As anyone who reads this blog should know, I classify myself as a gamer (though this term’s usefulness is dying). While most gamers just play their games and enjoy them, I prefer to think about how the game was designed and structured to addict it’s users. And what I’ve seen over the last few years is really interesting, especially when you look at other areas of human behavior. I’ll explain…
In recent years, we’ve seen the advent of achievements and role-playing characteristics in non-traditional role-playing genres. Achievements and role-playing characteristics are mechanisms that provide incentives for players to behave in very specific ways within games. They were a brilliant addition and have proven to be very effective. All you have to do is look at Xbox Live to see how much people care about achievements, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a great example of the adoption of role-playing characteristics into new genres (though not the first franchise to do this).
Side note: To get an idea about how extreme some people are, I came across an individual that played through Final Fantasy XIII on both the Xbox and the PS3, just to get the achievements. They wasted $60 and 60 hours just for a digital score.
Achievements are an external gaming mechanism, meaning they aren’t part of the internal game mechanics, but rather sit atop of the game and don’t usually impact what you can do with-in the game. Some examples of this are the Xbox Live achievements and Gamerscore system, or Titles and Emblems in Modern Warfare 2. To earn them, you have to fulfill a pre-determined condition, like beat a game on Hard difficulty.
Where achievements are external mechanisms, role-playing characteristics are internal to the core gaming mechanics. They started out in dungeon crawling games like Ultima, and determined how your character could interact with the world. In the past few years, we’ve seen more and more games adopting this game mechanic, most notably first-person shooters. In Modern Warfare, you have to earn the right to wield the biggest, baddest sniper rifle in the game. Oftentimes, progressing a character to this point will take hours upon hours of gameplay.
What these mechanisms do is provide tangible incentives for players to play the game, whereas before beating the game or competing against other players was incentive enough. Now, players are able to gain recognition for their actions and behaviors. And guess what? They love the recognition! Fans of Call of Duty will play over a dozen DAYS to earn the meanest looking emblem next to their user name. Game designers have effectively extended the amount of time players will dedicate to their game by introducing an additional set of player incentives. However, they’ve also skewed WHY players are doing what they are doing. No longer is it solely about the game experience, plot, or replayability elements. Now, players may brainlessly shoot a gazillion zombies just for a badge or achievement, devaluing all of the efforts that it took to make a great game. This is one of the downsides of the movement to incorporate these addictive game mechanics. The other observation I’ve made is that we’re starting to see games in non-traditional areas or used in new ways.
One of the best examples of this is the EcoGuide LCD digital dashboard in the new Ford Fusion Hybrid. The dashboard sports a digital tree that reflects how economically you drive (which corresponds to an efficient use of gasoline). The more efficient you are, the more the digital tree flourishes. If you drive inefficiently, the tree suffers for your irresponsible behavior. Another example is a new type of exercise bike, made by Expresso Fitness, that I saw in a Cambridge gym. Unlike most bikes which have a basic exercise dashboard or a TV, this one featured an LCD display and handles to steer the bike. Why would you want to steer an exercise bike you might ask. Well, because the exercise bike is actually a game – a racing game to be more specific. Once you mount the bike, it places you in a digital environment displayed on the screen, and you are pitted against simulated opponents on various winding landscapes. Like any other racing game, you find yourself instinctively working harder to go faster than the competition. Even more intriguing, the game tracks your performance and will put you on a global leaderboard based on how well you did. I only used it once, but it is very interesting what can be done with that sort of tracking. No other exercise machine I’ve seen has been designed that way, and none have been connected to the internet. This is definitely the future (more on this in a coming article).
Anywhere, where was I? Oh yes, harping about non-traditional uses of games. We’ve long seen the use of gaming in education, but never in a car or a piece of gym equipment. What’s changed? Well, as I’ve written about in the past, gaming is now a mainstream activity, making it more accessible to people. More importantly, people have caught onto the psychology of games, where competition or the desire to win engages players more strongly than is seen in other types of media. The incentives that are built into games are a strong way to influence or direct user behavior, and you can apply game design to other things to achieve this effect. Exercise is a natural area because you can correlate people’s goals with the game’s incentives very easily – level of effort becomes the basis of competition in the game while also resulting in the exercise that is the reason to be in the gym in the first place.
It is my opinion that this is only the beginning. We’re going to see games incorporated into more aspects of our lives. And the main reason for this, and its a scary one, is that corporations are going to embrace it in their loyalty programs and promotions, facilitated by smartphones, location-aware gadgets, and a loosening of personal privacy. We’re seeing this already with Foursquare, but it relies on active user engagement, whereas companies will want passive detection of your location. The end game (deliberate pun) is that as technology is more prevalent in our lives, becomes more interconnected, and gains greater awareness of our activities, intent, and location, our behavior will be significantly influenced. And games are the avenue through which this trend is starting. There is a professor at Carnegie Mellon, Jesse Schell, who spoke about his own vision of the future for gaming. He draws a lot of parallels with what I’ve written about, and presents in spectacular fashion. Click here to be entertained.
Like the Digital Erudite blog? Subscribe to our RSS feed or follow this author on Twitter(@bguenther).
