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Are you playing videogames just for gold stars?
emnmnme
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Videogames are fun and addicting but are figurative pats on the head driving that fun?
Every one of us has other hobbies besides gaming but we still sneak a bit of interactive electronic entertainment every now and then. And I'm sure there are plenty of times where we play the same kind of game or genre more that a few times. I thought about what drives us to play single-player games and I kept coming back to the same reason - positive reinforcement. While there's some fun in the doing, and some fun listening to and participating in a story, I'm going to say the biggest unspoken draws for gamers is achieving simple goals and a sense of progress. Games today are designed to be won and you get all the gratification of a job well done with the fraction of the effort real life requires.
Basically, all games provide consistent, manageable challenges with easy-to-understand rules. You can't fail if you play as intended and you'll most certainly get a polygonal reward or ending for your time. If those things don't happen, game critics would call the game broken or the design flawed. It's easy to see this idea happening in MMOs, where you grind and grind for a piece of armor. A little fun in the doing but the real drive is the good feeling you get when you meet your goal and collect your virtual prize. Who doesn't feel good about snagging purplez in WoW?
"But sir," you say. "What about games that don't end. Games like Tetris or Geometry Wars that give you no reward for playing." True, the games can't be won but you can make goals for yourself. Growing up, my cousin was only interested in my Game Boy and Tetris (she played it for hours) and was only interested in Tetris to beat her old count of lines completed. I'm gonna say that if that counter weren't there - if I had covered it up with a piece of paper - she'd lose interest in the game after fifteen minutes. Without that fuzzy, gooey feeling of beating a hi-score, playing games just isn't worth the effort.
Let me put it this way. We all know about the Zelda games, Nintendo's famous franchise. You play the games to save the land and beat bosses. This time, though, I change the Zelda game so a dungeon has no new item. The boss dies but he doesn't give you a heart. And there's no crystal or whatever in the room behind him. You wouldn't have it! Without compensation or congratulations, you'd feel robbed even though the trip to get to the boss was fun. Hell, you'd be more blah about Zelda if they didn't have that exciting little tune that comes along with opening a big chest.
Would you bother playing Final Fantasy 7 if your character started at Lvl. 99 with all the items? Would NFL games be pointless without points? Is what we're really looking for out of our XBOX consoles a pat on the back and is that positive reinforcement what causes gaming addiction?
Of course, the Tycoon games and Sim City games don't quite fit the 'carrot on a stick' gameplay so I might be wrong.
Every one of us has other hobbies besides gaming but we still sneak a bit of interactive electronic entertainment every now and then. And I'm sure there are plenty of times where we play the same kind of game or genre more that a few times. I thought about what drives us to play single-player games and I kept coming back to the same reason - positive reinforcement. While there's some fun in the doing, and some fun listening to and participating in a story, I'm going to say the biggest unspoken draws for gamers is achieving simple goals and a sense of progress. Games today are designed to be won and you get all the gratification of a job well done with the fraction of the effort real life requires.
Basically, all games provide consistent, manageable challenges with easy-to-understand rules. You can't fail if you play as intended and you'll most certainly get a polygonal reward or ending for your time. If those things don't happen, game critics would call the game broken or the design flawed. It's easy to see this idea happening in MMOs, where you grind and grind for a piece of armor. A little fun in the doing but the real drive is the good feeling you get when you meet your goal and collect your virtual prize. Who doesn't feel good about snagging purplez in WoW?
"But sir," you say. "What about games that don't end. Games like Tetris or Geometry Wars that give you no reward for playing." True, the games can't be won but you can make goals for yourself. Growing up, my cousin was only interested in my Game Boy and Tetris (she played it for hours) and was only interested in Tetris to beat her old count of lines completed. I'm gonna say that if that counter weren't there - if I had covered it up with a piece of paper - she'd lose interest in the game after fifteen minutes. Without that fuzzy, gooey feeling of beating a hi-score, playing games just isn't worth the effort.
