Often, game designers will use tactics that abuse the human psyche. This needs to be talked about because it's a trap I fear many aspiring game developers will fall into out of ignorance. This article will explain what a Skinner Box is, how it applies to games and what we can do against it.
What a Skinner Box Is
For Free to Play and microtransaction games, revenue is closely related to playtime. To ensure that players keep coming back, the so-called Skinner Box is a common sight in game design. |
| The Skinner Box in its most basic form. |
Originally, the Skinner Box, named after the psychologist B.F. Skinner, is a machine that conditions rats to press a lever over and over by giving out rewards. In his research, Skinner tries out different schemes for rewarding the rat: he schedules rewards only to be released at a certain time or after the lever has been pressed x number of times. For the best results, Skinner rewards the rat after a set amount of lever presses, after a random amount of time or randomly altogether.
The Skinner Box in Game Design
In most RPGs, Skinner Box mechanics are very common. This isn't bad - but I'll get to that later. First, it's important to understand how games thrive by using this theory. The game mechanics I want to talk about are character leveling and randomized loot. |
| Level Up! |
Let's tackle leveling first. Leveling is a mechanic in which a player is rewarded every now and then for repeating a certain task. The task will improve the player's skill over time until a new level (the reward) is reached. In most cases, the player can see exactly how much they still need to do. This corresponds with rewarding the Skinner Box rat every x presses.
Randomized loot is next up. When a game hands out random items after completing tasks, it's, of course, random. The player can never see how much time it'll take them to obtain a good item (the reward). They don't even know for sure that they will. This lines up perfectly with rewarding the rat completely randomly.
When the Skinner Box Is Used Incorrectly
In game design, using B. F. Skinner's findings can help us greatly. His research provides us with a way of reliably pacing the player, making sure they are ready for a difficulty increase; or strengthen the feeling of joy when they get something they desire. There is nothing wrong with supporting engaging game play with knowledge of the human psyche. |
| What Skinner Box games can do. |
There is a big problem though. The Skinner Box works on its own. Recently, game designers have caught on and are starting to use it as an excuse to create bad or boring content, while relying on Skinner to make players stick around.
The point I'm making here is that games need to be engaging and fun for the player. When using Skinner's method as a way to save money on content creation, you're doing it wrong. Players should come back to your game because they want to, not because they're compelled to by the way you make your game; that's a bad habit.
What Can We Do?
Now that you know the dangers of the Skinner Box, you can do something about it, both as a designer and a gamer. Being aware of how this method works helps a lot.As a gamer, you can now see when you're being exploited. When you want to go play a repetitive game, ask yourself why. If the answer is because it's engaging, go on. However, if all you can come up with is that you want to grind a few extra levels, maybe you should reconsider just leaving the game alone. You won't regret it!
As a designer, you can review your usage of Skinner's research and adjust it to be supportive rather than exploitative. After all, using it to make your game more rewarding for the player isn't a shame. Using it to rake in subscriptions or microtransactions, however, is. Use the Skinner Box sensibly!
Sources and External Links
Wikipedia
- A Brief Survey of Operant Behavior
B. F. Skinner Foundation
- Different Types of Reinforcement Schedules (pdf)
National Professional Development Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders.