[PATV] Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - Extra Credits Season 6, Ep. 1: Intrinsic or Extrinsic

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  • TyphinTyphin Registered User regular
    @Vivi22: When I was younger, Pizza Hut had a program ("Book It!") where kids could get free pizza for reading books. Basically, your teacher would fill out a list of ten books you read, and you'd bring that in and get a free personal pan pizza. There's debate as to whether this program reduced reading later in life, because it converts an intrinsic reward (reading books for the pleasure of it) to an extrinsic reward (reading books for free pizza), and then once the extrinsic reward is removed, they no longer feel it to be "worth it" to read books.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect This article talks about how tasks with pre-existing high intrinsic motivation suffer while tasks with less intrinsic motivation can be helped. So, kids who are already reading a lot before Book It! wouldn't read as much afterwards, but kids who never read a lot beforehand may find enjoyment they wouldn't have without it.

    http://www.biomedsearch.com/article/Effects-extrinsic-reinforcement-reading-during/54370487.html is a paper on the Book It! Program itself. In it, they're unable to find any clear link between participation and amount of reading.

    My personal experience leads me to be wary of being offered an extrinsic reward for something I'm already enjoying, but I admit that the research is still on the fence on the issue.

  • TransientMindTransientMind Registered User regular
    Perfect example of bypassing the mechanic: Catherine.
    I loved the aesthetic of the world, the music, the ambience, the wandering around the bar talking to people to figure out this mystery... But the actual core puzzle/platformer game? Blerghk.
    YOUTUBE TO THE RESCUE.

    That's a long-ass story, but quite worthwhile. It makes me wonder, though. The guys who made the game get no money from me when I watch someone's youtube videos of the game without the 'game'. What would be an appropriate way to get these people some money for their efforts? Buy it and keep it anyway, instead of trading it in? That doesn't feel quite right. It's a nice movie-style experience without the gameplay, but not a movie worth paying $60 to see.

    It'd be nice to see developer-made compromises for narrative fans who aren't interested in their game's gameplay but love the world/characters/storytelling/aesthetics. In the old days, cheat codes used to do that, but those have fallen out of fashion what with the desire to try and force people into social multiplayer or compete for Achievements.

  • ex275wex275w Registered User new member
    Extrinsic Design can help if you are designing your game as a rollercoaster, make the climbing of the coaster the boring parts of the game and cap it off with a nice set piece or a cutscene or an incredible boss battle. The important part is learning how to balance these factors how tall is the slope and how fast is the reward. At least climbing the slope in some games can be enjoyable for some people, I love grinding in DQ and Final Fantasy games since they relax me.

  • Mingo413Mingo413 Registered User regular
    "There are many RPGs where the extrinsic motivation of the characters and the world were more than worth the slog through the parts I didn't find inherently engaging..."

    *Immediately think back on hours spent folding origami, reading books, and playing basketball in Persona 4*

    "...Like in Persona 4, for example."

    Week in and week out, you guys practically read my mind with your examples.

  • ShaostoulShaostoul Indie Game Dev for Project Sand Slag Washington, USA (Not DC)Registered User new member
    I find this helpful and will see what I can do in my game that I'm developing. I however do feel that a level of ease of play to mindlessly do something is somewhat required, as I've seen it be such a big reason why some people play various games and that is what keeps some of them playing since they find a level of comfort there that they wouldn't get in something constantly engaging.

  • OMGBEESOMGBEES Registered User regular
    But... if we strive to make everything intrinsically engaging... aren't we falling into the "games must be fun" trap?

  • VontreVontre Registered User regular
    Man, what? Who would ever play FF7 if they hated the combat systems? I get what's being said here but the examples given just paint broad swathes of remarkably successful games as un-engaging, and that's ridiculous.

  • MagmarFireMagmarFire Registered User regular
    @OMGBEES Not necessarily. Fun is but one way to engage a player, where there are a myriad of other ways to do it, like tragedy or romance.

