Achievement Relocked: Loss Aversion and Game Design
Tags: #gaming #design #psychology #behavioral economics #decision-making #game mechanics #user experience #emotion
Authors: Geoffrey Engelstein, Geoffrey Engelstein
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Overview
This book explores the psychology of loss aversion and its application in game design. It explains how the pain of loss is more powerful than the pleasure of an equivalent gain, and demonstrates how designers can use this principle to craft compelling and emotionally engaging gameplay experiences. The book delves into several related psychological phenomena, including the endowment effect, the framing effect, utility theory, the endowed progress effect, regret, and competence. Each concept is illustrated with real-world examples and case studies from a variety of games, ranging from classic board games to modern video games. The book argues that understanding these psychological principles can enable designers to subtly guide player choices, manipulate player emotions, and create a sense of progression and accomplishment.
This book is intended for game designers, both aspiring and experienced, who want to improve their craft and create more engaging and emotionally impactful games. It offers practical insights and design techniques based on a deeper understanding of player motivation and behavior. The book is particularly relevant in today’s gaming landscape, where players expect sophisticated experiences and advanced narrative techniques. By understanding how loss aversion and related effects impact player psychology, designers can create games that resonate on a deeper emotional level and leave a lasting impression. While the book primarily focuses on game design, it also has broader implications for anyone interested in the psychology of decision-making and the influence of emotions on choices. The concepts discussed are applicable to fields such as product design, marketing, and user interface design.
Book Outline
1. Loss Aversion
This chapter introduces the core concept of loss aversion, explaining how the pain of losing something outweighs the pleasure of gaining something of equal value. This principle is illustrated with examples like a simple coin flip gamble and the negative reaction players have to losing levels in video games like Wizardry. The concept of achievements and their psychological impact is also introduced, along with the idea that achievements, once earned, are never taken away.
Key concept: Loss aversion: Losing something makes you feel worse than gaining the same thing makes you feel good.
2. Endowment Effect
This chapter delves into the endowment effect, where ownership increases perceived value. It uses the Weighted Companion Cube from Portal as a case study to demonstrate how imbuing an object with even superficial meaning can trigger an emotional attachment in players, amplifying the sense of loss when the object must be sacrificed.
Key concept: Endowment Effect: Owning something makes it more valuable to you, simply by virtue of it being “yours.”
3. Framing
This chapter explains how framing, or the way choices are presented, can influence decisions. Examples from Pit Crew, The Expanse, and the evolution of board game design demonstrate how framing gains and losses differently can affect player behavior and emotional responses.
Key concept: Framing Effect: The way choices are presented can have a dramatic impact on how people answer.
4. Utility Theory
Utility theory explores how the perceived usefulness or impact of something affects its perceived value. Deal or No Deal serves as a primary example of how people don’t always maximize expected value but instead make choices based on the potential impact on their lives, explaining phenomena like why someone might accept a lower offer in the game than the statistical average of what could be won.
Key concept: Utility Theory: Utility theory describes how desirable something is.
5. Endowed Progress
This chapter introduces the endowed progress effect, where giving people a head start motivates them to complete tasks. Examples from a car wash loyalty program and the Hearthstone ranking system illustrate how pre-filled progress bars and initial bonuses encourage continued engagement.
Key concept: Endowed Progress Effect: People are more likely to complete a task that has already been started rather than beginning a task from scratch.
6. Regret and Competence
Regret and competence are discussed as emotional drivers of decision-making. Risk: Legacy highlights the regret associated with permanent choices, while Lost Cities demonstrates how regret can arise from seemingly simple decisions with major impacts.
Key concept: Regret: Regret is defined as the negative feeling resulting from a choice that has gone badly.
7. Putting It All Together
This chapter brings together several key concepts through a comparative analysis of the Agricola series. The evolution from Agricola to Caverna and A Feast for Odin reveals how Rosenberg refined mechanics to lessen negative emotions and improve the player experience. The chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding loss aversion and related effects in tuning the emotional palette of games and to make informed decisions in crafting better player experiences.
