Among the classes I’m taking at the University of Arizona is one titled “Learning Theory for Instructional Design.” I expected this class to do more or less what my literary theory classes did when I was studying English, namely bore me to tears and convince me that theory was a load of hooey. Happily, the class is actually structured to survey various theories of learning in a way that suggests that there’s probably something to each, but that in the end we’ll need to draw from different theories in different ways depending on our teaching philosophy and the task at hand.
So that will explain why I was reading earlier today about B. F. Skinner. I’d heard of Skinner before, and was vaguely aware that he had invented some sort of box in which to sequester infants, which struck me as odd, if not without merit. If you don’t know anything about Skinner, here’s a quick summary. B. F. Skinner was an American psychologist who studied the relationship between behavior and environment, and whose ideas on the subject place him in the school of thought known as Behaviorism. He was active in the field from the late 1930s until his death in 1990, although he was probably most influential in the 1950s.
Behaviorists believe that all animal and human behavior is caused by environmental factors, and that anything anyone does, thinks or feels is a response to some outside stimulus. At the most basic level, they believe that actions that are rewarded will be repeated. Skinner was not as extreme as some earlier behaviorists, who argued that anything going on in the “black box” of the mind was completely irrelevant to one’s actions, but he certainly didn’t believe in free will.
Skinner is relevant to me from a game design perspective because of the way that some of his ideas have been used to understand another, older kind of gaming: gambling. Like Pavlov, the father of the Behaviorist school, Skinner conducted experiments on animals that used food as a reward. One day, running low on rat pellets, he improvised an adjustment to his system. Rather than rewarding the rats each time they performed a desired action, he would reward them every third, fifth or tenth time. Surprisingly, this didn’t stop the rats from doing what he wanted. They kept doing the same thing at the same rate despite the fact that the rate at which Skinner reinforced their behavior had changed.
Successive experiments helped Skinner understand other ways that learned behavior changed when the ratio of reinforcement was modified. He termed these his “schedules of reinforcement.” In addition to the already mentioned fixed ratio schedule, in which an action was rewarded every xth time, he devised fixed interval scheduling, which meant that the reward would arrive after a set amount of time.
He also discovered that you could produce some really interesting results using variable scheduling, in which the number of desired actions (or the amount of time that needed to pass) before a reward was doled out would change between each reward. In other words, you might get the first reward after ten seconds (or six actions), but the second reward would come after 15, 5, or 40. Rats, pigeons and other animals had an extremely hard time breaking habits of behavior that had been reinforced in this way. Skinner drew an analogy to human gambling on slot machines, in which players had no way of knowing when the next payout would occur—just like the animals on a variable reinforcement schedule.
Before I read about Skinner, I had seen the argument advanced that loot drop games are somehow “unethical” and different from other games in how they motivate players to continue playing.
I had a sense that something was different here, and now I think that the difference is in the direct and very literal way that these games implement the idea of variable ratio reinforcement. Think about games like Diablo, World of Warcraft, Everquest and Phantasy Star Online—how do they dole out the top-notch gear that keeps you going for just that one more boss monster, just that one more quest, just that one more month? It’s semi-regular, but the precise timing and payout is always unpredictable.
All games use a variety of kinds of positive reinforcement to keep the player engaged, and in many cases these can be correlated to aspects of other entertainment mediums. Maybe it’s social interaction, as in a board game like Apples to Apples. Maybe it’s a desire to move a linear narrative forward, as when we read a book. It’s games in which the fun comes from grinding yet another level or scoring yet another epic drop that are probably best compared to gambling; is it any wonder that these are precisely the games most often described as addictive? (Puzzle games are also frequently described as addictive, but I don’t yet know how that fits in to my little hypothesis.)
