On the development of behavioral psychology in the game industry in the past ten years

A lone scientist has worked in his lab until late at night, constantly assembling his creations and then distributing this powerful work to the world!

He's not a Frankenstein, he's just studying behavioral game design!

When I wrote that article ten years ago, I was a graduate student in psychology and an amateur game designer who never really touched the game industry. But it is undeniable that the article is indeed a very special one for the entire network. It was then translated into multiple language versions, even as a student's research content. Not only by various academics, but also by the Huffington Post and cracked, the game state Note: America's best-selling comic book magazine.

Today, as the 10 anniversary of that article, I need to reflect on this subject. The entire gaming industry has changed dramatically since 2001, and I want to rethink how the past decade has evolved to move slowly away from the outlines of previous articles.

Reinforcement learning is recognized as a powerful force in game design.

The biggest change of the decade has been the difficulty of finding games that don't pay attention to internal reward structures. Ten years ago, it was absurd to think that the game included rewards and that the way in which the rewards were distributed would affect the player's gaming experience. But now it seems that rewards have become a natural part of the game.

An obvious example of enhanced (reinforcement, also called hardening) that has been embraced by game design is the widespread use of achievement systems. The achievement system is a very interesting case, because in addition to the achievement itself, the game does not actually provide any real rewards. Games like World of Warcraft are using the achievement system to direct players to other game modes, such as exploration or PvP mode. I also think that helping players find more fun in the games they touch is a manifestation of enhanced use.

The rise of social games on Facebook and other platforms also suggests that strengthening has become a key element in the gaming industry. Indeed, this type of game earlier was basically an image-hardening element. The simplicity of the game also makes it easy to understand why it is popular.

These include three main elements: an organized reward mechanism, a powerful viral transmission channel and ease of use. Their success also means that others can no longer easily belittle these forces. As competition among social games intensifies, this type of game has become more complex, but its behaviour to the contingency of stimulation is more apparent than other game types.

Successful use of this collateral in the game can also help us better define how to use these elements in areas outside the game, such as health care, safe driving, and so on. "Gameplay" does not have much to do with games, but is more associated with collateral. Although we don't quite understand why we need to take the easy entertainment field of games and get people to be serious about the reward structure of serious events, we are glad that this phenomenon has finally come true.

In addition to behavioral psychology, all the psychological topics in the game have become a mainstream trend. I've seen a lot of blog posts on the subject of psychology and game interaction, and even some studios have their own full-time psychologists.

Both supporters and critics exaggerate the impact of this technique.

Although these techniques do have scientific principles and are effective, they are not a collection of game designs. Traditional behavioral psychology is a good and simple model for studying specific psychological processes, but it does not explain all human behavior. So there is a reason why modern psychology includes not only behaviorism.

Both supporters and critics have tended to overemphasize the influence of these techniques. From a "supporter" point of view, many game developers think that fun is not important, they just want to create a reward structure. But it turns out that the idea is wrong because the competition they face is a game of fun and reward structure. The Fringe is as helpful as the gorgeous image and sound, but the game needs more than that.

From the point of view of the critics, many people think that the hardening process is too powerful to violate the player's real will in the game. And while the hardening process is very effective, it is not enough to reflect all the psychological reactions or gameplay experiences of people.

Like using a membership card in a coffee shop-this is a real-life collateral enhancement. Indeed, this is much more incidental than the game, as it will provide substantial practical benefits. But I think the average person will not think "buy 10 cup latte, 1 cups free" discount is too manipulative or seductive to make the general people hard to resist it.

Collateral always exists.

For nearly a century after Warson defined the definition of behaviorism, people are still misinterpreting its meaning. Many people believe that there is no collateral in the game unless it is artificially imposed. This view is of course wrong. If you're playing a game, you can certainly get a reward for that.

It has nothing to do with whether the rewards are intrinsic (self-expression) or extrinsic attributes (as an achievement). If players find no rewards in the game, they don't play games. Rewards are presented in a way that behavioral psychology describes as collateral. Whether or not the game designer realizes this, the rewards will eventually exist.

My previous Behavior Game design article has pointed out:

"Each computer game will allow the player to respond in some way. Psychology can provide frameworks and terminology so that we understand what we are telling players. ”

Unfortunately, many people also believe that collateral is an artificial "additive": Like "msg" added to video games. This view is not correct. Collateral is the fundamental content of the game, and I'm not sure if a "game" does not have any collateral, it can also be called "game".

There is no "Skinner box".

In addition, when those critics take the game as a "Skinner Box" (Game State Note: Skinner, one of the founders of Neo-Behaviorism psychology, who developed experimental equipment designed to study operational conditioning, eventually proved the theory of operational conditioning, did not actually understand what a "Skinner box" was. Earlier Behaviorism's goal was not to create an artificial environment to study some new forms of mind control, they just wanted to create a simplified model of the real world.

They have a better understanding of learning at a basic level by creating the simplest operational learning task (i.e. "push lever, get food"). As with all scientific experiments, this is an attempt to isolate the phenomenon and dispel the various interpretations of the confusing study.

The creation of such operational conditions does not require a "skinner box." This is just an experimental tool for studying the effects of conditions. We have no reason to put "player in Skinner box"!

Moral

The use of behaviorism in game design is still a controversial issue of Xie (game Bang Note: Please read the relevant article "from Reflex behavior to rethink the moral aspects of Game design"). Behavioral game design is known as "creepy behavior", "unsettling practices", and may even result in negative effects such as addiction.

For me, the starting point of all these discussions is that the collateral is always in the game, and the reinforcement learning element is developed with the development of the game. Game designers do not fully understand the elements of psychology, but they are tireless in using these principles to create a game mechanism. Before people start to create a change rate schedule, developers always insist on setting random trophies in the game. What we have to be aware of is that collateral is the essence of the game, and they shape player behavior.

Designers must always be responsible for the rewards system they create and the results it causes. This means that ethical game design requires designers to face up to the collateral type they create.

It's also important to note that if the critics think the incentive structure is damaging, it's better to say that the stronger the collateral, the more the game designer needs to take responsibility to design the game.

In my opinion, if the designer thinks that the player can feel more pleasure from the incidental nature of the game, this kind of setting collateral is moral behavior. You have to make sure that the game first provides the basic entertainment value in order to implant ethical rewards to enhance the player's gaming experience.

Collateral has a larger structure, a molecule composed of atomic actions and rewards. Both action and reward must be fun to ensure that the collateral in the game is moral. If the designer just randomly sets up the achievement system in the game and gives the player a reward in a boring way, it will only spoil the original game design. In short, only when designers can really understand the collateral in the game can they create really interesting games.

Future development

Finally, I think the current issue is that it can only be used to generalize the content of early psychology. Before the emergence of behaviorism, psychology is an extremely subjective field, mainly driven by people's views and reflections. Radical behaviorism will overreact to this, refusing to admit that outside observers can objectively measure people's mental state.

It is clear that this radical reaction is wrong, but their emphasis on verifiable data and the principle of the Occam razor (game State Note: From the 14th century logic family, the Saint Francis, the monk, William of the Holy Franciscan), can be summed up as: if not necessary, not to increase the entity. has made an important contribution and has become an integral part of modern psychology. Although radical activism is too simplistic, it lays the groundwork for the future development of more complex principles, such as cognitive psychology.

I think so in the game world. Our main focus today is on rewards in games, input mechanism, achievement and gaming, but after a few years our discussion of the game industry may change, but no matter how we change, our game design is always moving in the direction of empirical research, and our players can really benefit from it.

Source: gamerboom.com Game State