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The Skinner Box - How Games Condition People to Play More - Extra Credits

Extra Credits

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  • Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 14 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.
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1.1M views14 years ago2 recommendations

Game developmentGame design

Extra Credits explains how game developers use Skinner box operant conditioning and reward schedules to keep players engaged, arguing for better design alternatives.

Engaging design is extremely important in games, but too often simple reward systems are used to keep players playing longer or spending more money on in-game purchases. There are far more interesting and immersive mechanics you can choose to put in your games. Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday! bit.ly/SubToEC (---More below) (Original air date: November 24, 2010) _______ Get your Extra Credits gear at the store! bit.ly/ExtraStore Play games with us on Extra Play! bit.ly/WatchEXP Watch more episodes from this season of Extra Credits! bit.ly/2nrLiSZ Contribute community subtitles to Extra Credits: youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg&ta… Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): bit.ly/ECTweet Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/ECFBPage Get our list of recommended games on Steam: bit.ly/ECCurator _________ Would you like James to speak at your school or organization? For info, contact us at: contact@extra-credits.net _________ ♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM bit.ly/1eIHTDS ♪ Outro Music: "Consent (Make Me Dance)" by djpretzel ocremix.org/remix/OCR01186/

Why it's here

2 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as a clear explanation of how games employ operant conditioning and Skinner boxes to drive player engagement.

pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Playing video games can improve our lives”

> time slips away It doesn't help that many modern games explicitly use Operant Conditioning to keep people playing. MMOs and "free to play" games are notorious, but you will find Skinner Boxes in a lot of modern games. Extra Credits has a nice overview, which includes a few design suggestions which games can use instead of hooking players with a reward schedule. link to this video Also, it's not just games - you will find Operant Conditioning style reward schedules in some "social media" businesses, too, which can waste someone's day just as bad as any game.
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gloglaon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Parents Who Pay to Be Watched”

Take a look at this video 1 for explanation, and possibly other Extra Credits videos if you're interested in game design. 1: link to this video
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u/ztherionin r/compsci • Mentions

On “What are some good, recent CS topics/controversies that are ethically questionable?”

The design of systems which exploit human psychology in order to encourage a behavior or increase a profit. Some examples: - Video game design (See Extra Credits' Skinner Box episode) - The use of social networks for political purposes. For example, A Facebook experiment showed that Facebook can increase voter turnout by changing what information a user is shown. Imagine if a social network only showed such information to members of a certain political or demographic group? - The design of digital advertising and how that design is used to encourage people to change their behavior
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YCodeon Hacker News • Mentions

On “How I Kicked My Smartphone Addiction, and Never Looked Back”

It was a long time ago and I wish I was less foggy on the details but I read this comment on Reddit by a purported neuroscientist or some such who was talking about how we don't actually enjoy social media. They described basically what you've said. We take the actions and get the tiny reward and our brain gets a little jolt of there you did it but when it comes right down to it we don't actually enjoy the activity. More importantly, we're no more satisfied when we finish the activity than we were when we started, we just do it because we've become conditioned to. I suppose a more concrete source would be the Extra Credits video on Skinner Boxes: link to this video
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Mentions

On “EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes”

…lue to the people playing the game, so trading them for lootboxes with uncertain contents is still a "wager". The gaming industry could solve a lot of this mess if they simply *sold people the game (or game pieces) directly as a defined product. Of course, that wouldn't exploit the human weakness to operant conditioning2... ~sigh~ 1 link 2 link to this video…
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stcredzeroon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Activision Blizzard staff reportedly bracing for layoffs”

These days though, monetization frequently means vastly inferior games make way, way more money. To an algorithm, or a metric, even miserable feeling variable schedule or reward addiction looks like "engagement." So if there's "engagement" and money, why should companies do anything different? link to this video So how is it that games which have "art" don't come along, charge a bit less money, and win in the marketplace? I guess the argument can be made that they do, but they're in the minority. I wonder if there aren't also generational issues? Maybe the environment of today, where even young people have tablets and smartphones is just a different one?
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