Key concept: The evolution of board games is a window into how designers have moved toward loss reduction as a primary way to improve the player experience.
Essential Questions
1. How does loss aversion affect player decision-making in games?
Loss aversion is a core psychological principle influencing player behavior. Players experience losing something as more impactful than gaining something of equal value. This understanding allows designers to create emotionally engaging decisions, such as the difficult choice of discarding cards in Hearthstone’s Tracking or the tension of risking progress in push-your-luck games like Can’t Stop. By leveraging loss aversion, designers can make simple mechanics feel more impactful and create lasting player experiences.
2. What is the role of framing in shaping player experience?
Framing dramatically shapes how players perceive and react to gains and losses. In Pit Crew, framing penalties as benefiting opponents created a more positive experience than framing them as setbacks for the penalized team. Similarly, in A Feast for Odin, negative scoring spaces are presented geometrically and covered up as the game progresses, turning a potential loss into a visual representation of progress. This illustrates how framing can be used to steer player emotions and subtly guide choices.
3. How does endowed progress motivate players to engage with a game?
Endowed progress gives players an initial head start, increasing their motivation to complete tasks. Hearthstone uses ‘bonus stars’ and rank-based chests to boost player engagement in its ranked mode. This tactic capitalizes on the sense of ownership and loss aversion associated with already-earned progress, making players more likely to continue investing time and effort to reach the next milestone.
4. How does regret influence player choices, and how can designers use it effectively?
Regret can be a powerful emotional driver in games, particularly when choices are significant, permanent, and have limited options. Risk: Legacy exemplifies this, where irrevocable choices, like destroying components, increase the emotional stakes and force players to consider the roads not taken. Minimizing regret is often a priority, but designers can strategically use regret to enhance player engagement by associating significant choices with consequences, as seen in the design of Lost Cities. The intensity of regret can be influenced by the perceived value or importance of the lost opportunity.
5. What role does competence play in player experience, and how does it relate to game design?
Competence, or the player’s perceived understanding of the game’s rules and possibilities, greatly affects their comfort level and enjoyment. Designers can reduce potential anxiety associated with low competence through elements like clear feedback and predictable progressions, as seen in boss fights in Dark Souls. Conversely, excessive hidden information or randomness, such as the health-bar omission in Cuphead can result in frustration and a sense of helplessness.
1. How does loss aversion affect player decision-making in games?
Loss aversion is a core psychological principle influencing player behavior. Players experience losing something as more impactful than gaining something of equal value. This understanding allows designers to create emotionally engaging decisions, such as the difficult choice of discarding cards in Hearthstone’s Tracking or the tension of risking progress in push-your-luck games like Can’t Stop. By leveraging loss aversion, designers can make simple mechanics feel more impactful and create lasting player experiences.
2. What is the role of framing in shaping player experience?
Framing dramatically shapes how players perceive and react to gains and losses. In Pit Crew, framing penalties as benefiting opponents created a more positive experience than framing them as setbacks for the penalized team. Similarly, in A Feast for Odin, negative scoring spaces are presented geometrically and covered up as the game progresses, turning a potential loss into a visual representation of progress. This illustrates how framing can be used to steer player emotions and subtly guide choices.
3. How does endowed progress motivate players to engage with a game?
Endowed progress gives players an initial head start, increasing their motivation to complete tasks. Hearthstone uses ‘bonus stars’ and rank-based chests to boost player engagement in its ranked mode. This tactic capitalizes on the sense of ownership and loss aversion associated with already-earned progress, making players more likely to continue investing time and effort to reach the next milestone.
4. How does regret influence player choices, and how can designers use it effectively?
Regret can be a powerful emotional driver in games, particularly when choices are significant, permanent, and have limited options. Risk: Legacy exemplifies this, where irrevocable choices, like destroying components, increase the emotional stakes and force players to consider the roads not taken. Minimizing regret is often a priority, but designers can strategically use regret to enhance player engagement by associating significant choices with consequences, as seen in the design of Lost Cities. The intensity of regret can be influenced by the perceived value or importance of the lost opportunity.
