Featured Feature: Player Investment (Part 3)

Part 3: Reward Reduces Enthusiasm

In its simplest form, any player investment reward is simply a commendation. You did well, you get a pat on the back. Weather this takes the form of a new suit of armor, new gun, new ability, some aesthetic option, or simply a smiley face on a menu screen, they are all simply ways of telling the player "good job."

The problem here is that such commendations are not, in fact, a good thing. Picture a young child who gets good grades in math. His parents and teachers encourage him, giving him gold stars and plenty of positive reinforcement. Years go by, and the child continues to get good grades, make honor role, etc. The child graduates college with a wonderful GPA. The child is now an adult, in the real world, where there are no more gold stars. Many studies suggest that this individuals success will likely stop there. The kid has probably long since tired of math and academics, and now has no desire to put these things into actual use. He was originally good at math because the liked math. As the rewards came, however, math became a means to receive rewards. This individual, over time, came to see the thing he once enjoyed as work, an annoying task to be completed in exchange for reward. His motivation has fundamentally changed. Sound illogical? Well, how much do you like your job? How much does it pay? How much does that matter?

Actual market value may vary.

Possibly the most prominent and ubiquitous examples of the player investment reward systems in place today are Microsoft/Sony's Achievement/Trophy systems. Despite some backlash amongst games, the hard fact is that the two companies have made these systems mandatory for all titles because these systems make money. Consider a game that exists on all 3 of today's prominent consoles, the PS3, XBox 360, and Wii, all of which you own. Each version of the game has exactly the same features, capabilities, and graphical fidelity. Which system do you buy the game for? Theoretically, it should be a toss up. However, a huge number of players would prefer one of the systems that tracks achievements. After all, if you could add a pat on the back to everything, why wouldn't you? You woke up this morning, Congratulations! Took a shower? Good show!

Which brings us to the problem. Have you ever played a game, not having any fun, just trying for an achievement? Did you enjoy finally getting it? Was this experience preferable to having spent that time simply playing the game as you would have otherwise done? Or, worse, have you ever noticed yourself not play a game you know you enjoy simply because that system doesn't feature achievements? "Hey, I could actually finish the rest of Mario Galaxy, but I've already "beaten it" and it's not like I'm gonna get any achievements." I don't know about you, but I've been there - and it's scary. It seems that with there short term earnings strategies, Microsoft and Sony might accidentally be training their consumers to hate their products.

Of course, this is an article about how to properly integrate player investment rewards into games and, as I've already established, these aren't inherently bad things. The problem here is that these particular reward systems serve as goals in and of themselves. A large portion of those players that dislike achievements, for example, focus entirely on the existence of online achievements. Some players hate online achievements because they encourage players to prioritize these individual meta-goals before the actual cooperative game. One can not both focus on being the best player possible and getting a double kill with a spartan laser.

This problem extends beyond achievements and trophies and into some of the player investment strategies implemented as features within some prominent games. It is very easy, for example for a player to get so caught up in Modern Warfare's challenge/prestige system - getting in weeks of game time before they ever max out their stats - never have actually focused on winning the games in which they have competed. They were online with other players in what was ostensibly a death-match, but their goals had little to do with the actual game at hand. This is detrimental to the game's online environment in that it creates scenarios in which the minority of a game lobby might actually be attempting to fulfill the game's stated agenda. For the members of that minority, extreme frustration is likely to occur. (see: Modern Warfare's "Sabotage" playlist) This both undermines the design of your game mode and the quality of the online experience your players receive.

And this was the issue with our honor role student. The gold stars and blue ribbons became more important to him than the subject for which he had originally been so passionate. There, then, is our solution. Yes, do reward you players, but reward them for actually playing the game. In this way, a reward system could recognize achievement, rather than set up new, largely artificial, hurdles for players. As a rule of thumb, any time focus is taken off of the actual game, the reward system is imperfect. Any time the player is growing frustrated, wrestling for a reward not due to their skill level within the game but rather due to the design of the reward system, they are becoming disillusioned with the game. This should be avoided at all costs in order to ensure a positive long term relationship with both the individual title and gaming as a whole.

As gamers, however, the most important thing to keep in mind is that you simply should not allow yourself to become disenchanted with your hobby. If you're getting fed up with reaching level X or with attaining some achievement - stop. Take a break from that goal and go do something in the game purely for fun. The teachers can give you as many gold stars as they want, but it's up to you to retain perspective.

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Featured Feature: Player Investment (Part 2)

Part 2: The Top Tier Problem

So, we've talked about what exactly "player investment rewards" are. Now, we're going to get into some of the current problems with prominent implementations of the feature. In this case, we're going to focus on rewards that aren't merely commendations, but rather tangible benefits within the game - ie: equipment and abilities.

