Reward Me, Demotivate Me

In this article, game designer Sande Chen reflects on the nature of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how it relates to games.

I know extrinsic motivators can lead to surprisingly, the complete opposite effect, demotivation, but I have never experienced it myself until I became an avid player of the hidden object mobile game, Secret Passages.  Games, of course, have loads of extrinsic motivators like enthusiastic praise, achievement badges, and quest rewards.  Could it be that the very same mechanics used to hook initial players can lead to waning interest in the long run?

Psychologists know that extrinsic motivators can decrease intrinsic motivation, i.e. whatever held your interest in the first place.  Displaying intrinsic motivation, a student practices violin to get better at playing violin.  Some might call this doing something for the love of it.  It's also called DIY learning and self-directed learning.  Paying $10 to a student to practice violin would be an example of extrinsic motivation.  Soon, the student begins practicing for the $10 rather than for the joy of it and won't practice without that incentive.  Sure, extrinsic motivators have their uses, but you can bet that student won't make it to Carnegie Hall without a desire to excel at violin playing.

Likewise, players can have a burning desire to master a game and they don't need a bribe. Granted, that can be hard to do with a game that's more like a game service, incomplete and ongoing rather than a finite product, but a player can still race through all the content that does exist.  I've seen players finish in a day what took content developers a couple months to implement.  That's why some content may seem grindy because it's designed to keep players at bay, away from the finishing line.

Secret Passages did have its repetitive moments.  I like hidden object games, though I wouldn't say I love them.  Hidden object games supposedly do well because our short-term memory fades and we can redo the same puzzle over without it boring us to tears.  I played Secret Passages incessantly not only to explore the content and level up, but also to analyze its design.  Since Secret Passages was an ongoing work-in-progress, some things didn't make sense until the features arrived.  There was one feature, though, that had no gameplay advantage and thus, I ignored it.  This feature disappeared some time later, perhaps due to analytic data.  I never did level everything up completely, but I did unlock all the puzzles, at least the ones where I didn't have to gamble or pay. 

In fact, even when the quest told me to gamble, I had the strength to simply abandon the quest.  I think for some people, this is harder than you would think.  People have this innate desire for completion.  There's satisfaction in completing a quest and getting the rewards.  As game designers, the quest feature sounds good because it gives a reason for players to come back to the game. We're designing for retention.

Before, I was self-directed, pursuing my own goals, and even though I had to wait for my energy to replenish, I came back to the game.  With the daily quests, I did come back to the game, but I soon realized that I was only playing for about 15-20 minutes a day whereas before, I was playing for couple hours spread out throughout the day.  Each morning, I would look at the daily quests, complete them, and then never look at the game until the next day.  At first, I thought of those 15 minutes as my break time, but then I started to think of it as a waste of time.  There's other games to play, after all!  So, one day, despite my accumulation of various in-game currencies, badges, and so forth, I deleted the game.

A few months later, I reflected upon this action and realized that playing the game for quest rewards had turned into my demotivation.  Had I simply been turned off because I had exhausted the content?  What do you think?  Is this an example of extrinsic motivation decreasing intrinsic motivation?



Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Color-Coded Pink and Blue

In this article, game designer Sande Chen explores the notion of girl and boy games and wonders if it's time to cease such labeling.

At last month's Digital Kids Conference, a panelist discussing gender barriers revealed that when 5-year-olds were informally surveyed, they tended to identify mobile app icons with the color blue as "boy" games and those with pink as "girl" games.  Boys would not click on a pink app even with a big robot on the icon.   I find it surprising that as a society, we are still so color-coded.  This superficial reskinning from blue to pink can really change the appeal to boys or girls.  According to a research study by Kids Industries, parents may be the ones reinforcing these gender conventions.  The panel noted that this labeling of pink or blue wasn't so prevalent 30 years ago when marketing to kids tended to be more gender neutral.

This year's Girl Toy of the Year

Even though 93% of parents say they shop by category (i.e. activity) rather than gender (as labeled by the manufacturer or retailer), 85% of the parents said they would not buy a pink kitchen toy for a boy, but had no qualms about buying the same product for a boy if it was in gender neutral colors.  They would in fact prefer gender neutral packaging.  The top 3 grossing kid apps at the time of the conference had neither pink or blue icons, but stuck to gender neutral colors like light orange.

This year's Boy Toy of the Year and Toy of the Year

While retailers like Wal-Mart definitely have pink and blue toy aisles, most popular kid game sites nowadays do not have a section for pink or "girl" games but rather, will categorize games of interest as dress-up, etc. games.  I think in the past, separate sections for girl games were created to encourage girls to play Web games and you can still see a special tab for girl games on FreeKIGames.  If you take a look at GirlsGoGames, which features games obviously marketed to girls, you'll notice a lot of pink.

Must we keep the Pink Ghetto for games?  Do we need to label games as girl or boy games?  Parents feel uneasy about the influence of marketers.  Boys can enjoy playing a hair salon game app, but won't touch one that is overly pink or labeled for girls.  A good game can appeal to both genders.

