![]() Many people spend hours upon hours playing video games, but what causes such fervent dedication? Video games employ various means to keep their players coming back; today, we will focus on the tactic of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is associating an effect with a certain behavior in order to encourage or discourage said behavior. Operant conditioning can shape behaviors in four ways: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment. While reinforcement encourages one behavior, punishment discourages it. Positive means to give or apply something to encourage or discourage a certain behavior, while negative means to take something away to encourage or discourage a certain behavior. For example, positive punishment would be to inflict injuries on a gamer’s avatar if the avatar does not fight against an opponent, while negative reinforcement would be to take away a responsibility of the gamer for a period of time in congratulations for completing another task. Each of these is used in video games to encourage players to keep playing. One common example of positive reinforcement games use is rewarding gamers with coins, points or badges after a job well done. A player will be rewarded for short term goals, satisfying instant gratification, but when a player is offered a bigger or rare prize for more work, the player is encouraged to spend more time to earn it. The more effort put in, the more that is earned. Additionally, the gamer is encouraged to constantly play because of the element of unpredictability, where the game will reward you randomly. Just like a casino game, this means that a gamer must play as much as they can, because they never know when they will be rewarded and do not want to miss an opportunity to earn more. While these electronic points and medals don’t have any tangible reward, they are valued for their symbolism of mastery. How many points a player earns shows how accomplished they are at a game, how many hours of dedicated work they give to the game, making each reward more meaningful. But points can be just as easily lost as earned. Games also use negative punishment; if one does not open the game for too long, or stops playing altogether, the player begins to fall behind in the game as others move ahead. In essence, the player “loses” more opportunities to grow and earn in the world of the video game. If a player does not complete a task, they could potentially even lose what they have earned, discouraging the player from potentially failing at a later task. And how does a player not fail? That’s right; by playing more. Video games give insight to what people value, and how that knowledge can be used to train people through operant conditioning to follow certain behaviors. . .Now please excuse me, I need to get back to Temple Run. http://yukaichou.com/gamification-study/behavior-principles-and-good-game-design/ http://scienceofconsequences.blogspot.com/2013/10/video-games-schedules-of-reinforcement.html https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/mccal006/video-games-and-operant-conditioning Pictures: https://psychlopedia.wikispaces.com/operant+conditioning http://vidgenx.com/portfolio/video-gamer/
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