    This was actually the main topic of their "Beyond Fun" episode.

  • ptcbeanptcbean Registered User regular
    @Vontre He did point out that the extrinsic rewards in FF7 made the less than engaging elements worthwhile. When you think about it, the random encounters in that game significantly diminished the replay value; if it had had a more engaging combat system, or even fewer encounters, you'd be much more likely to pick it up and play it again.

  • drunkenpandarendrunkenpandaren Slapping all the goblin ham In the top laneRegistered User regular
    I think Chris Hecker does a great presentation on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in games on his website, but he spends perhaps 50 minutes discussing the idea on his website. So I don't fault EC for going over very generally. It's really difficult to discuss this topic in less then 6 minutes.

    Origin: HaxtonWasHere
    Steam: pandas_gota_gun
  • OmegathorionOmegathorion Registered User new member
  • TyrranisTyrranis Registered User regular
    So, it's an extrinsic reward to watch the cutscene in Mass Effect where Anderson punches out Udina because by this point there's a very good chance you'll dislike Udina to such an extent that watching Anderson sock 'im in the face is just so gratifying, even if you're not the one taking the swing?

    I can get behind that.

  • R|ЯR|Я Registered User new member
    edited March 2013
    Wow. I've been playing a ton of Super Hexagon lately, and despite the extreme simplicity of that entire game, it is incredibly addictive because 1) of several key design choices that keep one from tiring of it immediately (randomizing the starting music, making the gate to Line be a consistent three reverse hexes) and 2) because of the feeling you get when masterfully swinging around, nimbly dodging a trap that had so many times before ended you.

    That extrinsic reward: the moment of personal achievement, and the simple standards Super Hexagon sets to measure yourself by, kept me invested in that game far longer than anything else about it could have (best time 65.18 btw!).

    R|Я on
  • BarthedaBartheda Registered User regular
    Hi Scott & welcome to what is a great show. Yah more Art

  • BarthedaBartheda Registered User regular
    It seems to me that they really touched on something I am beginning to find really important with games. To me time has become a much rarer & more valuable commodity than it used to be. With the pressures of work & the joys of family I have far less time in my day to play games & find myself wanting to play them less and less. So I am constantly looking for games that are very engaging from when I turn it on to when I turn it off. A good example of this is Assassins Creed series, in 1-revelations I loved just running around in the world. Racing up & down walls over rooftops & even down zip lines. But with AC3 I didn't enjoy the simple act of moving around in the world. I then struggled to find motivation to play through the game to find out more about Connor & what he was doing. So no more grinding out levels for me in multi-player, no more wandering around cities looking for that missing gangtag to spray paint. More engaging game play in a shorter burst is better for me. Anyone else in the same boat here?

  • Agent S7Agent S7 Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    Weird that you mentioned Kingdom Hearts--I was thinking of commenting about how downright FUN the Kingdom Hearts series can be. The worlds are beautiful, and the combat--even moreso with the recent games--is stylish and oh-so-satisfying. Yes, the story may get slightly insane, but when the story works (and it still does most of the time), it works beautifully.

    A specific example from the 3DS game: it was an absolute joy playing through the Fantasia world. Skating through the colorful worlds of Fantasia, putting an emphasis on sound and music in that world, having several different "sketches" from the film show up (including Chernabog again)...it was one of my favorite moments in not just the series, but in gaming. And the sprawling, acrobatic levels...it was just a delight to play. Even the darker levels (the nightmarish and distorted World That Never Was) managed to use atmosphere so well that they were wonderful in their eeriness...

    The story felt a little more like a chore in KH3D, which was interesting. I watched it only to get a better idea of what the combat actually MEANT, and rolled my eyes when Master Xehanort revealed his evil plan. Interesting that a reward that began as extrinsic (in the first game or Chain of Memories, when the gameplay sometimes grew too clunky to be enjoyable) has stopped being a reward, while the gameplay itself picked up the slack.

    And good luck, Allison!

