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[FatHat]

Tetris, Bejeweled, Peggle, Desktop Tower Defense, The Sims

Why are these games so addictive?

My first crack at a list.

- They establish a state of flow
  - consistent, predictable rhythm
  - no interruptions
  - game becomes challenging only once player is invested
- Low upfront investment
  - Short sessions - player does not feel that they have to invest a large chunk of time.
  - Doesn't always feel like playing a game -- can be fired up when procrastinating on something more important (Oh hai Bejeweled... thank you for wasting half my life)

Useful but not required:
- Player is building something
- Interface is simple

What else is missing?

(Bonus question: What other games establish the psychological state of flow well?)

[moi]

long term + short term rewards

[Bree]

Easy to learn, difficult to master.

[Montoli]

Good "momentum".

"Moves" are quick to make, and at any given point, you almost always have at least one "obvious" move.  You make it.  The game tells you what happens.  You COULD quit now, but there's another obvious move right there in front of you.  Aww man.  Ok, maybe one more move....  etc.


Tactics games also utilize this pattern really well, I think.  Final Fantasy Tactics, for example, can often become a "oh hey, how did it get to be 4 in the morning?" game.  Because, you know.  You look at the board.  There is almost always at least one obvious move.  (A monster that a guy is right next to, or someone that needs healing, or whatever.)  So you make the obvious move because it's... obvious.  And then you make another obvious move.  You make all the obvious moves on your side, and then you're like "well, I should finish the turn, since I've already done a bunch..."  And you finish the turn.  And watch the CPU take its turn, and see how it came out.

And you WOULD turn it off now, since this would be a logical place to turn it off.  But...  Man, look at that!  The ogre is standing right next to your knight, and even has his back to him!  Maybe you'll just do this one obvious move before you go to bed...


etc.


That's my take on it at least.  Based partly on introspection.  (which is always dangerous) but at least some conversations with friends have seemed to back it up, so maybe?

[havchr]

A very nice thing to discuss and analyze.


Here's some of my ideas of elements that help crack-addictive gameplay.

*Increase in difficulty.

*that death leaves a feeling of "good frustration".

What is good frustration?
It's when the player is emotionally fucking angry, but angry at himself for not being better, because he feels death was his fault. He knows he can do better, so he tries again.

*carrot mechanics
that you always have a future goal and a future reward attached to this goal. This is very much in use in strategy games. For instance, you wouldn't quite civ when you're just two turns away from researching some amazingly cool new tech, would you?

[Akhel]

long term + short term rewards

This. Addicting games (casual and MMOs mostly) are all about giving superfluous rewards to the player at a good pace.

[Loren Schmidt]

These are some really good insights. Some of these are things I haven't thought about much. Montoli's point about linking actions together is interesting. I think that can apply on multiple scales- for instance "just one more game" as well as "just one more move."

Havchr- I think you're spot on with the good frustration / good difficulty idea. If we don't know what we did wrong, why would we want to play again and try to do better?

Another thing that hooks people is intermittent reinforcement. Diablo II is a great example of this. People kill the same boss over and over again because every once in a while it drops really good loot. From what I've read, the consensus is that this is actually more effective than consistently rewarding people for the same action.

It seems like a similar set of motivations keep people replaying score based games like Ikaruga. I don't know if one would categorize this the same way, but it seems similar.  When I'm playing for a high score, I usually don't get a good run. I usually don't even chain every level correctly. But sometimes all the parts I can almost do perfectly line up, and I get a new record. It's a pretty powerful hook.

[Gainsworthy]

The Sims has another, rather different aspect to it - you're interacting with tiny, tiny people. They may talk in symbols and jibberish, and they may not understand how to go to the toilet all the time, but god damn. There's just something about seeing the hilarious misadventures/daily underpant wearing drudgery of others which really captivates.

Actually, that probably explains the whole reality tee-vee craze a few years back.

[Bree]

There's a specific name for this pattern: it's called variable interval reinforcement. Both casinos and MMOs use it all the time to get people to keep playing. The reason that it works is because if a person cannot anticipate when exactly a reward will arrive, they'll keep working until they get one. The 'interval' bit comes in to ensure that the player is rewarded at some point; leaving it entirely up to chance runs the risk of boring or frustrating the player. After a set amount of time from the last reward, the chance for a new reward is increased, so that the player cannot anticipate or break the system, and leads to the "just one more" mentality of so many addicting games.

As for the Sims/reality show phenomenon, I think you're right on the money when you suggest the two are linked. My bet is that both deal with human identification and empathization; the viewers of both connect with the humans on-screen, real or not, and are thus more intimately involved with them. This can lead into the uncanny valley, where the level of attraction/empathy may be altered based on how much the characters look like real humans. The reason the Sims have maintained a stylized look all these years is to avoid the pitfalls of the valley; because technology is not at a point where we can successfully simulate realistic humans, any attempts at such may backfire and cause repulsion or discomfort at the characters' design.

[FatHat]

Good "momentum".

I like that. Momentum is a great way to describe it. It boggles my mind how many modern games kill momentum with overly complex features. Momentum is huge.

The Sims has another, rather different aspect to it - you're interacting with tiny, tiny people. They may talk in symbols and jibberish, and they may not understand how to go to the toilet all the time, but god damn. There's just something about seeing the hilarious misadventures/daily underpant wearing drudgery of others which really captivates.

Actually, that probably explains the whole reality tee-vee craze a few years back.