In short, rewards designed to be the absolute best in their class pit players’ desire for uniqueness against their desire to accomplish and have their accomplishments recognized. This discourages customization for some and achievement for others. A title’s degree of variety and individual expression online is directly proportional to the number of equally valued customization options provided to players.

Prominent examples of this problem include Halo 3’s "hayabusa" & "recon" helmets, Modern Warfare’s weapon camouflage, and World of Warcraft's equipment.

Halo 3, for example, features 11 online armor variants available to most players. These variants are designed to provide players with a sense of individuality as they mix and match them, color them, and otherwise use them to form a unique persona online. Theoretically, this emphasis on individuality and the wide variety of tastes amongst the player base should result in a fairly even distribution of armor variants throughout the community.

This is, however, not the case. The “recon” and “hayabusa” variants, especially their helmets, seem to be far more common amongst those players who have unlocked them. The same is true of the other armor variants to degrees in direct proportion to the amount of work necessary to unlock them.This presents a problem, as the variety and individuality intended by the developer has been overshadowed by a second well intentioned feature, player investment rewards.

If you can look like this, you won't not.

The same problem can be seen in many other titles, most notably those which make heavy use of such player investment rewards. World of Warcraft, for example, features thousands of weapons, but only a very small fraction of those are actually desired by its most committed players. When new and better items are introduced, they do not increase variety but rather replace others as the now most desirable "top tier" options. Players invest a great deal of time in order to receive these rewards, only to be forced to sacrifice their avatar’s individuality for the ability to display them.

High level mages, or roving Warriors style street gang?

This problem is compounded by the fact that when a large portion of players display the same rewards, desiring recognition for their achievements, they, in fact, become less recognizable amongst the crowd of similarly outfitted characters. Thus, some may choose to forgo such challenges all together, knowing that they will not wish to display their rewards. Allowing the majority of the developer’s efforts to fall into such disuse seems not only to be contrary to the original design intent, but to also be poor financial investment.

These choices soon to be rendered moot by 200lbs of phat purple loot.

Solutions

The simplest solution to this problem might seem to be the elimination of “top tier” rewards all together. This, however, inherently depreciates their value as player investment rewards.

A better solution, it seems, is to eliminate the singular nature of the highest tier options. The Halo 3 armor variants, for example, might have been unlocked via multiple separate but equal progressions. Some armor variants might be unlocked by campaign player progress and achievements, while others would be unlocked by multi-player progress and achievements. This would result in two top tier armor variants, doubling variety while both equally rewarding player investment and providing more opportunities for such investment. A form of this strategy can be seen in World of Warcraft, in which players may gain the game’s highest tier armors either from raids or arena combat. These two alternative paths provide equal statistical reward to players who choose either rout, yet also present aesthetic differences from one another. Thus, players are able to feel as if they are displaying their prowess, while not necessarily becoming identical. Further, the more specific nature of these rewards more accurately portrays the nature of the player’s excellence.

Another option, and one which can be combined with other solutions, is to provide variety within a single reward. Halo 3’s armor system does, for example, allow players to mix and match amongst their armor variants and choose a unique color scheme. Thus, two individuals may have very different character models, despite sharing the same helmet. The problem this raises, however, is that the head, and face more specifically, is a physical feature very closely linked to identity. There is a biological tendency to notice a person’s face before examining them as a whole which extends to online avatars. Even if two character models are different in every other way, similar faces, or helmets in the case of Halo 3, can reduce the sense of variety. Variety could be added to individual helmets, however, by allowing players to further customize the helmet. This could include multiple visor colors, textures, the ability to choose glossy or matte finishes, smaller accessories such as antennae or eye pieces, what have you. In Modern Warfare, players could be rewarded not with “Red Tiger” and “Blue Tiger” camouflage, but with “Tiger” camouflage which they could set the tint of as they wish. Simply put, granularity increases variety.

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Featured Feature: Player Investment (Part 1)

Part 1: The what and why of Player Investment Rewards

As the blog goes on, I’ll be establishing various ongoing features. Individual game analysis, developer profiles, etc. in some regular format. We’ll begin with a “Featured Feature,” in each entry of which I will analyze a particular game mechanic, its history, place in the industry, how it works, why it works, what’s wrong with it, how it can be better utilized, etc.
Over the next few days, we’ll be focusing in Player Investment.