    Agent S7 on
  • Agent S7Agent S7 Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    Also, a sidenote: you know what'd be a wonderful topic for an episode? Pacifist runs/nonviolent quest resolution in video games. Both are getting to be more common, and the fact that a medium so fond of violence is giving the player the option to avoid it more often is interesting, to say the least...as is the fact that even "pacifist runs" can be rather brutal (see nonlethal takedowns in Deus Ex: Human Revolution) and what that could signify.

    Agent S7 on
  • ptcbeanptcbean Registered User regular
    Did anyone play "Illusion of Gaia" on the SNES? There was a brutal ongoing sidequest to find the fifty red jewels scattered throughout the immense world that didn't let you backtrack. Your reward: a secret level with tougher enemies and an insanely powerful boss. The catch: there were no powerups of any kind in the level, not even the level up jewels that you had been picking up throughout the game for beating enemies. When you finished the level, you got a few text boxes explaining the backstory of the game's itinerant shopkeeper.

    When I first beat it, I was crushed. Each level- each room of each level- had given me an extrinsic reward until now: those level up jewels that I'd been hoarding like a rat. Some had given me beautifully rendered new abilities. Yet when I defeated the greatest challenge of the game, I got nothing. It took me until my next playthrough to realize that I was looking forward to the secret level and the rush of taking down its boss. I had already been rewarded with a little bit more game.

  • Titanium DragonTitanium Dragon Registered User regular
    To bookend FF7 in its own franchise, it followed a title that suffered, more than anything else, from weak late-game content. FF6 let the player almost completely off the rails in its second half, but the plot and the combat did not support that decision gracefully (though it fared better than a couple of the earlier Famicom FFs). Each of its characters got exactly one brief, self-encapsulated vignette for character growth and never spoke another line until the final battle. The enemies basically came in two badly-signposted difficulty tiers; the game's challenge vanished after the player managed to bash their way through any one of the "harder" areas, because everything else was either of a similar difficulty, or laughably easy. So, FF7 had those challenges to meet as well: carry the plot and provide challenges through to the end.

    I actually felt like the World of Ruin was an extremely strong part of the game. While it is true that each of the sections was sort of a single character featuring bit, on the other hand that wasn't a bad thing - it helped make sure that every character actually DID feel meaningful, and it felt good to recruit them again. The nonlinearity was very interesting, and frankly, FF6's combat was kind of a joke in general anyway - there were so many ways to just completely wreck your way through that game near-effortlessly that it really ended up not mattering anyway. There were so many ways (and effective ones at that) to instantly or near-instantly kill enemies, to kill groups of enemies, to deal ridiculous amounts of damage, that it really just was not hard to win your way through the game. Yeah, the endgame was easy... but the only real point in the game which was really actually challenging was the Flying Continent, and even there it wasn't too hard (especially if you ground on Intangir a bit).

    Truth is that almost all RPGs, particularly JRPGs, are easy.

    It was also an excellent example of non-linearity without feeling like you weren't doing anything. You had a good reason to do everything - you wanted your characters back and you got story along with it. The biggest problem was the lack of challenge... but frankly, that game was never very challenging to begin with.

    Incidentally, regarding grinding as being intrinsically rewarding:

    The truth is that grinding is a Skinner box technique. People BELIEVE that they are enjoying themselves (to some extent), but as it turns out... it doesn't really actually feel that rewarding to them in the long run. It is rather empty. This is not to say that people don't get a simple sort of pleasure out of repetitive tasks (that's why those techniques work after all) but it feels a lot less meaningful (and gives you a lot less) than a lot of games do.

  • Sterling7Sterling7 Registered User regular
    I have to confess- I'm a little disappointed that Allison has been so absent from EC after the fundraiser for her surgery, the whole rigmarole with the Escapist, and so on. Part of me feels like we were there for her, and she never completely came back for us.

    But I know that's probably not entirely fair. And the bottom line is that she has to do what's best for her, her future, and her career. So, good luck, Allison, wherever your path may take you.