It seems to me that games marketed to girls tend to reinforce gender stereotypes by focusing on fashion, shopping, make-up, cooking and other stereotypically female activities.   Surrounding all these play activities with the color pink allows the color code to continue.

Pink = Girl = Existing Gender Roles.  

Marketing does influence our choices, but we can stop and think about how these choices may affect our children.  Parents do not need to follow the expectations of marketers.

I wonder:  Are we giving girls toys solely based on fashion, shopping, make-up etc. and not toys promoting STEM skills?

A game about space exploration could be marketed to girls and to boys and it doesn't even have to be pink or blue.  I don't think we need to label any game a girl game, just like we don't need to label a gamer a girl gamer.  Is it time to end this marketing convention of pink girl games?

[Sande Chen will be speaking at this year's Different Games Conference on the topic of female representation in games and game development.]

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Good Free-to-Play Games (Part I)

In Part I of this article, indie game developer Howard Go expresses his philosophy on making good free-to-play games.

I begin this with a disclaimer: I am an indie game developer who just happens to make a living from making free-to-play games. I am one-half of a team of two. We’ve been making games full time for just over three years now.

Free-to-play games have gotten a lot of bad rep and this is more true as of late, especially as some games ruined what were good games by adding in-app purchases in an update or doing a sequel that suddenly changed the gameplay by going freemium or paymium instead of the solid premium paid game that they once were. And I think my opinions on freemium apply to paymium as well, so I might as well cover both.

This is part one of my view: whether freemium or paymium, if what you get initially is of value and then IAPs are introduced by way of packs or levels or some special premium value (and by this I include unlimited simultaneous multiplayer games and the removal of ads — I actually miss that in many games now), then it is entirely the player’s choice to feel I want more of the same fun and to determine if the packs/additions are worth their cost. They already got their money’s worth for what they paid for if it was initially paid and if they had fun for about an hour with a free game, then they can judge if spending money is fine for another similar hour (like a free taste of a dish to see if you want to buy a pack, snack, or meal). Obviously, I mean a good free-to-play game gave some amount value of value at the onset. My rule of thumb is about an hour of fun. That’s short for a console game, but decent, I believe for a mobile game. I’ve played some awesome paid games on mobile that I finished in an hour or two, and I felt I got my money’s worth (though wanting to play some more because I enjoyed it so much is another thing).

Just to be clear: I’ve spent plenty of money on arcade games, saved up to buy games for the consoles I’ve owned when I was younger, and still continue to spend a bundle on mobile games (paid, freemium, and paymium). And there are a number of games where I spent a lot of money on without thinking or feeling I was cheated. I believed I got my money’s worth. For anyone who spent more than a console game’s worth in the arcade or a mobile game to finish whatever game you were hooked on, you know what I am talking about.

This is part two of my view: whether freemium or paymium, if you need to spend in order to move forward in a game that does not involve packs or levels, but rather the ability to move forward is dependent on some energy level or being equipped with certain tools, weapons, or power ups before you can successfully continue, then it is very close to being poorly done or it is very obviously poorly done. The key, I believe, is in creating enough of an opening so that anyone who plays can continue down the road, playing through the levels without feeling that unless they buy an item, let’s say a gun, that they can only afford via an IAP (meaning grinding won’t work) will get them to move forward. Making a player wait is not a bad thing. Making a player ask friends for help is not a bad thing (for both player and game developer). Mobile games allow for breaks. Being told to wait a few hours before something can happen is fine. But there are limits. Basically, my rule of thumb is that if it will allow me to successfully grind because I persevere or progress because I am good at the game, then the IAPs do not ruin the game. The patient and the skilled can enjoy the game, not just the spender.

Temple Run, Subway Surfers, and Jetpack Joyride are all among my favorite endless (runner/side-scroller) games. They remain fun whether or not you spend. That you spend is entirely your choice and will not affect the fun value of the game in any way. I love that. Disco Zoo is a great game for grinders and for spenders. But some games are so unbalanced that grinding becomes too tedious too soon and the return of investment (in this case, time) is not felt. That’s a bad game right there. Much more so because it makes it clear to the player than only spenders will progress or, even worse, have any resemblance fun.

There are puzzle games that became almost insanely impossible to finish and only get harder and harder. I think the good ones allow the (re-)entry of easy levels enough times to make it fun for the player again. It says, here’s a break so you can enjoy the game again. Which is basically how I see any good RPG game. Easy enemies, followed by a tough boss, followed by easy enemies, almost ad infinitum. It’s what makes it playable.

Bad games, whether premium, freemium, or paymium, don’t respect the balance.

Howard Go is ½ of MochiBits. His current interest in game design involves game balance, retention, and monetization. He taught philosophy for five years then sold out to work in the corporate world for seven years, finally escaping into the world of game development in December 2010.

