Pac-Man (1982)

• Story: What is going to happen next? Natural curiosity about humans.

• Justifies what you are doing, rather than red/green/blue cardkeys.

• Eye Candy / Ear Candy

• Next Goal that is clear, within-reach ("Just One More")

• Feeling of Constant Improvement• Collection / Hoarding (via Skinner Box)

Game Design Best Practices

Skinner Box

Operant conditioning withvariable-ratio reward scheduling.

Skinner Boxes

Skinner Boxes

• Story: What is going to happen next? Natural curiosity about humans.

• Justifies what you are doing, rather than red/green/blue cardkeys.

• Eye Candy / Ear Candy

• Next Goal that is clear, within-reach ("Just One More")

• Feeling of Constant Improvement• Collection / Hoarding (via Skinner Box)

Game Design Best Practices

A Question to Ask

What is Boredom?

What is Boredom?

A healthy responseto unproductive situations.

Like simulated annealing…

“It is better to be a conscious slave than a happy one.” The word “slave” clarifies the nature of the ultimate consequences being considered: they are exploitative and hence aversive. What the slave is to be conscious of is his misery; and a system of slavery so well designed that it does not breed revolt is the real threat.

“The problem is to free men, not from control, but from certain kinds of control, and it can be solved only if our analysis takes all consequences into account. How people feel about control … does not lead to useful distinctions.”

“Many of today's console games exert a time crush. They demand tens or even hundreds of hours of attention to complete, some or most of which often feels empty. In that respect, one could argue that many games seem to destroy time….

“But social games do something even more violent: they also destroy the time we spend away from them... through obligation, worry, and dread over missed opportunities.”

Ian Bogost

A/B Split Testingto Maximize Profit

A Spectrum of Games

A Spectrum of Games

Designer’s Defense:

“We’re just giving people what they want… They’re having fun.”

These really are“good game design”

How to respect the player?

They are also extremely manipulative.

My personal approach

an intensely personal game

a game on a subject that interests me very much,

right now

the game that will impact players' lives in the way that I want, while still making a

reasonable amount of money

With respectcomes the possibility for

open and honest communciation

“Games should just be fun. What is the big deal? I am

having fun.”

“Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic.

In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They're not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being, that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment -- things with which we can fill twenty minutes, half an hour, while we're waiting to die.

“It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn't be the audience; they would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.”

Alan MooreThe Mindscape of Alan Moore