  • boorulzboorulz Registered User new member
    Great episode as usual, but what if the slog is part of the experience of a game? I'm reminded of Fragile Dreams on the Wii. I remember that there is a lot of backtracking of the game, so there was often very little intrinsic reward in those times, but it really gave you an experience of being one of the only people left in the world. It may not have been the most "fun" game, but it was a fascinating experience and the backtracking only added to the experience.

    I'm also reminded that of the Japanese mentality regarding grinding. Yuji Horii, designer of Dragon Quest, stated that "In Japanese style, you have to try,try,try,try -- and then at the end you can finally get a reward. It (Dragon Quest) is like climbing up a steep mountain -- you have to keep climbing,climbing,climbing,climbing, and then at the end you finally get to the top of the mountain, and you see the beautiful view." What I get from the quote is that things are more rewarding if you have to work hard for them, so the thinking in game design may vary quite a bit culturally. Cultural differences in game design might make a cool episode in the future.

    I love the points you guys make, and I'm admittedly choosing games these days with more intrinsic rewards, but just some thinking points to add in.

  • boorulzboorulz Registered User new member
    Great episode as usual, but what if the slog is part of the experience of a game? I'm reminded of Fragile Dreams on the Wii. I remember that there is a lot of backtracking of the game, so there was often very little intrinsic reward in those times, but it really gave you an experience of being one of the only people left in the world. It may not have been the most "fun" game, but it was a fascinating experience and the backtracking only added to the experience.

    I'm also reminded that of the Japanese mentality regarding grinding. Yuji Horii, designer of Dragon Quest, stated that "In Japanese style, you have to try,try,try,try -- and then at the end you can finally get a reward. It (Dragon Quest) is like climbing up a steep mountain -- you have to keep climbing,climbing,climbing,climbing, and then at the end you finally get to the top of the mountain, and you see the beautiful view." What I get from the quote is that things are more rewarding if you have to work hard for them, so the thinking in game design may vary quite a bit culturally. Cultural differences in game design might make a cool episode in the future.

    I love the points you guys make, and I'm admittedly choosing games these days with more intrinsic rewards, but just some thinking points to add in.

  • MontiMonti Registered User new member
    A hearty welcome to Scott DeWitt and hopeful farewell to Allison.

  • Rect PolaRect Pola Registered User regular
    Will you add Scott/keep Allison on the title card?

  • MartinFG9MartinFG9 Registered User regular
    I imagine it will take a few weeks before a new begining is made.

  • cosmicatcosmicat Registered User new member
    I'm not sure I agree with the idea that it's impossible to make every part of a game intrinsically engaging. I mean, we probably can't make a game perfectly 100% intrinsically engaging to a maximum degree throughout the entire game, but it's certainly possible for some games to be at least somewhat engaging in every aspect to certain people (obviously this is subjective).

    I can't think of a single isolated element of Baten Kaitos II (a.k.a. Baten Kaitos Origins) that I don't find intrinsically rewarding. I enjoyed the combat system and deck-building; in most games, a "Coliseum" type thing would be a boring grind, but in this game it was a fun grind (at least until I got everyone so overpowered that I could just tap "A" to win in the second-highest tier). The characters, story, worldbuilding, etc. are excellent; very, very few RPGs equal it, IMHO, and most of those are "Western" RPGs. The artwork is great, and the English voice work is actually of reasonable quality (especially compared with that of its predecessor). Music? Yep. There is a reason this is still my favorite game.

  • ItsatrapItsatrap Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    I think Chris Hecker's GDC talk was brought up earlier; but here's the link for those interested in reading it. http://chrishecker.com/Achievements_Considered_Harmful? There's still a bit of an ongoing debate about this, particularly when people talk about doing things like adding achievements to education and stuff like that. The literature suggests that extrinsic motivation absolutely DOES work, but that it can simultaneously devalue the intrinsic appeal of an activity.

