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
i.e. “Fun”
Why are games fun?
reward.
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 < Selfdiscovery
Purpose
• Achieving something that ‘matters’
•
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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 ingame 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
• “Do you want to clean you room
before or after dinner?”
• 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
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
•
•
•
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
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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?
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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
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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.
Me
Luigi Guatieri
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?
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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
Thanks!
erik@82apps.com
@82apps
www.82apps.com