Knowing that people are inclined to find mechanics based on variable scheduling hard to resist makes me wonder about big questions of ethics in game design. Every game needs a “hook,” a clever and fun mechanic, to get players interested. Is there a problem with using our understanding of human psychology to make that hook stronger? Is a game designer’s first obligation to his company’s bottom line? To players of her game? To some abstract notion of creating a set of rules that interact in as interesting a way as possible? Finally, if you don’t believe that consciously setting about to create an “addictive” game is wrong, is there anything a game designer could do that you would consider troubling or unethical?
I should point out that I’m not the first person to make the connection between Skinner and games—far from it. Some mentions of this idea appear in the following places:
December 4, 2010 at 6:28 pm
For the game designer's work to be unethical, wouldn't you have to identify some harm intended to the player? I imagine one who'd argue on ethics would point to monthly subscription fees or pay-per-play schemes, intended to separate the customer from his money. But there's nothing illegal or immoral about making money in return for providing a product people want. And a reward system cannot be addictive unless the underlying game is fun. If a reward system enriches the game you want to make, go ahead and do it, and your players and your bank account will thank you.
December 4, 2010 at 9:17 pm
I appreciate the thoughtful response.
No, I don't think there needs to be "intended harm" for the design to be unethical. If we're talking about serious ethics—which is fair enough, given the language I used in the post—I think there needs to be an awareness on the part of the designer that harm is possible, and that it could be avoided by altering the design.
Separating people from their money can be a harm, but so can addiction, and games with these underlying reward structures appear to be addictive to certain types of players. I'm not saying that's necessarily the game's "fault," or that games need to be regulated, but it's an assertion with some force behind it.
On a less serious level, it's arguably poor practice for a game designer to deliberately pad game length in order to keep people playing. There's a clear business reason for doing it in the case of WoW, but I think that business reason is pretty clearly taking precedence over what would actually be preferable from a gameplay point of view.
December 6, 2010 at 6:42 am
Poor practice is not the same as unethical. More below on that.
I think ou're using an overly-broad – even paralyzing – definition of unethical. A surgeon performs actions everyday which may possibly harm the patient. An ambulance driver speeding to the scene of an accident may possibly hit another car or a pedestrian. More related to our field, a bartender serving even one beer to a customer may possibly impair that customer's ability to drive home without hitting another car or person.
The phenomenon Skinner observed among animals only imperfectly translates to humans because we are armed with judgment, the ability to choose whether and how to react to stimuli. I believe chemical addiction is possible, but not pre-ordained. I don't believe in purely behavioral addicition: that excuses the supposed "addict" of responsibility to exercise control over their own life. In other words, it's not unethical to offer a compelling work of entertainment because the customer has judgment and agency.
I do agree on some level with your comment on game lenght. The structure of our industry has encouraged padding. It's fairly common for a designer to have a good idea for a "small game", but the economics of the industry forces the studio to make it a big game. Retail sort of demands a $50 or $60 game, so you take that $10 game and streeeeeeeetch it, a decent CBS Sunday movie tries to become Avatar – we've all played those. It's getting better, with iTunes, Steam, XBLA/PSN, lots of web portals, it's becoming possible to target your idea toward an appropriate outlet. Still not easy, since making money in the biz is more art and luck than science.
December 6, 2010 at 5:41 pm
I don't think we disagree, actually. You're probably right that I'm using overly broad language. Maybe it's better to just be subjective and state that these behaviorist progression systems are often implemented in a way that is distasteful to me. Addiction to games is too fuzzy a field—no research—and the financial "harm" is, as you say, a transaction with perceived benefit to the buyer.
I also agree with what you say about game length. Fortunately, things seem to be moving towards a more diverse economic model for gaming.
Do you write about games anywhere, Anonymous?
December 7, 2010 at 6:06 am
I don't write about it, but I'm trying to form plans for a company, so I think and seek out others thoughts on the industry, on game design, on games as educational tools, etc. I appreciate your posts, despite quibbling about the ethics nature of it!
November 16, 2011 at 5:22 pm
was it unethical of you to inadvertently share the secret formula for (unethical) success with everyone in your post? Intended harm??