5. What role does competence play in player experience, and how does it relate to game design?
Competence, or the player’s perceived understanding of the game’s rules and possibilities, greatly affects their comfort level and enjoyment. Designers can reduce potential anxiety associated with low competence through elements like clear feedback and predictable progressions, as seen in boss fights in Dark Souls. Conversely, excessive hidden information or randomness, such as the health-bar omission in Cuphead can result in frustration and a sense of helplessness.
Key Takeaways
1. Endowed Progress Boosts Engagement
Pre-filled progress bars, bonus starting points, and early rewards can significantly increase user engagement and motivation to complete tasks. By tapping into loss aversion and the endowment effect, designers can make users feel like they’ve already made progress, encouraging them to continue investing time and effort.
Practical Application:
In designing a mobile app, developers could use progress bars to motivate user onboarding. Starting new users with partially completed profiles or pre-selected settings can encourage them to finish setting up their accounts, leading to increased user retention.
2. Framing Influences Decisions
Framing gains and losses differently can have a major impact on choices. People are more risk-averse when decisions are framed as potential gains and more risk-seeking when framed as avoiding potential losses.
Practical Application:
A marketing campaign could frame a product purchase not just as a gain but also as avoiding a potential loss. For example, emphasizing the limited-time nature of a discount or highlighting the problems the product solves can create a sense of urgency and increase the perceived value of the purchase.
3. The Endowment Effect Creates Attachment
Once someone feels a sense of ownership over something, even if it’s just virtual, they are more reluctant to part with it. This can be used in product design to encourage users to commit to actions or purchases by highlighting the potential loss of the item or opportunity.
Practical Application:
If a user abandons their online shopping cart, a well-timed email reminding them of the items they’ve chosen and emphasizing the potential for those items to sell out can leverage the endowment effect to encourage them to complete the purchase.
4. Utility is Relative
Utility is subjective and context-dependent. As numbers get larger, the perceived difference between them shrinks, and people’s decisions are driven by the overall impact on their lives rather than strict mathematical calculations of expected value.
Practical Application:
Subscription services could use this by highlighting how many songs the user has downloaded over time, or the total hours of videos watched to make the potential pain of loss feel greater than the utility of the monthly subscription fee. This tactic would make the user feel a greater emotional attachment and reluctance to cancel the subscription.
1. Endowed Progress Boosts Engagement
Pre-filled progress bars, bonus starting points, and early rewards can significantly increase user engagement and motivation to complete tasks. By tapping into loss aversion and the endowment effect, designers can make users feel like they’ve already made progress, encouraging them to continue investing time and effort.
Practical Application:
In designing a mobile app, developers could use progress bars to motivate user onboarding. Starting new users with partially completed profiles or pre-selected settings can encourage them to finish setting up their accounts, leading to increased user retention.
2. Framing Influences Decisions
Framing gains and losses differently can have a major impact on choices. People are more risk-averse when decisions are framed as potential gains and more risk-seeking when framed as avoiding potential losses.
Practical Application:
A marketing campaign could frame a product purchase not just as a gain but also as avoiding a potential loss. For example, emphasizing the limited-time nature of a discount or highlighting the problems the product solves can create a sense of urgency and increase the perceived value of the purchase.
3. The Endowment Effect Creates Attachment
Once someone feels a sense of ownership over something, even if it’s just virtual, they are more reluctant to part with it. This can be used in product design to encourage users to commit to actions or purchases by highlighting the potential loss of the item or opportunity.
Practical Application:
If a user abandons their online shopping cart, a well-timed email reminding them of the items they’ve chosen and emphasizing the potential for those items to sell out can leverage the endowment effect to encourage them to complete the purchase.
4. Utility is Relative
Utility is subjective and context-dependent. As numbers get larger, the perceived difference between them shrinks, and people’s decisions are driven by the overall impact on their lives rather than strict mathematical calculations of expected value.
