[MUD-Dev] Kaczynski's Law

[Mike Rozak]

>From jfreeman at soe.sony.com:

> which failed to find any reliable method of putting players in
> boxes, defining them as 'player-types'. Rather, he found five
> distinct motivations for playing games that people possessed to
> lesser or greater degree. Furthermore, that people who strongly
> identified with 'achiever'-motivations weren't really less likely
> (nor more likely) to identify strongly with the
> 'socializer'-motivations, etc.

Nick Yee's question can be twisted into, "What keeps players
interested in the game?" The same answers still apply: Relationship,
Immersion, Grief, Achievement, Leadership.

A few months ago I was trying to figure out what made things
fun... which is like asking "What's the meaning of life?" I
rephrased the question to "What keeps a player's interest?", and
then substituted "primate" for "player". (I volunteer at a zoo, so I
have experience with a variety of species. I sometimes find that
thinking of humans as intelligent primates makes humans' behavior
easier to understand.)

Interestingly, all of Nick Yee's items also appear on the primate's
list of interests EXCEPT immersion. Relationships, grief (revenge,
pecking-order, etc.), achievement (social status), and leadership
are very important to primates. They are all social motivations
(except immersion).

Primates (and humans) also become interested in food, narcotics,
danger (a snake or lion) and "something new" in the environment
(such as a strange 1x4x9 black monolith). I went on to enumerate
some drives that are common to primates and other mammals: Such as
sex, feretting (collecting items for no particular purpose), hunting
and gathering, and migration (most primates migrate looking for
foodstuffs).

MMORPGs employ all the primate-targeted interests, except for food,
narcotics, and sex. (Actually, some of the skimiply clad females in
screen-shots I've seen are tugging in the sex drive.)

You can read the article on

  http://www.mxac.com.au/drt/NaturalEntertain.htm.

<EdNote: Copy below>

> Lately there's been also some discussion regarding type-A players
> and type-B players: The idea being that type-A players (whom are
> in the minority) desire a "sandbox"-style game where they're given
> lots of toys and tools and allowed to do whatever they
> want. Type-B players, conversely, desire clear, specific goals
> outlined for them. The idea here is that you should have 70% to
> 80% of your content geared for one type of player, and 20% to 30%
> geared for the other.

I suspect there's a type-C player: "TV watcher", creating a
continuum from type A (full control of one's destiny) to type B
(give me some direction here) to type C (just let me sit back enjoy
the show). Personally, I find that I switch around depending upon my
mood (Do I want to assert myself in the universe today?) and whether
the game is providing the entertainment that I'm craving at the
moment.(If a quest is interesting I'm happy for it to lead
me. Boring quests cause me to follow my own path.)

One might ask, what causes a player to take a more active roll in
their destiny... Why does a player forgoe TV and play the game in
the first place?  Why do they abandon the built-in quests and head
out on their own?

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au

--<cut>--
Evolutionary explanation for entertainment
8 November 2003
by Mike Rozak

For awhile I've been thinking about the question: "What makes games
fun to play?", or more broadly, "What is entertaining?". Needless to
say, you can come up with a list of thousands of entries, none of
which really answer the question.

Frustrated by the huge number of answers, I took a different
approach by defining entertainment: Entertainment is an activity
that keeps people interested in itself despite the fact that there
are no obvious economic rewards (aka: work). So what is
entertaining? This list was just as bad as the "fun" list.

I then tried to tackle a simpler problem. Having spent a lot of time
around animals (I have volunteered at a few zoos), I decided to
answer a slightly different question, "What keeps an animal's
interest?", or more specifically, "What keeps a primate's interest?"

This one is a bit easier to answer:

  - Food - Of course.

  - Narcotics - Not exactly in the food category. They do keep an
  animal's interest though, even more so than food.

  - Danger - There's nothing like a snake or large predator to set a
  group of primates on edge.

  - Socialisation - Primates will spend endless hours
  socialising. This usually involves grooming, playing with one
  another, and struggling for power within the group. Included in
  socialisation could be terms such as politics, friendship, social
  status, competition, and gossip (although most primates don't
  gossip, but they do watch one another's actions, which is the same
  thing).

  - Something new - Primates (and a few other mammals) are very
  curious. If something new is introduced into their environment
  they will investigate it.

  - Others - You can come up with other activities that will keep an
  animal's interest here. This list is sufficient for now.

Animals also have some internal "drives" (or instincts) that
encourage their actions:

  - Sex - Of course.

  - Ferreting - Some mammals (namely ferrets, pack-rats, and humans)
  have the urge to collect things for no obvious
  purpose. (Theoretically the ferreting gene intends for the animal
  to collect food, but somehow it misbehaves and encourages them to
  collect shiny things and other odd knick-knacks.)

