PSYCHOLOGY IN GAMING, WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO PLAY?

This week Hal Sandbach from D3T gave a stout lecture raising topics such as how to pitch games and then moving onto various psychological aspects that games entail to please, guide and retain players.

An interesting point Hal mentioned was how by the use of ‘Zeigarnik effect’ and ‘Endowed progress effect’ players can be effectively made to continue quests and elongate their playtime.

Firstly these psychological terms mean that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks remember them more than completed tasks (Koffka, 1935) . This coupled with the endowed progress effect of when people have some progress towards a goal they feel more committed and inclined to continue towards this goal (Nunes & Dreze, 2006), allows developers (especially in RPG games) produce content to keep players playing and aiming them at goals they determine. This can give development teams various benefits, like retaining a fan base after release, thus increasing free word-of-mouth advertising for a product that some people may have no intention of normally looking into yet find themselves drawn into investigating due to their friends mentioning the product.

Looking deeper, this could explain how MMO’s keep their subscribers. Aspects such as large amounts of quests, levels, equipment and more keep the players always on a thread to the next goal or target. This can be seen in the FFXIV MMO (Square Enix Business Division 5) where you level from 1 to 60, giving the player a goal straight away of hitting ‘max cap’. Furthermore there is a storyline full of quests and even extra side quests, with most players adding this to their goals within the game to ‘complete the storyline’. These two aspects of the game would take substantial time to complete, experience of the game and looking at the times collated by gamers are around the 130 hour mark (Jones, 2017) (this is before expansions). Comparing this to the fact the average ‘core gamer’ in the US plays around 22 (Siegal, 2014) hours per week then this would mean that Square Enix the producer of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn would at least get two subscriptions of £8.99 from a player, this is even before any additional content which exponentially increases the time players must play the game.

The fact that psychology is interwoven in such ways that consumers do not focus on such aspects is a great testament to the development. Indeed in many ways it increases the enjoyment for the player, giving vast content and the feeling of progress, as much as benefits the developer of the product with increasing profitability and even marketing of the game.

(Above) Hal Sandbach (D3T) at the University Of Bolton game jam.

References:

Jones, H. (2017, Febuary 17). Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Retrieved from Howlongtobeat.com: https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=12654 [Accessed on 17/02/17]

Koffka, K. (1935). Principles Of Gestalt Psychology. In K. Koffka, Principles Of Gestalt Psychology (p. 334). London: Lund Humphries.

Nunes, J. C., & Dreze, X. (2006). The endowed progress effect: how artificial advancement increases effort. Journal Of Consumer Research, 504-512.

Siegal, J. (2014, May 14). This is how much time the average gamer spends playing games every week. Retrieved from BGR: http://bgr.com/2014/05/14/time-spent-playing-video-games/ [Accessed on 17/02/17]

Square Enix Business Division 5. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (2014), [PC Software]. Square Enix, Shinjuku, Tokyo.

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