Practical Application:
Subscription services could use this by highlighting how many songs the user has downloaded over time, or the total hours of videos watched to make the potential pain of loss feel greater than the utility of the monthly subscription fee. This tactic would make the user feel a greater emotional attachment and reluctance to cancel the subscription.
Memorable Quotes
Introduction. 11
Loss aversion is a core concept in the psychology of choice. Here’s the idea: Getting something makes you feel good. Losing something makes you feel bad. Losing something makes you feel worse than gaining the same thing makes you feel good.
Loss Aversion. 13
The prospect of losing something weighs more heavily in our decision-making than the prospect of gaining something.
The Rest of the Book. 27
Choice and decision-making are critical components of games.
Framing. 46
The way that choices are presented can have a dramatic impact on how people answer.
Endowed Progress. 71
Giving progress to people made them more invested in the program. It made them think that they already had started the task and gave them a sense of commitment.
Introduction. 11
Loss aversion is a core concept in the psychology of choice. Here’s the idea: Getting something makes you feel good. Losing something makes you feel bad. Losing something makes you feel worse than gaining the same thing makes you feel good.
Loss Aversion. 13
The prospect of losing something weighs more heavily in our decision-making than the prospect of gaining something.
The Rest of the Book. 27
Choice and decision-making are critical components of games.
Framing. 46
The way that choices are presented can have a dramatic impact on how people answer.
Endowed Progress. 71
Giving progress to people made them more invested in the program. It made them think that they already had started the task and gave them a sense of commitment.
Comparative Analysis
Engelstein’s work distinguishes itself by focusing specifically on loss aversion in game design. While other books like ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Kahneman explore loss aversion in broader contexts, ‘Achievement Relocked’ provides a focused analysis of its impact on player experience. It also complements works on game design theory, such as ‘The Art of Game Design’ by Jesse Schell, by adding a layer of psychological depth to the discussion of game mechanics and player motivation. Notably, Engelstein disagrees with the traditional economic theory of ‘Homo economicus’, which assumes rational actors. He demonstrates how loss aversion leads to irrational but predictable behavior in games, challenging the assumption that players always make decisions to maximize their gains.
Reflection
Engelstein effectively bridges psychology and game design, offering valuable insights into player motivation. While his focus on loss aversion provides a compelling lens for analyzing game mechanics, it’s important to acknowledge that player behavior is complex and influenced by many factors beyond loss aversion. Individual differences, cultural background, and play style can all affect how players react to gains and losses in games. The book’s strength lies in its specific examples and clear explanations of complex psychological principles. However, it could benefit from more empirical data to support its claims and address potential counterarguments. Overall, ‘Achievement Relocked’ is a significant contribution to game design theory, offering practical tools and a fresh perspective for creating more engaging and emotionally resonant experiences.
Flashcards
What is the core principle of Loss Aversion?
The pain of losing something outweighs the pleasure of gaining something of equal value.
What is the Endowment Effect?
A cognitive bias that increases the value of an object simply because you own it.
What is Framing?
The way choices are presented influences the decisions people make.
What is Endowed Progress?
Giving players a head start toward a goal, motivating them to complete it.
What is Regret?
The negative emotion associated with a poor decision.
What is Competence?
A player’s perceived understanding of a game’s rules and potential outcomes.
What is Utility?
The perceived usefulness or value something will provide based on individual circumstances.
What is the core principle of Loss Aversion?
The pain of losing something outweighs the pleasure of gaining something of equal value.
What is the Endowment Effect?
A cognitive bias that increases the value of an object simply because you own it.
What is Framing?
The way choices are presented influences the decisions people make.
What is Endowed Progress?
Giving players a head start toward a goal, motivating them to complete it.
What is Regret?
The negative emotion associated with a poor decision.
What is Competence?
A player’s perceived understanding of a game’s rules and potential outcomes.
What is Utility?
The perceived usefulness or value something will provide based on individual circumstances.