Game designer Dan Lawrence caught our attention this week when he mused about “behaviorist game design.” Observing the success of game mechanics in environments like World of Warcraft and Farmville, he notes:
It seems to me that the very interactivity of games that makes them so compelling also makes considering their ethical dimension more vital. Every game is a system that you interact with; listening to and responding to your actions in a certain way. While the game is responding to you, you are responding back to it even if you don’t realise it. Every game is teaching your brain something, every game is a dialogue with its player.
Storybird isn’t a game, but it does contain a slim volume of game mechanics—a system of triggers and rewards—to make it fun and engaging. And, apparently, addictive.
A few times a week, we hear from kids, teachers, and parents that Storybird is “hugely” addictive. “I couldn’t get them out of the classroom!” “She won’t go to bed until she makes one more!” And our favorite “I wouldn’t let my son make one because I was too addicted myself.”
In the context of literacy, ideas, art, and words—addiction doesn’t sound so bad. It certainly sounds better than grinding for gold in WoW. But we’re uneasy with it nonetheless. Addiction is the triumph of habit over imagination and, in its worst form, literally carves new funnels in your brain in its desire for dopamine.
Lawrence makes a point that resonates greatly with us:
It worries me that this power of games to teach and train their players is either not understood or being wilfully misused for commercial gain. It doesn’t strike me as ethical to train a player to want to do something that they wouldn’t want to do in the absence of an external reward. [Emphasis ours]
It’s a tricky line to walk: you want people to use your game/service/product because they want to, not because they feel they must. On the other hand, reinforcement systems help them get over inertia to re-engage with you after a busy week of work and distractions.
We’ll be chewing on this as we build out our “Awards & Achievements” mechanics in the months ahead. We had always planned for points, levels, badges, etc. But as they become more pervasive and exhausting (Foursquare anyone?), our goal will be to throttle them, taking a quieter, long-term approach to the benefits they provide members of our community. We want people to feel happy and secure using Storybird—not anxious and needy.
PS. While you’re thinking about game mechanics, be sure to watch Jesse Schell’s DICE talk. Schell, an ex-Disney Imagineer, takes an amusing romp through social game design and how life is increasingly a game itself. Level up!
