"We open a treasure chest once and we get something that is far and away better than the 10 other times we've opened a similar treasure chest. we're really sensitive to patterns and deviations from what we predict or what we expect to happen. "That randomness leverages part of the way our brains are put together. "The random element to these types of reward systems makes them that much more engaging because sometimes you get something and sometimes you get nothing, and sometimes you get something that is spectacularly awesome," says Madigan. This classical conditioning process is made even more effective by adding a dash of randomness on top.
This means that an in-game cue becomes associated with the potential of reward, which is why players tirelessly pursue items such as chests, caves, missions and specific enemy types. That's basic psychology 101 classical conditioning where you increase behaviours by rewarding them and decrease them by punishing them." And because you got a reward, you are then on the lookout for that stimulus in the future. You see some sort of stimulus in the environment and you perform an action based on that stimulus, and then you get a reward.
#Psychology of the looter shooter how to
The trick, though, is that the sporadic nature of loot means our brain is constantly trying to figure out how to get that dopamine hit, despite the other, logical parts of our mind knowing there’s no way to actually control the unsystematic environment. Making things more complicated, unexpected meaningful loot results in a bigger dopamine hit, which keeps players coming back for more in the hope that above-average rewards might again ensue. If you come across a chest in a loot-oriented game, your brain releases dopamine because opening a chest in the past has resulted in coveted loot. Dopamine is also released at the first sign of something that has, in the past, been positive. Our brains release a chemical called dopamine to make us feel happy when something good happens. "Humans are very susceptible," says Madigan. He says there's a strong reason why loot is so compelling to
psychologist who runs the website Psychology It was only after quitting the game that I began to question why the allure of loot kept me, and countless others, coming back for hundreds of hours of potential disappointment. I still felt elation on the occasions when I scored meaningful drops, but the frustration and guilt when I netted an already-owned piece of swag that a teammate desperately wanted outweighed the positives.ĭestiny's loot loop simply wasn't fun anymore and I stopped playing.
#Psychology of the looter shooter series
After more than 100 hours of play, I found that the hunt was triggering a series of negative emotions. Personally speaking, the futility of the quest for loot came to a head recently with Destiny 1.0. While some games have more rewarding loot systems than others, they all tap into basic psychological principles that make us believe that we will be rewarded if we persist. There's a reason why games with loot mechanics have such an allure to the average gamer: these systems tie directly into certain mental processes that tempt us to come back for more. We run around collecting shiny bling, gathering up swag to build a shrine to our in-game achievements. This article originally appeared in issue 68 of Game Informer's Australian magazine, written by Nathan Lawrence.Ī well-crafted loot system converts gamers into bowerbirds.
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