I don't think that game companies are using behavioral principles any differently than any other industry.
BITING THE BULLET STARCRAFT CRACKED
You blogged recently about having your article on behavioral game design used in a Cracked piece on " 5 creepy ways videogames are trying to get you addicted." Are game designers really using behavioral principles much differently or extensively than companies making other types of products and services? Since my work was part of the inspiration for the original Xbox Live achievements, that seems strangely appropriate, like a supervillain immune to his own toxins. The only exception is achievements I'm totally immune to them. In general though, the design works as well on me as on anyone else. "Oh, I see what the designer's trying to do here. I drive my friends and guildmates crazy by dissecting the experience as I go.
BITING THE BULLET STARCRAFT PROFESSIONAL
When you play WoW, do you find that its design sucks you in and propels you through the content without a second thought - or do you find the professional researcher on your shoulder picking, poking and questions the design choices? Since my son was born, I've become very casual and spend most of my game time leveling alts. I also like being able to do little activities that add up to raid success, spending an off night getting that one last little thing that might help beat a hard encounter. I enjoy the coordination aspects of raiding, working out the right strategies to beat a boss with the strengths and weaknesses of a particular raid group. What do enjoy most about the game?įor most of my WoW career, I've been a moderately serious raider. Tell us a little about your own WoW habit. I didn't even know this job existed before they contacted me. The Games User Research group at Microsoft decided I was their kind of guy and gave me a call. I kept seeing connections between the two and ended up writing an article called " Behavioral Game Design" that was pretty widely read within the industry. When I went to graduate school, I found myself doing behavioral psychology during the day and working on some of the early text-based online roleplaying games (MUDs) as a hobby at night. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? How did you find yourself studying how people play games and working with game designers to make better games with that information?
I raided in TBC as a resto shaman and in vanilla WoW as an arms warrior.Įxperimental psychologist, games researcher, writer. I love being an off tank and having a different job in every boss fight. Of course, it also leads to weird situations like a low level employee giving orders to a general manager because the employee is the raid leader that night.įor most of this expansion, I've been playing a feral druid. Because everyone knows they might end up running into each other in the hall, the drama tends to be a lot lower. There's also a certain undertone of civility that I find unique to guilds derived from real-world groups.
They're big enough to encompass a wide variety of players, but everyone's smart and mature. Weird as it may sound, being in the Microsoft friends-and-family guilds has been one of the best aspects of my WoW experience. One's an Alliance guild on a PvP realm, one's a Horde guild on a PvE realm. John Hopson: I play in two of the semi-official Microsoft guilds, and they'd prefer to not to advertise. :)" We thought it was time to turn the tables on Hopson, a loyal reader and occasional commenter at WoW.com, and ask him for his perspectives on WoW from the inside out.ġ5 Minutes of Fame: Thanks for talking with us, John. So far, we're both up to 5 level 80s apiece. "My wife and I had our first child a few months ago, so we've both dropped raiding and have been levelling alts instead since that doesn't require a fixed schedule. "I mostly play in the two semi-official Microsoft WoW guilds, and lately I've been a hardcore player in a casual's body," he notes. The experimental psychologist and beta program head for Microsoft Game Studios examines what makes gamers do the things they do and then designs ways to keep them happily doing just that - most recently, in titles such as Shadow Complex, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.Īll that, and he's a WoW player to the core. What keeps gamers hooked on their game of choice? Chances are, it's an element of the gameplay that was teased out with the help of games researcher John Hopson. How do you play WoW ? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives.
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