Engagement in notgames

[Michaël Samyn]

I was looking at the work of Flying Puppet. And enjoying it tremendously. Thinking who cares about appealing to a mass audience, if you can touch a single person so profoundly?

After a while, though, I started realizing that the free-form nature of these pieces, while totally acceptable to me, might not be an absolute necessity.

I'm very much opposed to the addictive qualities of certain videogames, but I do think their capacity to engage the audience for extended amounts of times is something to be admired. Of course, videogames engage their audience mostly through "cheap tricks" like empty challenges and linear narrative. But maybe those are not the only ways in which an interactive player can be engaged.

I tend to think that the player needs to do a bit of effort when interacting with non-linear media. He or she can't expect the game to do everything for him or her. But I'm not against finding ways that make things easier for the player, that seduce him or her deeper into the experience.

I'm especially interested in finding such "tricks" that do not exclude certain players by introducing a level of difficulty. I'm thinking seduction rather than challenge. But to really engage the player for an extended time, this seduction needs to be constant. Or continuously repeated.

It's not easy to avoid the carrot-on-a-stick system. And maybe we don't need to. The problem with rewards in games is that they are often fake rewards: as soon as you get the big gun that will make it easy to blast away your enemies, the game introduces new enemies that are harder to kill. But what if we actually gave the carrot to the player? What if the game became a never-ending string of reward-upon-reward? Would we get sick of that?

[increpare]

Why think in terms of rewards?  There is a danger when one talks about repeating rewards.  Like giving somebody points for doing things.  Points are the ostensible reward, but what is the game revealing to the player more than spinning itself out?  One can have a game unfold and reveal itself continuously for an extended period of time, possibly increasing in complexity.  I find the language of 'rewards' can be somewhat cynical and manipulative (though they need not be, and I do not think you're using it in this way).

There's also the sense in which the 'reward' constitutes a giving, a transaction, an economy, and I think that contrasting it with related though different terms ('unfolding', 'revealing', 'engaging') might be a meaningful endeavour.

But to really engage the player for an extended time, this seduction needs to be constant

To the extent that this is not tautology, I can imagine a work in which, at some point, the player is left totally bereft, where the player feels abandoned by the work, where the work rejects the player, and maybe picks up again later, or maybe does not.  Absolute rejection might be a fitting end to an extended period of engagement.

[Alejandro]

I think we need a deeper knowledge of psychology in order to satisfy this question. At least I know I do. There are clearly many things that motivate people, of which challenge is only one, of course; there's curiosity, fulfillment, ambition. I guess one could investigate to see if there's any literature on the subject.

I can imagine a work in which, at some point, the player is left totally bereft, where the player feels abandoned by the work, where the work rejects the player, and maybe picks up again later, or maybe does not.  Absolute rejection might be a fitting end to an extended period of engagement.

I think the older games all had a bit of this, at least. With time, game designers learned all sorts of tricks in order to seduce the player. I remember a point in my life at which playing Alien 3 (NES) was completely depressing me. I've discussed this feeling once or twice with a friend, so I know I'm not the only one who has experienced it.

[Michaël Samyn]

There are clearly many things that motivate people, of which challenge is only one, of course; there's curiosity, fulfillment, ambition.

This reminds me of the discussion about Flow: could we make a Flow chart with "curiosity" instead of "challenge" on the vertical axis? Or fulfilment? Or ambition? What would replace "abilities" on the horizontal axis in these cases?

[Alejandro]

I don't think so. 'Challenge' is a property offered by the game, whereas the other three are of the player, and the point of that diagram is that flow lies when one is just able to precisely parry what the game is throwing at you, while still keeping you on your toes. This means tension between game and player.

[Michaël Samyn]

Good point.

But, delving deeper, couldn't asking "how does the game make you feel challenged?" be similar to asking "how does the game make you feel curious?" We're quite familiar with the systems that challenge people. But we shouldn't mistake this familiarity, or even the fact that it's rather easy to challenge a human, with "the natural order of things". It's still highly artificial, constructed. So I wonder if it's not possible to make an equivalent construction that generates curiosity.

(not that I think we can "engineer" our way out of this problem; I'm just musing )

[Alejandro]

Then, the words could probably be 'mystery' for the vertical, 'curiosity' for the horizontal. How's that?

Actually, it makes no sense. Curiosity is not independent from mystery. I know: 'mystery' and 'knowledge'. The higher the knowledge, the higher the levels of mystery there needs to be in order to keep curiosity in flow. I think that this is pretty much how TV series Lost works.

[Michaël Samyn]

Mystery vs Knowledge.
Yep, I think we can create Flow between those two!

[Dagda]

The way I'd put it is that there are two kinds of activities which we label as "play".

