Rosenfeld Media - Playful Design: Interview with Stone Librande, Lead Designer at Maxis
Q: How do you guide players’ behavior in games?
A: A lot of those ideas you learned in Psych 101 like reinforcement schedules are fundamental to game design. People are subject to the same behavioral influences as pigeons and rats. You can influence the players’ behavior by attaching a meaningful reward to the actions you want them to take. For example, say you’re designing a card game and you want players to try to collect three 3’s. You could force them to do that by making it the winning condition — there’s your reward. Or you can make people pursue that same goal less aggressively by saying that three 3’s are worth 3 points, while all other collections of cards are worth one point.
The most powerful reward you can give a player is a social reward. Intrinsic rewards are nice, but adding in a social component exploits people’s basic competitive nature. If someone else has something that you don’t have, you’ll work really hard to obtain it. There’s also a element of inclusion, of being part of an in-group that’s tied together by the game experience.
Source: rosenfeldmedia.com