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Lately players may have noticed a trend towards greater degrees of character customization in their online games. Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield, they’re all doing it. In the past it was the standard that all players began games as complete equals, with an even and thus fair footing. Now the emphasis has been placed, instead, on individuality and deep character customization. So deep has this gotten in some games that is borders on being considered an RPG element.
What players might not have discerned, however, is the cause of this trend. While it is easy enough to simply wright it off as stolen ideas, arguing that developers are simply trying to duplicate the success generated by either Halo’s visual customization or Modern Warfare’s tactical customization, this is an oversimplification. In truth, such features are a very wise business decision.

You see, these character customization options almost always have another common feature. Rarely are all of these options available to every player immediately. They are generally unclockables, options requiring the completion of some predetermined qualification before access to them may be granted. This effectively makes these customization options merely a small part of the industry’s larger trend towards rewarding player investment.

Player investment reward systems provide players with benefits in direct proportion to the time and effort they spend with the game. The simplest form of these can be seen in the MMMORPG genre, in which players gain quantified levels of power as they put more time into the game. The term “experience points” was originally intended to reflect an abstract measurement of a character’s life experience and earned knowledge. In this market, however, it could as easily be seen as an absolute measurement of the amount of investment a player has put into a particular title. It is no mistake, then, that even more complex player investment reward systems, such as those seen in Halo 3 and Modern Warfare, still retain the term “levels” and “xp.” They firmly establish a system of progression in terms which gamers know.
This sense of progress lies at the heart of any player investment system. Rewards be they new character model options, abilities, or even simple numerical values are not handed out in bulk. They are evenly distributed over a long trail, always giving the player one more reward to work for. This creates a “carrot on a stick” scenario, compelling the player to continue playing. Progress requires commitment.

Such strategies simply make good business sense. The MMO genre, again, provides the simplest form of this. Due to subscription fees, the longer a player plays, the more money the developer will earn from them. In non-subscription based genres, however, developers still reap great benefits from invested players.

Online games, for example, are particularly dependent player investment. on the existence of an online community to function. Many games with some simple, tacked on multiplayer component soon have this feature rendered essentially non-existent by the fact that there are simply not enough players available to reliably establish game lobbies. By encouraging player investment, however, a developer encourages players to return time and again to the same matchmaking system, populating their multiplayer lobbies.

Beyond simply providing functionality, however, a well executed player investment system has been shown to increase the overall sustained population of online communities. This is desirable as more people playing more regularly is good for the bottom line. It provides a title with a good reputation and a greater likelihood that any given consumer will purchase the title. “Surely thousands of gamers can’t be wrong,” thinks the consumer. Every time your game is ranked on the top X most played online games on console Y during time period Z, that’s free advertisement. Most importantly, every player committed to your title is another mouth to spread the word. If they play your game for a week, you get word of mouth for a week. If they play it for a year, they’ll sell everyone they know on it.

On the marketing side, player investment can help provide a title with market control. It can help you not only be successful, but WIN. It's not secret that Modern Warfare and World of Warcraft are huge right now, enormous market titans with incredible player bases. What you might hear less about, however, is that they've done so well they've hurt other company's bottom lines. Many people are playing these games with such devotion that they simply do not have much time for other games. It is, for more time than is conventional, enough game for them. While this doesn't particularly help a non-subscription based game, it's a tremendous benefit for a series. A large portion Modern Warfare 2's success can be attributed to the fact that there was a large audience of Modern Warfare 1 players who had never stopped regularly playing the previous game, and the same will be true for Black Ops (though I'm skeptical of the series' continued dominance post-Infinity Ward debacle). The series did not leave its competitors any room to scoop up members of its player base, giving the sequel very little competition. It's not the nicest marketing strategy, but it moves units - short term and long.

Player investment works on even the most basic level. These systems actually make games seem more valuable to players. Biologically, human beings are predisposed to an "escalation of commitment," meaning that the more resources you spend on something, the more valuable you think it is. If you've spent several years in your house, for example, thousands of dollars on bills and upkeep and it catches on fire - you will likely be stuck in a conundrum. Even though it may be cheaper to move, buy a new house in a different location with the same features as your old house, your brain may compel you to spend more money on repairing your old house anyway. The $59.99 initial price tag, the hours of invested time, and any associated fees or accessories all build up to make the player value their investment more and more each day.

Don't be confused or frightened though. While all of these issues are from a developers perspective, they are by no means bad for players. The escalation of commitment, for example, contributes to a player's enjoyment of the game. The more they play, the more they like what they're playing. Player investment rewards can really drive a gameplay experience, keeping a game fresh long after it's no longer new.

That being said, however, no current implemented player investment strategies are perfect. Over the next few days I'll be going over some key problems with the most prominent such strategies, and ways in which they could be improved for the benefit of both developers and gamers.
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