  • RologtonRologton Registered User regular
    This is a nice one because it actually got me to think about the games that I play. It's occurred to me that I really don't play games for extrinsic rewards. I play mostly RPG games like Skyrim because I like to role play and to experience the game itself. My all time favorite game is Morrowind, which I spent hours and hours playing growing up just because the world and the story were so interesting to me. Although some people might say with the sketchy early-2000s combat system I would be going through fighting just to get to everything else, in retrospect that's not really true. Growing up and playing it I thoroughly enjoyed the combat system and never felt like it was something I was slogging through. Even TF2, which is the game that I play the most, keeps me interested in playing just because it's fun. At that, there are some extrinsic things that I like about it. I'm not much of a trader, but I have traded around for some Stranges and am working on getting an unusual or two, and I really like leveling them up. Although I mostly play just because it's fun and because I love to play along with my buddies, now that my community is doing a contest that involves HLstats I'm checking my rank every couple of minutes, something that I never bothered to do before it. Even though I'm an Admin and can't really participate, it's still fun to get involved. This made me evaluate the games I play, well done.

  • KohryukunKohryukun Registered User new member
    Personally, I love Kingdom Hearts' silly plot. It's faaantastic.

    Also, when you really look at it, the "rules" of the Kingdom Hearts mythos are surprisingly pretty consistent.

  • Spiffy McBangSpiffy McBang Registered User regular
    This is a good reason to look at smaller games for entertainment; the less there is, the more likely every part is intrinsically engaging because every part has to carry more weight. Portal is probably the perfect example. The game is nothing except puzzles and GladOS, and they each carry their own weight easily. But I'm not going past that, because that's just begging for an unnecessary fight.

  • grigjd3grigjd3 Registered User regular
    Good episode. Brings us back to why we play games in the first place and why MGS IV should have simply been a movie for extreme fans of the series.

  • UncannyGarlicUncannyGarlic Registered User regular
    And man, I often praise KH overall. The game did so much right. The gameplay and the story/characters and worlds. I love it. Prolly one of the best series from SE ever tbh.
    I've only played the first two and Chain of Memories but the writing is mediocre at best, the voice acting is lackluster, and the subplots are poor rip-offs of Disney movies. The overarching story is generic but generally enjoyable. Setting aside those problems, the biggest gameplay problem was the lack of difficulty modes that presented any sort of challenge. The gameplay was fun but being able to inject some challenge into it would have elevated it so much. Great games but hardly perfect.
    boorulz wrote: »
    I'm also reminded that of the Japanese mentality regarding grinding. Yuji Horii, designer of Dragon Quest, stated that "In Japanese style, you have to try,try,try,try -- and then at the end you can finally get a reward. It (Dragon Quest) is like climbing up a steep mountain -- you have to keep climbing,climbing,climbing,climbing, and then at the end you finally get to the top of the mountain, and you see the beautiful view." What I get from the quote is that things are more rewarding if you have to work hard for them, so the thinking in game design may vary quite a bit culturally. Cultural differences in game design might make a cool episode in the future.
    That cultural difference has it's roots outside of game design as that's pretty much how work is in Japan (from what I've gathered). You have to push through being treated like crap for long time before you even have a chance of getting recognized. It's basically a war of attrition.
    Itsatrap wrote: »
    The literature suggests that extrinsic motivation absolutely DOES work, but that it can simultaneously devalue the intrinsic appeal of an activity.
    Achievements are effective at getting many people to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do. The problem is that some of the encouraged activities aren't particularly fun and worse yet, some harm the games' enjoyment for others (multiplayer achievements). The article you linked raises some good points. I miss not having achievements since so many of them are so bad and they are just so nagging.

  • rainbowhyphenrainbowhyphen Registered User regular
    This is the notion I've sought in understanding why I love the games I do. They are those games which in every single detail provide bliss, fractal marvels in which joy exists at every depth, and every leaf of every branch seems so obviously beholden to the tree as a whole.