Let me put it this way. We all know about the Zelda games, Nintendo's famous franchise. You play the games to save the land and beat bosses. This time, though, I change the Zelda game so a dungeon has no new item. The boss dies but he doesn't give you a heart. And there's no crystal or whatever in the room behind him. You wouldn't have it! Without compensation or congratulations, you'd feel robbed even though the trip to get to the boss was fun. Hell, you'd be more blah about Zelda if they didn't have that exciting little tune that comes along with opening a big chest.
Would you bother playing Final Fantasy 7 if your character started at Lvl. 99 with all the items? Would NFL games be pointless without points? Is what we're really looking for out of our XBOX consoles a pat on the back and is that positive reinforcement what causes gaming addiction?
Of course, the Tycoon games and Sim City games don't quite fit the 'carrot on a stick' gameplay so I might be wrong.
emnmnme on
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Whatever gives you enjoyment out of life, man.
You could make the argument that video games help with hand-eye coordination, problem solving, 3 visualization (something lots of people find difficult) and so on.
I've been having a harder and harder time playing games that are not multiplayer. Computers simply do not much up enough of a fight, it isn't intellectually challenging enough. Which seems to be related to this thread, since I used to play far more video games than I do now.
Well, then you have a sweet classic car.
But honestly, I came to terms with this stuff a long-ass time ago. I play to have fun, not for results.
That's not the point of the OP and maybe the thread's title is making the wrong impression....hmmm.
Anyways, your Dad is learning a skill and can probably handle Car Mechanics 101. So he's probably into his hobby both for the reward of a restored car and to better himself with a little education on auto repair. I don't think too many folks play videogames specifically to better their hand-eye coordination.
Do you? Do you really play for fun? I have no idea what games you play but unless you're addicted to Sim City and Bejeweled, I think you're playing for belly rubs and gold stars.
SO IS FUCKING WHEN YOU'RE WEARING A CONDOM AND SHE'S ON THE PILL
THIS DOES NOT MAKE EITHER ACTIVITY ANY LESS WORTHWHILE
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
"Ugh, Prince Henry here is ugly, sickly, and spoiled... guess who's going on a crusade before he can breed!"
- Some games are harder than fuck, so your "simple reward" argument doesn't always hold.
- A lot of games give you no material rewards outside of the satisfaction of a job well done. Geometry Wars is a fantastic and popular game, and all you get for your troubles is more shit trying to kill you.
- A lot of people actively clamor for increasing challenge. If they wanted an easy pat on the back, this wouldn't be the case.
- Your example with Zelda fails. People would be upset if they didn't get new powers and items because those things are an established part of the franchise and of the genre. In a non-Zelda game, a lack of such rewards might fly.
- And anyway, you misunderstand the purpose of those rewards. They serve to prepare the player for later challenges, and to add diversity to the gameplay, not to provide meaningless warm fuzzies.
- Who pissed in your game console, anyway?
- No, seriously?
I'm sorry, do you disagree?
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Hold it - here's where I disagree. How about throwing out a game where there is no end to the puzzles to solve? Say you like stealth games like Splinter Cell. I make a big level full of patrolling guards that you can't kill or disable. Also, there is no end to the level (it's a big circle) and there are no objectives. You're gameplay is just to avoid guards, exactly as it is in other Splinter Cell games.
You have the challenge of staying stealthy but I bet you couldn't play this one for half an hour. Throw on some glossy frosting like story elements and an ending and your boss telling you you're the best spy in the world after each level and you'd instantly turn it into a hit.
You mean sort of like Halo, where the second half of the game was just the first half in reverse, but with story elements and cut scenes? Yeah, that went over splendidly. Nobody bitched about that at all.
Honestly, this is arguably the stupidest condemnation of video games I've ever read.
This game would become boring simply because you are doing the same thing over and over for half an hour. It has nothing to do with there being no levels or ending.