The first is playing a game- Halo, basketball, and so on. The activity here is working to overcome an interesting challenge. It's worth pointing out that this is a much broader definition of "game" than the one referred to by the "notgame" label, as far as I can tell; it can apply to any case where the act of trying to do something is inherently rewarding (a sensation we typically refer to as "interesting" or "fun").

The second is playing like a child plays with toys.  The activity here is exploring possibilities through interaction. The psychological drive is curiosity, which I'd describe as wanting to see everything there is to see. When you search obsessively for all 100 Green Stars because you've heard that unlocks a secret ending, curiosity is what's motivating you.

(Of course, this isn't to say that every case of 'play' has to be only one of these two types. Human beings rarely have only one motivation to be doing something.)

So what's the practical takeaway? Curiosity will keep a player engaged if they believe their interactions will yield something they want to see. They'll participate because they want to see the consequences of that participation.

[God at play]

Great addition Dagda.  Those fit well in the Why We Play Games essay.  Challenge and Mystery would be Hard Fun and Easy Fun.

That essay also mentions Altered States (they also call it Serious Fun).  They refer to it as "games as therapy," and it's about exploring the rhythm of your own mental/emotional states during play.  Not sure how that translates, but it's something to think about.

What about things that would motivate you outside of what you'd typically think in a play experience?

[Dagda]

Hard fun and easy fun would definitely match challenge and curiosity. I hesitate to use the word mystery, because the player's drive is rarely abated by knowing approximately what will happen- the important thing is to have gotten the full experience (not counting any remaining elements of that experience which don't feel like they'll be worthwhile).

Altered states strike me as a confused catch-all that covers the ways numerous other factors affect us on an emotional level (the biggest one is being immersed in the game's narrative, which roughly same as emphasizing & identifying with the protagonist of a story). This isn't to say I disagree with the idea of games as therapy; experiencing emotions can be therapeutic in the same way that eating food can be nutritious, regardless of how those emotions were triggered.

Other things that would motivate and engage players? There's external rewards (which are just a kind of challenge that takes longer to overcome), escapism (which I believe exists, but have yet to noticed in my experiences), social elements (as identified in that essay, and brutally leveraged by facebook games) and various psychological tricks like loss aversion. Personalization is also effective. Any high-quality elements of the production (The writing, music, imagery, choreography...) can have the same lasting appeal that similar works have on their own. The player will be more inclined to immerse themselves in that element (so as to better savor it), and by extension become more immersed in the game as a whole (at least to whatever degree said element ties into that whole).

[axcho]

This reminds me of the discussion about Flow: could we make a Flow chart with "curiosity" instead of "challenge" on the vertical axis? Or fulfilment? Or ambition? What would replace "abilities" on the horizontal axis in these cases?

Nicole Lazzaro's "Easy Fun" would have Novelty on the vertical axis and Understanding on the horizontal axis. The two danger zones to avoid are Confusion above and Boredom below.

Just like "Hard Fun" with Challenge and Skill axes, and Frustration and Boredom zones.

I'm not sure how broadly applicable the "flow channel" graph would be though.

[Michaël Samyn]

I'm not sure how broadly applicable the "flow channel" graph would be though.

I don't believe that every game should "flow" 100% of the time. It really depends on the subject matter. If your story is a smooth journey of encountering an obstacle and overcoming it and then being the hero, then you'd probably want to have as much flow as possible. But if your story has unexpected turns and multiple layers, or if you want the player to stop once in a while, and think -or just stop, for that matter-, then perhaps as a designer you should break the flow, or at least allow it to break.

I fall asleep on films that I call my favorites. In terms of Flow, they suck. But forgettable blockbusters keep me awake (even though I'm annoyed throughout). They have perfect flow. But I sort of hate them for it. Flow feels shallow. Flow is not normal. Not real. And it perhaps contributes to things being forgettable. Because you just felt "ok" during the entire experience.

[Dagda]

Interesting point, Michael-getting someone to pay attention's not the same as getting them to think. In fact, I suppose even pieces that are deeply moving and inspiring don't necessarily push someone to reflect and contemplate- look at propaganda and political rallies. Plato's ideal utopian republic would have treated storytellers as serious threats to society- the man understood what a powerful tool narratives could be for those trying to persuade people to believe in a falsehood.

So what's the quality that those films do have, to make them your favorites? I'd love to hear some specific examples of what makes them great, things they do that we ought to take notes on.

[Michaël Samyn]

So what's the quality that those films do have, to make them your favorites? I'd love to hear some specific examples of what makes them great, things they do that we ought to take notes on.

That's really far too broad to discuss. And maybe it's different for every film.
I would think many people would recognize my experience. Each for their own favorite films.
The point is not so much what specifically makes those films great. But that smoothness in entertainment probably stimulates forgettableness and should thus be used cautiously and not be considered and some kind of Holy Grail.