Monetizing a Freemium Game

In this article, indie developer Dave Calabrese discusses how Cerulean Games will seek to monetize a freemium mobile game via three different revenue streams.

Our reasons to make Tumblecaps Retro freemium were strongly based around what we discovered our potential customers wanted. We discussed how we are adding lots of new content for players to enjoy, and touched lightly on some of our bigger plans. Now, we want to take a moment to talk in detail about how we intend to make a profit from the game. After all, this is a business, and without an income the games can’t be made.

There is no question that when working with the mobile space, you generally tend to have a different type of gamer - or at least a traditional gamer looking for a “quick, on the go fix". We can’t easily sell a game to mobile gamers the same way we would a console or PC / Mac title - not unless we were a huge AAA developer. In many ways, indie mobile developers have spent a lot of time digging through the box of monetization - sell in-app currency, allow players to upgrade their content and experience, time based limitations, etc. Overall, these have proven to be a rather successful set of methods. However, it seems like it is just one of the methods. This is selling content to the consumer - and it is what we will call Monetization Method One.

Placing banner ads in a product has been around forever. Think back to the glory days of when the Internet was nothing more than Prodigy and you might remember seeing banner ads on pages while you surfed what their service had to offer. And overall, players are fine with banner ads. They look at and sometimes click on ones they are interested in, and can easily ignore the ads which don’t intrigue them.  And you will want to tweak those ads to their tastes. These ads earn the developer a decent profit, and in some cases developers have earned significantly more from free applications using banner ads than a paid version of the same application without the ads. Banner ads are Monetization Method Two.

This is when we start peeking outside of the box and feeling around its edges. The safe, comfortable zone of traditional monetization does not exist here. I’m talking about the theory of “making money because of your player, instead of from your player". The concept is simple - the player performs an action within the game which costs them nothing, nets them a reward, and as a developer you make a profit from it. This concept has been around in various flavors for a while now - including technically the banner ad, however our integration options are becoming much better. We have been fortunate enough to speak with multiple companies who have ventured outside of the box to introduce these more creative forms of monetization - which we will call Monetization Method Three. After careful consideration, we have decided to use the Paedae service.

According to PaeDae’s SVP of Business Development, PaeDae focuses on two things:

1. Delivering industry leading monetization rates, and 
2. Maintaining the integrity of the original game design / user experience.

He says: 

We achieve these previously conflicting objectives by presenting players with relevant, targeted rewards at a moment of success and through our white label solution. PaeDae partners with major brands to deliver prizes that match the context of the game. You have a pet game, we have pet related prizes. And we make sure the prize is relevant by targeting the individual. These brands are giving away gift cards, free headphones and even a chance to enter a million dollar sweepstakes. That’s right, a chance to win $1 million.

Next, our white label solution allows game developers to customize the prize presentation to make it feel native to the app. Developers can add textures from the game, add icons or other creatives, so that it feels like a part of the intended experience. We also recently released BARTR, a free user acquisition platform, to help independent developers get past that increasingly more difficult process of game discovery. All in the spirit of helping the indie community.

PaeDae has been working closely with us to help make Tumblecaps Retro a success. As with any knowledgable vendor, we find their experience to be invaluable to our success.

To recap, through these three methods, we believe that a game can be made a financial success.

• Method One: IAP. Allow players to upgrade their experience - however be sure to keep content in there as well, as traditional players would rather purchase content than spend on quick upgrades.
• Method Two: Banner ads. Be smart, don’t overdo them, and be creative in your integration.
• Method Three: Make money because of the player, not from the player. Let their actions trigger payouts to your company, and give them a reward for doing the action.

What monetization methods have your tried? What kinds of success (or failure) have you had? Tell your stories in the comments!

[This article was adapted from Cerulean Games' blog on Tumblr. ]

Dave Calabrese is an award winning author, designer, developer, manager, and producer with over ten years’ experience in the independent games industry. He specializes in development and production of cross-platform titles for iOS, Android, PC, and Mac using the Unity 3D game engine.

June 2013: Designing for Mobile

Hello and welcome to a new topic for June 2013! 

When I first started in mobile development, cell phones were these clunky devices that didn't have a lot of memory.  Games were rarely in color and featured stick figures or no graphics at all.  Every cell phone manufacturer had its own development kit.  It was like the Wild Wild West.  No standardized rules.  I was in charge of porting Scrabble the board game to mobile phones and as you can imagine, there were ample challenges in that project.

Some of the lessons I learned in designing for the small screen can still be applied today, even though the processing power of these devices seems to have expanded exponentially.  We are now capable of running MMOs on cell phones, but they're still small(er) devices with a small(er) screen sizes.  Tablets make it better, especially for inputs, but unfortunately, some games don't translate well from other platforms to mobile devices. 

What lessons have you learned while designing for mobile?  What are some pitfalls? 

I invite readers to submit an article on this topic.  Please read the submission guidelines first.  Thanks!