Why do players prefer to fight than help? And how to change it.
The ultimate skill for game creators? Understanding your players' needs. It's no easy feat, but there's a psychological theory that can help. Curious? Keep reading! 👇
Players' behavior often differs from the designer's assumptions. Here comes a story from the development of a highly acclaimed game. Its creators of this game asked themselves:
"Can we have an online game where people feel friendly and compassionate towards each other?"
Devs created a prototype with the goal of incentivizing positive cooperation. Players can push other players to help them reach the higher platform and pull each other.
Here is my super professional visualization (not actual gameplay footage):
They put this to a playtest.
What was the result?
Players chose violence.
Instead of cooperation, they preferred pushing each other from the cliff. (again, not in-game footage):
"Is humanity at its core just dark?"
That was the question creators asked themselves.
Thankfully, no.
It was caused by the need for relatedness, one of the three core human needs specified by the self-determination theory. Thanks to understanding players' needs only a small change was enough to transform players from jerks to loyal companions.
I'll tell you how they solved it and reveal the name of the game.
But before that - let's talk psychology.
Human motivation can be:
Extrinsic (basically, when you're doing something to get a reward or avoid punishment)
Intrinsic (when you're doing something because you enjoy it) You're intrinsically motivated when you're playing the guitar or watching movies. Or playing games.
In the mid-80s, Richard Ryan and Edward L. Deci wrote that people can become self-determined when their needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy are fulfilled. Their work was called Self-Determination Theory (SDT).
When our needs are met through engaging in an activity, we experience strong intrinsic motivation to continue doing it.
Games, with features such as clear goals, feedback, and customizable environments, provide an excellent space for fulfilling those needs.
This is why games can be incredibly engaging. But how can we apply this concept in practice? Today, let's focus on one of those needs - relatedness - and explore how the designers of Portal game used it for their benefit.
They created a series of puzzles demanding the creative usage of a cube. However, there was an issue - players tended to leave the cube after solving a puzzle instead of taking it with them to the next part of the level.
So they gave this cube a personality changing it to beloved Companion Cube. Besides, getting a lovely look, it got a name and a place in the story. Moreover, the game told explicitly players that the cube BELONGED to them and that they should take care of it.
With the help of some clever dialogues hinting that the Companion Cube might be something more than just a cube, Portal creators did something amazing - got players attached to the simple, inanimate object.
Then, they instructed the players to destroy it, fully aware that this would evoke a sense of guilt due to the emotional attachment.
It was possible because we all have a need for relatedness - the desire to feel loved, connected to others, and meaningfully involved with the broader social world.
Of course, we can fulfill that need through interactions with real people. Multiplayer games can be a space for that giving us a common goal and topic to talk about making them basically ice-breaking exercises (unless someone is insulting your mother).
But, humans can relate to fictional characters. Or even objects as in the Portal example. Game creators can use it for different purposes - e.g. when your task is to provide survival to a group of people knowing their motivations, stories or even names makes it more meaningful.
And how can we fulfill OUR need for relatedness? According to self-determination theory:
1. We want to be seen by others.
We want to feel that full attention is given to us and we're being listened to. That's why good game design puts a player in the center. We don't necessarily need to save the world but players should feel that they are important.
2. We would like to be supported.
It doesn't refer only to literal support but being rescued by others can build relatedness. We want to feel that people fully understand our feelings and empathize with them.
3. We want to influence others.
In real life, it could be as simple as someone laughing at our joke, but in games, we have opportunities to have a more profound impact on others. We can kill a monster who terrorized the whole village changing life of people living there.
But not only.
Remember the example from the beginning? Developers wanted to create a unique online experience in which players will be compassionate towards each other. Prototype failed. Players were killing each other by pushing from the cliff.
The game was called Journey and was developed by thatgamecompany.
We already know that they succeeded - today, it's widely perceived as one of the most beautiful online experiences in gaming.
So, how did creators change the players' behavior?
They realized that players were experimenting in that environment searching for the most interesting action to do. The action with the most powerful feedback and influence on others was pushing somebody to die.
Especially, since Journey doesn't have any voice or text communication between players, so there weren't many other ways to impact other players.
So, the creators changed the reward: they disabled the collisions between players and added a feature of charging energy when you got close to someone.
As Jenova Chen said in The Verge's article:
“And so that makes people feel like ‘Oh, I love to stay near someone because I don’t have to run to find the energy,’” he said. “So they end up sticking together, and they travel together, and they form a companionship.
That's a fantastic example of how the relatedness need can both negatively impact the design of the game and be used to strengthen it.
This post is based on the talk “Psychology of engagement - understand needs of your players” that I gave at @GameDevSession
I posted about two other needs - competence and autonomy. Here you can read about them:
Curious to read more? Here are my sources:
BOOK: Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound, Scott Rigby, Richard M. Ryan
BOOK: The Psychology of Video Games, Celia Hodent
GDC TALK: The Freedom Fallacy: Understanding "Player Autonomy" in Game Design
GOOGLE SCHOLAR: Self-determination theory