    For me, Minecraft and Legend of Mana exemplify this principle. The former thrums deep within my mind with the relentless energy of an infinitude of worlds just waiting to be explored, while the latter, despite having only one world, affords an experience that is at every point meaningful and rewarding. Everything in that game feels hand-crafted in a deeply personal way. I'm not sure I could adequately describe it with words. You just might have to experience it for yourself.

    What about you? What games do you feel approach this ideal of game design?

    raise-this-arm-to-initiate-revolution.png
  • ms1ms1 Registered User new member
    great clip, love the animation. asked why so many times playin games, stopped me playing too much gta san andreas, football manager, rpgs etc. fave past games for intrinsic rewards include onimusha (fun sword dynamics), Dirt 1-3 and archery game on Wii :p

  • Time PantsTime Pants Registered User regular
    I'm not into racing games at all. The only racing game I've ever played to completion was Mario Kart 64. Since then, I've probably only played maybe a dozen or so laps TOTAL across a handful of racing games (outside of the arcades, anyway). Some games, though, just have the most perfect driving mechanics that, if I'm not paying attention, will steal away hours of playtime from the main quest. Some real winners that stand out are the motorcycles in Vice City, bicycles, dirt bikes, and the (oddly specific) Blista Compact in San Andreas, and the dune buggy in Borderlands 2. It's almost as though their engines were designed to match the frequency of my brain.


    I'm sure this all sounds totally ridiculous, but when I'm behind the wheel of one of those rides, the controller momentarily vanishes and the vehicle becomes a perfect extension of myself--it's self-actualization manifest in my own digital counterpoint. So, yeah. Probably crazy.

    But I totally get where you're coming from. The problem is, whether a given design element is extrinsically rewarding is fairly straightforward. Intrinsic rewards are often inscrutably subjective. My two best friends with whom I play Borderlands 2 just HATE the driving mechanics. They also loved doing missions and progressing the story in GTA, whereas I always felt the joyless slog of completing story missions was simply the toll I had to pay to access the rest of the map.

    Game designers should absolutely strive to make every part of their game as intrinsically rewarding as possible, but I feel that a very important part of succeeding in that undertaking is realizing and accepting that some people will find the finished product unrewarding. Designing for a particular audience and with a clear purpose and vision is crucial to maximize its potential for intrinsically rewarding gameplay. Trying to design a game that has "a little something for everyone" virtually guarantees a schizophrenic, shallow finished product. A more ideal outcome would be a game that has "a lot of something for quite a few people," ensuring that the game is accessible to a large audience and has enough of those joyful good bits to keep everyone playing and having a good time.

  • dracoslayer16dracoslayer16 Registered User regular
    It's because of this ideology that I realized most F2P and MMO games are bad/boring. There are good ones out there definitely, but most of them are just skinner boxes with money slots on the front. Developers seem to think these days that gamers are just piles of meat with wallets and as long as they can keep pulling you along just enough, you will keep putting money into the slot. FFXIII was the absolute best example of this. Many people stated "you know the game gets a bit more fun about 20 hours into the game when it goes 'slightly' open world" and to that I respond: "so I have to waist 20 hours of my own time on a bad game to get to a subpar part of the same game? Nope"

  • SSaintSSaint Registered User new member
    I'd prefer to see an episode focusing on how to design intrinsic rewards rather than one saying, "extrinsic rewards are bad, mkay?" Also you kind of already did this episode back in Season 1. Something about skinner boxes. The intrinsic vs. extrinsic dichotomy is basically just another name for the engagement vs. compulsion one you talked about in that episode.