I can agree with some of that except two things stand out - for every 'Ninja Gaiden' there are fifty easy 'beat in one rental' games on the market. Out of all the big holiday releases this year, only Contra 4 and the new flavor of Geometry Wars on the Wii are 'hard.' Bioshock made you immortal, for crying out loud.
And two, what if the next Zelda game put all the items and goodies outside of the dungeons? You don't need to go into a dungeon to fight the boss and get a heart piece and the boomerang - the dungeon is totally a side quest without reward. Would you still bother with the dungeon if you weren't required to go in there or rewarded for your time with a goodie?
And in reply to your last post: I could make a game where you stare at a blank screen. Guess what, it wouldn't sell poorly because it has no super reward, it would sell poorly because it's boring.
I'm gonna send you an Atari 2600 for Christmas, quid. Let's see how long that entertains you.
Or is that not old school enough?
All games have goals. Beginnings and ends. If you win at the end, you feel good because you completed the goal of the game. And if you had fun while attempting to complete the goal, then it was a good game.
Yes, but rebuilding a car is hard work - games are designed to be relatively easy challenges where you can't fail. I'm wondering if that's why games can be addicting - all the little hurdles provide just enough satisfaction so you don't have to worry about real failure in real life.
If you can't figure out why your rebuilt car won't start, you'll spend hours reading up on what the problem could be. If you can't figure out a boss' weakness in five minutes or less, the boss is poorly designed. See a difference?
Because I've beaten Elite Beat Agents through Hard Rock and jesus fuck did I do a whole lot of failing along the way.
Well, sure. I don't see this as a terribly controversial claim.
Although I don't think your comparison to the car is fair. People can spend days, weeks, years perfecting their strategies in some of the more long-form games (e.g. Starcraft, chess, soccer)
Oh come on. You failed some songs on purpose so you could have an excuse to listen to 'Canned Heat' and 'Jumpin Jack Flash' just one more time. I'm sure if I looked on youtube, there'd be a corny movie of INeedNoSalt rocking out to 'La La.'
And flamebroiledchicken, while I agree that there are fanatics out there that will spend weeks on a chess strategy, that's not the norm.
AHA! Why don't you like impossible game? Because they're not fun.
Why aren't impossible games fun to complete? Because they're not rewarding for the amount of effort you put in them.
Ta da. Let's not kid ourselves - the fun is in the reward, not the doing. :!:
It's both. Like I said, if you had fun while trying to get the reward, it was a good game. If not, it wasn't. If games just had to provide simple challenges and simple rewards, people wouldn't complain about games that are "too easy" or even "bad" in general. Why do some people love Halo and some people hate it, even if both beat the game and got the sense of accomplishment? Because some people had fun while getting there, and some people found it dull.
Setting arbitrary but manageable goals and then seeing if you can meet those goals is fun. Is this a news flash to anybody? This is why people play football. This is why people climb mountains. This is why old men play chess and old ladies play solitaire. This is why Lance Armstrong rode in the Tour De France instead of on a stationary exercycle.
If achievements and victory screens are "belly rubs and gold stars" then so is a World fucking Cup.
So who did piss in your game console, anyway?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Does anyone read the bolded part and not find it to be completely ridiculous?
Also, Tetris.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Seriously, Bernard Suits even defined playing a game as "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles". Although that made be a bit too wide of a definition, the "lusory attitude" of the players (the rules are accepted just because they make the game possible, despite their being illogical or innefficient) is a huge part of game-playing.
OK, but take fighting games. This might be a bad example since fighting games are more enjoyable but why is there always a single player story included? Why not just have a practice mode where you fight an opponent with infinite life and that's all? I say players need the illusion of progression even though all stories in fighting games are cheesy as hell.
Who is this Bernard Suits and where can I subscribe to his newsletter?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well, it's a way to add a bit more to the experience by providing a slight scaffolding, and hopefully some AI opponents that present enough of a challenge to either make it difficult enough to be fun and to help you learn to play better.
And um.
The "illusion" is kinda actually progress. I don't understand what in life you think actually constitutes non-illusory progress.