Why rewards always devalue the game experience

by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Monday, April 22, 2013, 23:31 (4231 days ago) @ Jillybean
edited by uberfoop, Monday, April 22, 2013, 23:35

Quelle surprise I agree with you, partially. Modern gaming is reward-based, with perhaps a few exceptions. We have gamers which are motivated by reward (MR) and gamers which are motivated by engagement (ME). Games need to be designed, and if you're designing for an MR player, you may not be catering for an ME player. Vice versa, a game designed for ME players may not keep the interest of MR players.

However, I don't agree that MR players can only enjoy rewards and the ME players can only enjoy engagement. I think it's much more multifaceted.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty is whether we can couple motivation and enjoyment in the way you've done. This is the stumbling block for me. I've been motivated by the modern rewards systems plenty of times where I retrospectively feel like I would have had more fun and been less stressed out by not doing so.

That is, my own experience is that anyone can be motivated by rewards whether or not they'll enjoy the game overall all that much, and that's entirely the issue I have with these systems.

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I had a period where I was hooked on Reach's credit system. It wasn't unenjoyable because the game was less enjoyable on a moment-to-moment basis. It sucked because I was driven to play the game when I otherwise wouldn't have wanted to, and I almost got rid of the game in frustration after coming out of that phase.

I want to be able to unconditionally like and play games again. I don't want to have to like what's left after consciously avoiding their icky parts.