I've been meaning to write out psychology of gamers for a while. It so happened, I had to write a part of it for Social Casino players recently. Since I had penned that down, thought of posting it here as well.
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The ADE
In my opinion, any medium that can become an addiction (or a
form of it) can be reduced to two major factors: the excitement and the
release. I relate this with (what I like to call) the Adrenaline and
Dopamine effect (ADE) (not to be taken literally as I’m comparing the feeling here
more than the actual electrochemical being released by the brain).
The Adrenaline allows you to rush, give you the illusion of
strength to continue for the goal of the Dopamine release. And once you get the
Dopamine, the mood changes to relief, happiness and willingness to do it again.
Thus it becomes a loop.
The first release is crucial and ideally should be given to
the player at the earliest possible time. This is a (rigged) game design
mechanic that makes the player believe that they can achieve the goal and that
they are good. (Exceptions are always there. For e.g.: Games with punishing
mechanic. But that’s a whole other discussion.) Once the player gets their
first Dopamine hit, they are more willing to push to the next stage of the
game. They are now made to believe that they could be good at it. The idea is to put the player in a good mood.
This leads to them investing more in the game.
For newly invested players, there is also that one win after
a series of failures that makes the release much more rewarding that regular
wins. Game design can be rigged to do that. Keeping track of a player’s wins
and losses and helping them our after a series of losses, also adds to the
trust factor the player forms with the games. This also plays in with the
gambler’s fallacy.
As we move on to largely invested players, the excitement factor
takes over the release. The ‘waiting for the win’ becomes the most sought after
than the actual winning. These players are addicted for the excitement than the
release. This is the phase where you see many players who may complain that the
game is rigged (to an extent they are right, but mostly it is RNG/PRNG).
Irrespective of their complains, most of them continue to play the game.
The game designer’s job is to understand what is it that the
player looks for depending on where they are in the game and come up with a
generic system to provide it for the majority of players. This in turn aids in
coin spend which is revenue generation for the game / casino.
Risk taking
Gamblers in general are risk takers compared to regular
people. Whether they are playing online casino or land-based, this is one of
the major factor that stays common. The game design should enable players to
satisfy their risk-taking instincts. This in turn leads to revenue for the game
/ casino.
High roller machines or high bet rooms cater to these
people. We can also experiment with smaller chunks of coins but with a chance
of only 50% to win. Bet X amount on a coin toss. Win 4X or lose them all. This
is alluring to many players and also sets them towards the risk taking
path. Over time, this becomes the high risk, low yield model, which is
essentially what gambling works on but creates an illusion of it being the
reverse.
The ‘almost’ winning
When the player is made to believe that they almost made it,
the ‘so close’ feeling makes them reinvest in the game and give themselves
another chance to make the win. As a designer, frequency of cards / numbers /
reels etc can be manipulated in a way where it appears to the player that they
almost won the round. At times, mathematicians are hired to get this done right
for gambling games.
It is no different from regular games except for the math
involved.
A non-gambling example.: In one of the games I had worked
on, was a reskin of a Match3 game. I decided to update the game balancing and
level design of it.
The initials levels were made intentionally easy to get
three stars for majority of the players. As the player gets invested, the
levels are made harder with a few breathers in between. (This can be backtracked to the ADE). There was a gradual decrease in the player’s
ability to get the perfect score. And the stars were needed to unlock a new
world. The game had its IAPs. Two of
them were:
- Buy extra moves @0.99$
- Unlock the world (in case one doesn’t have enough stars) @4.99$
In a scenario where the player is short of 5 stars, it would
make a lot more sense to just unlock the world for the cost than buy extra
moves to gain the 5 stars. This led many to believe that the unlock will be the
driving component of the IAP.
Given the target audience, I was willing to bet otherwise. The
sense of achievement of having done a task and being rewarded for it is much
higher than what seems like taking the easy route out. (Again, exceptions are
there, but this was keeping the majority in mind). When we got the data after a couple of months
of the game release, my prediction was true. Players ended up spending way more
money on extra moves instead of opting for the world unlock directly for what
would have been a cheaper alternative.
Side note 1: This
sense of achievement only dips down as the game continues to run for a long
course. Case in point: Social games
.
Side note 2: The
price point also plays a role here. Initially people are more willing to spend
a dollar compared to 5. (ties back to initial risk taking)
The look and feel
While this is more on the art and sound department, the idea
is to play around with what stimulates the brain. This also varies as per
regions. What works for the UK market need not work for the US market.
The sound of the coins, the animation of lot of coins etc
make a difference to the early players.
Disclaimer: It is not limited to just these factors listed
above. I will probably write the continuation soon (or not soon) 😉