  - Hunting and gathering - While this is tied to food acquisition,
  some animals just like to hunt. The hunting drive is most obvious
  in house cats, but even chimps get the urge to hunt once in
  awhile.

  - Migration - Some animals (including some humans) just have the
  urge for a change of scenery once in a while. Biologically they do
  this so they don't over-graze a food source and/or don't become
  re-infested with their own parasites.

  - Others - I'm sure there are more.

If you look at the above activities you'll notice that they do a
pretty good job of keeping your interest too. Interestingly, all of
the above are fairly common entertainment devices. Some forms of
entertainment exploit them better than others; books rarely use the
"food" drive because words just don't compare to the real thing, but
danger and socialisation are common themes in novels.

Humans are different than other primates though, so I'll include a
few other items that interest humans alone:

  - Money - Not for the sake of what it brings, but for it's own
  sake. This could be associated with ferreting.

  - Learning - Some humans (but not all) just like to learn for the
  sake of learning. All children have the urge to learn though, but
  it usually disappears between the ages of 8 and 16.

  - Creation - Some humans (but not all) have the urge to create.

  - Explore - Some humans (but not all) have the urge to
  explore. This could be a combination of looking for "something
  new", "learning", and "migration", but I would classify it as
  somewhat different drive.

  - Problem solving - Some humans (but not all) like to solve
  problems for the sake of solving them.

  - Escapism - The urge to get away from it all, to not be yourself
  any more. Again, not everyone seems to have this drive.

  - Stories - Stories in and of themselves are interesting to
  humans. I'll explain my reasoning later.

  - Others - There may be others.

So what does this prove? Not much, yet.

I have listed a number of external stimuli and internal drives that
will keep you and/or an animal interested... at least for a
while. If an animal (or you) get too much of any particular
stimulation it will get bored (so to speak) and go onto something
else. Boredom acts as a safety switch to ensure that an animal
doesn't become obsessed with the activity, since obsession often
leads to death and/or failure to breed. In humans the failure for
boredom to kick in is considered a mental disorder. (Alcoholism,
food addiction, computer nerd, etc.)

While an animal can have too much of a stimulus, it can also have
too little. Instincts dictate that an animal which doesn't get
enough food will seek out food. The same obviously applies to
narcotics, sex, socialisation, ferreting, hunting and gathering, and
migration. I suspect (although cannot prove) that if an animal
doesn't have enough danger or "new"-ness it will also seek these
out. Humans obviously do (danger = adrenaline activities, new-ness =
take up a new hobby, etc.)

To summarise my theory:

  1. Animals' (and humans') interest can be captured through various
  external stimuli and internal drives. These stimuli/drives can be
  categorised into a relatively short list.

  2. If an animal (or human) gets too much of a stimuli/drive, it
  will become bored and ignore it.

  3. If the animal (or human) doesn't get enough, it will seek it
  out.

Fine. But how does this relate to entertainment?

Modern society is a recent invention. Throughout most of homo
sapien's (that's us) evolution, we were sitting in a savanna in
Africa hunting for our food and being chased by lions. Our genetics
are not attuned to modern life; they are attuned to life 1 million
years ago.

This may be too much to swallow for you, especially if you you're a
descendent of Adam and Eve. Let me give you an example on a less
controversial animal, a house cat, which is designed to hunt in the
wild. If you lock it up in a house, the cat will display some odd
behaviours, namely chasing pieces of string around. That's because
it doesn't have any prey to chase, so its hunting drive needs some
outlet. I suspect that if the cat were able to satiate its hunting
drive in the wild, it wouldn't be nearly as interested in a
tasteless and easy-to-catch piece of string.

The same goes for a human. Modern society provides us with plenty of
food and usually (but not always) socialisation. There aren't many
lions chasing us around though. And we don't get much of a chance
for hunting and gathering (although a shopping mall trip comes
fairly close to gathering). My theory predicts that people will seek
out whatever need is un-met. (Specifics will vary from person to
person since not only will their daily experiences differ, but so
will their genetics.) Entertainment is how we do this.

Following this logic, people that like to jump out of airplanes are
obviously exposed to less danger in real life than their genes would
recommend. Those interested in soap operas aren't getting enough
socialisation (gossip) in their life. People that go on holiday are
fulfilling the migration and/or exploration urge. (They're also
trying to escape from the stress of their every-day lives.) Etc.

But how does this relate to fun?

When you ask someone why they participate in an entertainment, they
usually say, "Because it's fun." From this I make the cognitive leap
that our sense of fun is a codeword for "Because it's entertaining,"
or "Because it keeps my interest - and I'm not even getting paid for
it." (Some people will play a game even when it's no longer fun, but
that's become they've become obsessed with winning at it.)