I think my Sims are actually a bit smarter than the people I see on TV... 

What is good frustration?
It's when the player is emotionally fucking angry, but angry at himself for not being better, because he feels death was his fault. He knows he can do better, so he tries again.

I like this. I always viewed frustration as being something negative, but the idea of "good" frustration fascinates me.

It's almost like relationships... lets call it the game-as-cute-girl metaphor. Perhaps the cute girl.. er, game, needs to be just enough of a tease that the player thinks "I have a shot at this!", without ever quite being sure.

(On the same token, I wonder if perhaps the longer you can string along the player with an unfulfilled promise, the more obsessed they'll become with it? (Or will they just feel manipulated?) )

It makes me think of the TV show Lost. Some people have a huge tolerance for that show constantly messing with them (me, for instance  ), whereas other people finally got fed up with it and say: go shove your mystery and intrigue, I dont even care anymore. I think mystery/intrigue might be a big win for game addictiveness, though, if you can do it right.

[poorwill]

There's a specific name for this pattern: it's called variable interval reinforcement. Both casinos and MMOs use it all the time to get people to keep playing. The reason that it works is because if a person cannot anticipate when exactly a reward will arrive, they'll keep working until they get one. The 'interval' bit comes in to ensure that the player is rewarded at some point; leaving it entirely up to chance runs the risk of boring or frustrating the player. After a set amount of time from the last reward, the chance for a new reward is increased, so that the player cannot anticipate or break the system, and leads to the "just one more" mentality of so many addicting games.

Yeah, I think roguelikes definitely do this too.  I am horribly addicted to Spelunky right now and I am feeling it.  All of the games I've ever been addicted to follow that essential design - puzzle games, pinball (not exactly random, but it might as well be).  The other thing is that very often when you mess up it was just unlucky and when you succeed, well, that's because you're awesome.

[Loren Schmidt]

Yes, oh god, roguelikes are a great example of that.

[Gainsworthy]

Yes, oh god, roguelikes are a great example of that.

 

Oh man. So true. Especially the really deep ones (ADOM, looking at you) - I'm always amazed by the fact that I'm actually excited when I find something new. Like the first time I met an Emperor Lich! ASCII characters causing adrenalin to kick in? That was a new one for me.


Actually, that's kind of embarrassing. Oh wells!

[havchr]

Also when starting work on a gambling game, I read a book about addiction.
The author put forward the claim that people who get addicted use the mechanical activities of performing their addiction in order to trigger a certain feeling.

That they used this mechanical triggering of emotions to fill a void. I.e, "normal" people get their emotional power filled up by inter-personal relationsships, but the addict gets it from his addiction.

Uhm, I'm not sure I believe that is exactly how it works, but maybe there's some truth in it. I want to read more about psychology and addiction.

[Alana4eva]

very nice

[Strong]

Roller Coaster Tycoon used a lot of this, too- there was always something to do and you always kept working because if you keep playing for just fifteen more minutes you'll be able to build steel roller coasters.

I spent so many nights just playing that game.

[Seth]

Another thing that hooks people is intermittent reinforcement. Diablo II is a great example of this. People kill the same boss over and over again because every once in a while it drops really good loot. From what I've read, the consensus is that this is actually more effective than consistently rewarding people for the same action.

This has actually been the findings of several psychological studies.  It's the reason kids always scream and kick in the grocery aisle for a candy bar--even if their parents don't always give in and get them the candy bar, the kids know that sometimes they will, so they keep trying.  Likewise it's better to train your dog by intermittently giving them a treat when they sit, instead of always giving them a treat, because with the latter situation, when you stop giving them treats they catch on and see that they're not going to get a treat, they stop--but if you are intermittently rewarding them and then stop, they won't realize it for a while and keep on trying, because they think maybe this next time they'll finally get a treat.

[poorwill]

Yeah, Blizzard are the masters of this.  In most games that feature that type of thing, it's kind of incidental or accidental - Blizzard has embraced it and it has become the core of their design philosophy. Not necessarily intentionally - I wouldn't credit them - but because as a result of the way they design their gametesting.  Jonathan Blow has been pretty critical of this sort of thing, but I think he's making a mistake in trying to waggle his finger at them and moralise, because that never works.  It just needs to be communicated that it's not brilliant game design - it's dribblingly stupid, shitty game design and if you took it out of Diablo or WoW, nobody would ever bother playing them.  Blow also tried to conflate it with collecting coins in Mario, which is horribly off-base and just confuses the issue.

[FatHat]

Yeah, Blizzard are the masters of this.  In most games that feature that type of thing, it's kind of incidental or accidental - Blizzard has embraced it and it has become the core of their design philosophy. Not necessarily intentionally - I wouldn't credit them - but because as a result of the way they design their gametesting.  Jonathan Blow has been pretty critical of this sort of thing, but I think he's making a mistake in trying to waggle his finger at them and moralise, because that never works.  It just needs to be communicated that it's not brilliant game design - it's dribblingly stupid, shitty game design and if you took it out of Diablo or WoW, nobody would ever bother playing them.  Blow also tried to conflate it with collecting coins in Mario, which is horribly off-base and just confuses the issue.

That sounds interesting, do you have a link to any of his talks or essays or whatnot where he talks about that?

[team_q]

Here you go:

MIGS 2007
MIGS 2008

There is another talk that he did that you can find in his blog, but its pretty similar to MIGS 2007.