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Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#12This is also the type of psychology that keeps me coming back to hacker news. I keep returning on the off chance that someone will post a good article even though the chance that the reward is present is random.
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#13I think this article is ridiculous. "The biggest thing that unequivocally separates social gaming from gambling is that the players have no ability to tangibly recoup the money put into the game." Oh you mean like the video games I used to play in arcades? Like Gauntlet, which was one of the first quarter suckers? How many days did I go without a lunch so that I could play Spyhunter, Elevator Action, or Gauntlet? But…
I think you're missing the point here. I sank tons of money into arcade games just as you did, however neither one of us needed to add quarters during gameplay to get new items to use. You also can't compare purchasing a console game to the money that gets used in social games. Your points of comparison are apples and oranges. I can respect that you feel comparing social games to gambling is wrong, but it's purely subjective. Gambling and gaming are both forms of entertainment that cost money. If you set aside your bias and look at the facts of the game mechanics, you'll see that the comparison is actually spot on.
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#14"To play the game, you put currency into the machine. You then pull the knob and wait for the result. When the result is presented, you are rewarded with a cacophony of exciting sounds, attention-grabbing images, and some form of currency. Often times, this winning helps you progress towards a larger goal. You also have the opportunity with each play to win a rare prize of significantly higher value than the value of…
Yeah, that wand of wishing that drops off of some random orc is always fun.
Though things get a little bit easy once you get your two blessed scrolls of charging, blessed Platinum Yendorian Express Card, blessed Orb of Fate, blessed +3 silver dragon scale mail, and whatever else you can wish up from the remaining charges.
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#15I think this article is ridiculous. "The biggest thing that unequivocally separates social gaming from gambling is that the players have no ability to tangibly recoup the money put into the game." Oh you mean like the video games I used to play in arcades? Like Gauntlet, which was one of the first quarter suckers? How many days did I go without a lunch so that I could play Spyhunter, Elevator Action, or Gauntlet? But…
The difference is that one type of game has mechanics and the other doesn't. Social games are like gambling in that they both strictly put you in a Skinner's box, and there is no game-loop. Traditional video games have strong game-loops and this is a different kind of enjoyment.
There is overlap, especially in RPG's, but the big difference is that you can enjoy traditional games without the rewards.
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#16Wow article got knocked from 3rd to 35th instantly. Downvotes are incredibly overpowered
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#17Wow article got knocked from 3rd to 35th instantly. Downvotes are incredibly overpowered
Yeah, WTF?
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#18"To play the game, you put currency into the machine. You then pull the knob and wait for the result. When the result is presented, you are rewarded with a cacophony of exciting sounds, attention-grabbing images, and some form of currency. Often times, this winning helps you progress towards a larger goal. You also have the opportunity with each play to win a rare prize of significantly higher value than the value of…
Y'know, I think most roguelikes are a bit more respectable than the pure super-optimized Skinner boxes that Zynga and Blizzard produce.
Why? Because you die. A lot. And when you die, you need to start all over again. And you make progress further and further into the dungeon on successive games, by learning from your mistakes and honing your strategy. And if you don't learn, you don't progress.
Contrast to WoW, where (as I understand it without having ever played it) death is merely a mild inconvenience, and you forever level up and up and up just by grinding away at it -- getting to the highest level is largely just a matter of being patient.
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#19I think this article is ridiculous. "The biggest thing that unequivocally separates social gaming from gambling is that the players have no ability to tangibly recoup the money put into the game." Oh you mean like the video games I used to play in arcades? Like Gauntlet, which was one of the first quarter suckers? How many days did I go without a lunch so that I could play Spyhunter, Elevator Action, or Gauntlet? But…
The difference is that one type of game has mechanics and the other doesn't. Social games are like gambling in that they both strictly put you in a Skinner's box, and there is no game-loop. Traditional video games have strong game-loops and this is a different kind of enjoyment. There is overlap, especially in RPG's, but the big difference is that you can enjoy traditional games without the rewards.
What do you mean by "game loop"?
Surely something like Farmville has some gameplay elements, right? I've never played it, but there are some choices to be made (shall I get chickens or cows), right?
Re: Exposing Social Gaming's Hidden Lever
#20Very interesting, it's the same mechanism behind email/Twitter addiction: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/28/email.addic...
Nice catch.
"Random Reward Schedule" and "variable interval reinforcement schedule" look like different names for the same concept, but looking closer the former seems to cover both time and reward, and the latter focuses on the time component. Am I reading this correctly?