HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

yes, my bad. Fixed it. I like this video explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

⬐ lucb1e

I watched the whole thing and still have no idea what Skinner boxes are beyond that it has something to do with making people want to push a proverbial button one more time. So how do you actually do that? What ways do games do this? They mentioned some loot drops but I never played a game with loot drops and so don't know what that means either. (The only gaming context I have for the word loot, aside from the dictionary definition, is loot boxes, a word which doesn't make any sense to me: what did you plunder to get that loot---other than your wallet, that is?)

Looking at Wikipedia instead, the Skinner Box page says about games:

> Slot machines and online games are sometimes cited as examples of human devices that use sophisticated operant schedules of reinforcement to reward repetitive actions.

So I guess it's just about wanting to play the game more because it's fun and it's not some magic method that game designers use to get more eyeballs for a not-so-fun game (the way that the linked video explained it)?

⬐ db48x

A Skinner box is just a feedback loop. You perform an action, and the game gives you some kind of information. Along the way people noticed that some types of information from the game make the player less likely to play again, and other types make the player more likely to play. Games which do well usually reward the user for playing the game. (There are also other criteria such as effective advertising, branding, celebrity, good engineering, and others that I'll ignore for the moment.)

An underhanded game will use this to reward you for actions which directly earn the developer more money. For example, imagine a hypothetical game where you find or earn powerups as you go along. These are both rewards and items that give you the opportunity for another reward. You enjoy using them because they allow you to make progress in the game, and because they are graphically and audibly satisfying to use. So far so good, but if you really want to make some money then you can introduce a way to buy more powerups. If the player is having some trouble with the level they're on, offer to let them buy a powerup that would help them. They'll get all the same reward feedback from obtaining and using the powerup as before, except you earned some extra money. If you want to really earn some money, all you have to do is make powerups rarer the further the user progresses in the game, and more and more necessary. The game can gradually change from a game of skill that rewards player skill to a game of money that rewards the player for giving up money.

Factorio, on the other hand, is a much, much better game than that. If you build a small assembly line that makes some items, the feedback you get is a visual display of the machine operating. When it's operating efficiently, raw materials stream in at speed from one side, and finished goods stream out at speed from the other. If you do the job less well, the effect is visually less satisfying. Perhaps the machines are idle part of the time, because they're not getting enough raw materials. Perhaps the items are not zipping past on the belts like you would want. Maybe the belt isn't quite full of material. Your first attempt succeeded, but only imperfectly. You can then revise your design to improve it, which is a very satisfying feedback loop indeed. The more you engage with this feedback loop, the more your skill at the game improves. The more your skill at the game improves, the better you can play the game. The skill ceiling is really quite high, and building an exceptional factory requires a lot of advance planning and forethought as well as the optimization and debugging skills you have gained from your earlier play.

Either way it's just a game. Many people say that playing games is always a waste of time, because you gain nothing from it. That's not really true. You can gain satisfaction, excitement, catharsis, knowledge, understanding, relaxation, friendship, and so on from games. It's just that some games give you those in exchange for your time invested, and others give you that for your time invested plus a continuous stream of cash purchases.

These days though, monetization frequently means vastly inferior games make way, way more money.

To an algorithm, or a metric, even miserable feeling variable schedule or reward addiction looks like "engagement." So if there's "engagement" and money, why should companies do anything different?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

So how is it that games which have "art" don't come along, charge a bit less money, and win in the marketplace? I guess the argument can be made that they do, but they're in the minority. I wonder if there aren't also generational issues? Maybe the environment of today, where even young people have tablets and smartphones is just a different one?

⬐ shados

Possible! But there's also the whole "gambling is addicting" thing. Some of these games pray on the vulnerable to make their dough.

Alternatively, it also leverages the rich vs poor divide. In gacha games for example, you'll have a very small minority of players pouring as much as several thousand dollars into a game, while the majority plays for free. The game still ends up coming out ahead than if they sold at an affordable price and had everyone paying it instead.

> A workaround would be for EA to simply officially sell the game's "coins"

Preventing this kind of workaround is already part of many gambling laws. They usually define the payment/stake/wager as a very generic term like "anything of value". For example, in NV (as a stereotypical representation of a locale allows gambling), the law defines[1]:

>> “Representative of value” means any instrumentality used by a patron in a game whether or not the instrumentality may be redeemed for cash.

>> “Wager” means a sum of money or representative of value that is risked on an occurrence for which the outcome is uncertain.

Any type of in-game "coin" still represents value to the people playing the game, so trading them for lootboxes with uncertain contents is still a "wager".

The gaming industry could solve a lot of this mess if they simply *sold people the game (or game pieces) directly as a defined product. Of course, that wouldn't exploit the human weakness to operant conditioning[2]... ~sigh~

[1] https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-463.html#NRS463Sec01862

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

⬐ petercooper

Preventing this kind of workaround is already part of many gambling laws. They usually define the payment/stake/wager as a very generic term like "anything of value".

Ah, maybe I'm misunderstanding the concepts involved, but coins in FIFA are more directly convertible into the end result, more like buying a currency. With "coins" you can buy players directly in the game for a known value on a marketplace (you can also buy packs, but this could be disabled).

With the current system (where you buy "FIFA points") you can only use the FIFA points to open packs of "random" players, which is where the gambling element comes in.

Take a look at this video [1] for explanation, and possibly other Extra Credits videos if you're interested in game design.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

It was a long time ago and I wish I was less foggy on the details but I read this comment on Reddit by a purported neuroscientist or some such who was talking about how we don't actually enjoy social media.

They described basically what you've said. We take the actions and get the tiny reward and our brain gets a little jolt of there you did it but when it comes right down to it we don't actually enjoy the activity. More importantly, we're no more satisfied when we finish the activity than we were when we started, we just do it because we've become conditioned to.

I suppose a more concrete source would be the Extra Credits video on Skinner Boxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

⬐ rm_-rf_slash

A Skinner box is a great example. I see it more like a slot machine: you put in your time, pull the crank, and say to yourself: "This is SHIT! Why am I wasting my time on this?"

Then you put in another quarter...

That being said, I do enjoy HN yet I rarely if ever comment on reddit or Facebook. It's really the community that keeps me here.

> time slips away

It doesn't help that many modern games explicitly use Operant Conditioning to keep people playing. MMOs and "free to play" games are notorious, but you will find Skinner Boxes in a lot of modern games.

Extra Credits has a nice overview, which includes a few design suggestions which games can use instead of hooking players with a reward schedule.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

Also, it's not just games - you will find Operant Conditioning style reward schedules in some "social media" businesses, too, which can waste someone's day just as bad as any game.

⬐ jwdunne

I notice this with social games especially. The whole levelling, achievement and overblown rewards system is designed to give a dopamine kick regularly, up until you need to pay to proceed. It's almost like a drug. In fact, that's how cocaine works.

With ADHD, it's even worse. The mind craves stimulation as there's a distinct lack of dopamine in an area of the brain. Games amongst other things give this area nice kick, which is why we see hyper focus.