F13 interview
While I was in London, an interview with F13.net came out. We also did a small key giveaway for entry into the Metaplace testing, but those are all gone. Don’t worry, there will be more. 🙂
We covered stuff ranging from Metaplace to academia and game studies, to the AAA MMO market.
F13: What do you make of Blow’s assertion that “modern game design is actually unethical”?
Raph: Jon’s take on the underlying mechanics of fun, from a chemical point of view, isn’t very different from mine. I think that Dan Cook probably said it most succinctly, that “game designers are hijacking the learning systems of the brain.” But perhaps we might tweak that to “the REWARD systems” of the brain.
Lots of other things accomplish this, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil. A lot of work goes into devices and designs built to encourage gambling, for example, and if you read up on the subject, you quickly find that there’s something deeply manipulative about it.
On the other hand, we are also tapping into that when we give someone a gold star for doing well in grade school, and this is usually used for a positive purpose.
8 Responses to “F13 interview”
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I read the interview a few weeks ago. It upset me so much It prompted me to vent to my friend in an email. This is an excerpt and it pretty much sums up my thoughts regarding Mr. Blow’s statements, (with the naughty words removed):
“You could argue that ANY RPG ever subscribes to this whole “Do Actions for Rewards”. Whether you enjoy it or not is subjective.
Grinds will always exist in games where rewards exist no matter how fun the game is. People always want to get to the rewards as fast as possible. If that means playing the game unnaturally people will do it. We have yet to see a successful implementation of the battle fatigue system.
If he is trying to argue that the game play of WoW itself is so horrible that they are cheating customers out of their money or ruining their lives through addictive game play, I would ask him what he thinks blizzard is doing with its 200 million dollar budget. They are creating a AAA MMO with state of the art dungeons/raiding and amazing artwork that is probably some of the best visual design that has ever existed in gaming. I think you could make a strong argument that people who are actually raiding/PVPing/questing are actually enjoying it and are not some how being tricked by some subversive reward system.
It wouldn’t bother me if he said that games should focus on game play rather than rewards, but he uses an inflammatory argument on ethics.”
It’s important to read the full interview http://www.smh.com.au/news/articles/ethical-dilemmas/2007/09/19/1189881577195.html
Is the tweak from “learning systems” to “reward systems” intended to more correctly imply an association with behavioral modification?
Or did you mean to broaden the topic to include other ways of triggering the reward centers beyond engaging the learning process?
I had always wished your book examined reward mechanisms in addition to pattern learning and the little high that comes when you grok something.
Note: Just to make it clear I am referring to the interview that SMH had with Mr. Blow, not the f13 interview with Raph. =)
@Tuebit, not to speak for Raph, but I think part of it is that “learning systems” is more accurately described as “reward systems”. Our brain does reward us for learning something new, we get an endorphin rush from figuring something out. They’re not really all that separated from each other.
@Elorin … I figure that’s probably what he was getting at.
But there are other triggers for the reward system of the brain beyond learning, … some of these triggers perhaps can be exploited in games.
Eh, it’s not just games. Movies and books also tie into trying to manipulate the reader into feeling/thinking a certain way. Is WoW bad because it’s not over in two hours?
@Rik, no one’s made a value statement on anything, so I dunno why we’re trying to defend WoW here.
@Tuebit, I’m not sure it matters overly much. I mean, yeah, you may be able to user other of those triggers, but the method by which you use the reward system doesn’t so much matter as what the goal of using it in the first place is. The question was about ethical use of that ability, and the answer has to look at the reason why you’re doing things moreso than how you’re going about doing them (not that the how isn’t important, it’s just of secondary consideration). If your starting point is broken, the rest doesn’t so much matter.
Regarding the last line in the quote above, it is worth noting that there are real questions about whether e.g. gold stars are actually a healthy practice.
http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0735101388/