  • DorkenmoreDorkenmore Registered User new member
    I'm not sure if I'm necessarily okay with the way they define intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, not because I believe that they are definitively wrong but that they take subjective concepts and assume they are objective. A couple of main examples they used were Final Fantasy's and World of Warcraft's combat systems which were only stop-gaps to what they really wanted; story and gear, respectively. The problem that I had with their definition of what is and is not intrinsic or extrinsic is that they made it sound like what makes a game mechanic "good or bad" in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic rewards is inherent to the game mechanic itself. They imply that World of Warcraft combat is inherently worthless in terms of its gameplay to reward relationship while my sister, who is a huge fan of checklisk/grindy objectives, because the act of completing it is a blast to her, even if she couldn't care less about the reward that comes after. I'm not as huge of a fan of grinding, but I can understand the appeal, along with the allure of the rewards that come after. To speak to his FF7 example with the combat. I personally adore FF style combat and love to take part in such battles on the road to acquiring story, which I love as well. To my sister, WoW's combat has intrinsic rewards, and to myself, so does Final Fantasy combat.

    I realize that what they are probably referring to is the relationship between Final Fantasy story being the "reward" for combat, or WoW's combat being a stop-gap for getting new gear. I understand that. That being said, if a game mechanic is fun to us, we never seem to need to find a reason to quantify whether it is currently giving us the intended reward or not. This is because we find these mechanics inherently rewarding, and any extra rewards, such as story in Final Fantasy or gear in WoW are simply next steps, not rewards for blind commitment which Extra Credits implies these game mechanics are.

    What if there was a Final Fantasy player was someone of the inverse who loved combat but hated story segments? Would you then be able to say that enduring the story will yield extrinsic rewards by being a stop-gap to getting to the combat? It is in this situation where the player taking part in combat would say that they are getting intrinsic rewards by doing so.

    I don't know... I don't necessarily say that they are wrong, but it seems like the types of scenarios they are talking about aren't as cut-and-dried as they imply they are in relation to intrinsic or extrinsic rewards.

  • DorkenmoreDorkenmore Registered User new member
    I'm not sure if I'm necessarily okay with the way they define intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, not because I believe that they are definitively wrong but that they take subjective concepts and assume they are objective. A couple of main examples they used were Final Fantasy's and World of Warcraft's combat systems which were only stop-gaps to what they really wanted; story and gear, respectively. The problem that I had with their definition of what is and is not intrinsic or extrinsic is that they made it sound like what makes a game mechanic "good or bad" in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic rewards is inherent to the game mechanic itself. They imply that World of Warcraft combat is inherently worthless in terms of its gameplay to reward relationship while my sister, who is a huge fan of checklisk/grindy objectives, because the act of completing it is a blast to her, even if she couldn't care less about the reward that comes after. I'm not as huge of a fan of grinding, but I can understand the appeal, along with the allure of the rewards that come after. To speak to his FF7 example with the combat. I personally adore FF style combat and love to take part in such battles on the road to acquiring story, which I love as well. To my sister, WoW's combat has intrinsic rewards, and to myself, so does Final Fantasy combat.

    I realize that what they are probably referring to is the relationship between Final Fantasy story being the "reward" for combat, or WoW's combat being a stop-gap for getting new gear. I understand that. That being said, if a game mechanic is fun to us, we never seem to need to find a reason to quantify whether it is currently giving us the intended reward or not. This is because we find these mechanics inherently rewarding, and any extra rewards, such as story in Final Fantasy or gear in WoW are simply next steps, not rewards for blind commitment which Extra Credits implies these game mechanics are.

    What if there was a Final Fantasy player was someone of the inverse who loved combat but hated story segments? Would you then be able to say that enduring the story will yield extrinsic rewards by being a stop-gap to getting to the combat? It is in this situation where the player taking part in combat would say that they are getting intrinsic rewards by doing so.

    I don't know... I don't necessarily say that they are wrong, but it seems like the types of scenarios they are talking about aren't as cut-and-dried as they imply they are in relation to intrinsic or extrinsic rewards.

  • LazyDogJumperLazyDogJumper Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    Intrinsic and Extrinsic value are completely objective. I believe they are just advising people to consider it more when choosing what games they play in order to gain more entertainment from it. And for designers to consider it more when designing the gameplay itself.

    LazyDogJumper on
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