Putting my marketing hat on... Even if "fun" is not the same as
"keeping one's interest" it doesn't matter. As long as it keeps the
user's interest more than any other activity it will sell, so it's
just as good as fun.

I suspect most people reading this are thinking, "Interesting, but
way too simplistic. It doesn't explain why I like to do X." True,
it's simplistic, and true it can't be used to explain everything,
but (from my perspective at least) it provides a basis for
explaining why an activity is fun. This is infinitely more useful
than no basis at all.

If this theory is true, what are the consequences?

  1. All good entertainments have elements of danger, socialisation,
  exploration, etc. That's why it's common to go out to dinner
  (socialisation and food) and then a movie (danger and
  exploration). Conversely, if you have a dinner party at home
  (socialisation and food) you always try a new exotic recipe
  (danger and exploration). Okay, it's not possible to have all the
  elements included in an entertainment, but most good
  entertainments fulfil a variety of drives.

  2. If you know what a person is missing in their life you can
  invent an entertainment for them. (This isn't a new idea and
  doesn't have much of an effect because people are self selecting;
  those that need socialisation will tend towards a social game,
  etc.)

   3. Corollary: A computer game can model the user's need for
   danger, socialisation, etc. based upon a questionnaire or some
   other method. From this it can determine how much danger, etc. it
   should introduce into the game, and even guess when the user's
   danger-drive has been satisfied (aka: the user is getting bored)
   and a new drive (such as exploration) can be emphasised. (In
   writing terms this control of danger, exploration, socialisation,
   etc. is known as the "tension" of a story arc.) This of course,
   is difficult to do.

------------------

There's one thing I forgot to mention: Why do I think that stories
in themselves are interesting to humans?

My thinking falls along the following lines:

Humans have been able to speak for several hundred thousand years,
maybe more. They have been sitting around campfires and telling
stories for just as long.

At first the elders were just passing on common wisdom to younger
tribe members without the story, such as "Don't eat red berries
because you'll die." As anyone knows, being told something is not
the same actually seeing it or experience it yourself. Being told
that red berries are poisonous is not as "sticky" as actually eating
a red berry and getting very sick (or even dying) or seeing a friend
eat the berry and get sick or die.

So, elders would spruce up their words of wisdom by attaching them
to reality. "Your Uncle Ug ate red berries and died." This helped
because it also included the socialisation instinct/drive into the
equation, making the message just a bit more sticky.

A generation later though, socialisation didn't come into the
equation because no one alive knew Uncle Ug any more. Connecting him
to the message made no difference so it was back to square one. The
solution was to give Uncle Ug relevance by first describing him as a
person and as part of the clan. Only then do you kill him off by
making him eat the berries. A story started to form.

The story was further extended with more words of wisdom. After all,
an elder isn't going to spend 10 minutes describing Uncle Ug (so he
becomes part of the clan), and then only include only one sentence
of wisdom about him... "Uncle Ug was a great any mighty
warrior... blah blah blah... he was my father's great uncle. blah
blah blah... One day he ate a red berry and died. The end."

The elder sticks some other bits of wisdom in, such as "White
berries are good to eat" and "To hunt a tiger you do X, Y, and Z."
All of these pearls are strung together with some more narrative
about Uncle Ug first hunting the tiger and doing X, Y, and Z, and
then eating the white berries. He was still hungry so eat ate a red
berry and keeled over. Using this trick, the elder kills thee birds
with one stone.

However, for some people this still wasn't sticky enough because
they didn't buy the long explanation of why Uncle Ug was
important. (History teachers still have the same problem today.)

Genetics solved this problem though. Those people that didn't
believe the story about Uncle Ug didn't pay too much attention to
not eating the red berries, and well, they eventually ate one and
died. Those that paid attention lived. The brain managed this by
creating a semi-hypnotic state where the story's words were treated
as reality (more or less) by the brain, instead of first being
passed through other functions of the brain (such as critical
facilities).

Just ask any high school student about the Titanic; they're much
more likely to relate the scenes from the movie than the drab facts
they learned in history class. Stories are sticky. Facts are not.

As for why I think story telling is semi-hypnotic: Have you ever
watched people watching TV? Most have that zoned-out look to their
face that indicates they're engrossed by the story. They are
oblivious to the rest of the world until the TV's plug is
pulled. (I'd call this hypnotised.) Another interesting point about
TV is that people usually watch the flickering story-teller at
night, very similar to sitting in front of a flickering fire
listening to the tribe's story teller.

This theory also explains why stories usually have morals and
knowledge embedded within them.
--<cut>--
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