage mechanics
  • save checkpoints (or lack thereof)
  • Limited time content

LENS 023: The Lens of Motivation Every game is a complex ecosystem of motivations. To examine them more closely, ask yourself these questions:

1. What motivations do players have to play my game?
2. Which motivations are most internal? Which are most external?
3. Which are pleasure-seeking? Which are pain-avoiding?
4. Which motivations support each other?
5. Which motivations are in conflict?

Novelty

• Novelty makes you think in a new way (Portal as example)
• There is such a thing as too novel, and it is not enough to save an otherwise bad game

  LENS 024: The Lens of Novelty To ensure you harness the powerful motivation of novelty, ask yourself these questions:

  1. What is novel about my game?
  2. Does my game have novelties throughout or just at the beginning?
  3. Do i have the right mix of the novel and the familiar?
  4. When the novelty wears off, will players still enjoy my game?

Judgment

• People want to know how they compare to others, and will work hard to be judge favorably
• Leaderboards and PvP

LENS 025: The Lens of Judgment To decide if your game is a good judge of the players, ask yourself these questions:

1. What does your game judge about the players?
2. How does it communicate this judgment?
3. Do players feel the judgment is fair?
4. Do they care about the judgment?
5. Does the judgment make them want to improve?

Recommended Reading

• Glued to Games by Scott Rigby and Richard Ryan
• Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
• Understanding Motivation and Emotion by Johnmarshall Reeve