The Psychological Trick That Can Make Rewards Backfire

So in the 1970s, there was this experiment
where a bunch of kids were told to

draw some pictures.

But before that, the children were split into
groups.

One group was told that that they would receive
a reward at the end, while the second group

had no reward.

After the drawings were finished, the researchers
continued to watch the kids in their classroom

for a couple weeks - and the results were
pretty interesting.

And not just "the unanticipated arrival of
a goat in the classroom".

*Goat bleat*

But I'll come back to that - because I should
explain what this has got to do with game design.

Often in design, we want to motivate players.

Perhaps motivate them to learn a new mechanic,
or encourage them to use a specific feature,

or just get them to play the game for longer.

And a popular solution for this is the goal…
and reward.

Do this, get that.

Like, quests that lead to experience points.

Challenges that unlock cosmetics.

And those cheeky Xbox achievements which are
both a goal and a reward in one tidy package.

But I'm here to tell you that goals and rewards
don't always work how you want them to.

And, in fact, in this video I'm going to explain
how they can even have the complete, opposite effect…

When Klei was making the initial prototype
for its sandbox survival game Don't Starve,

they quickly realised that testers had no
idea how to play the game - and they instantly

became stuck.

So the testers were given a few hints - and
once they got over the hump, they were able

to experiment, explore, and started to have
a lot of fun.

In response, Klei decided to create a series
of small, tutorial-like quests to help players

get started.

Survive this many nights.

Find this many items.

That sort of thing.

And it worked!

But only so much as players learned how to
play the game.

Because beyond that, the quests were a complete
and utter disaster.

Klei discovered that players focused exclusively
on those quests, and thought of everything

else as a noisy distraction.

They optimised their play in really boring
ways in order to finish the quest at hand.

They avoided doing anything risky, because
it meant they might fail.

And then they became completely demotivated
the second the quests ran out.

Klei says "In structuring the game as a series
of explicit tasks to be completed, we taught

the player to depend upon those tasks to create
meaning in the game".

In the end, Klei solved its onboarding problem
by tweaking the UI to give players subtle

hints about how to get started - such as highlighting
the most important items you can craft.

But the quests were left on the cutting room
floor - leaving players to learn for themselves.

Because if a game is about experimentation,
exploration, or player-guided discovery - explicit

goals can limit a player's creativity and
imagination.

Even after the goals run out.

This is exactly what drove the development
of the cosmic archeology game Outer Wilds.

The developers deliberately avoided giving
players explicit goals about where to go,

or even what you're trying to achieve - so
that players are driven to explore this miniature

solar system through a sense of curiosity
alone.

Okay, here's another story.

Zach Barth makes problem-solving puzzle games
about designing your own automated machines,

like Exapunks and Shenzen I/O.

In these games, you can make the machines
however you like - if it works, it works.

But it's actually really fun to go back in,
and see if you can refine your creation to

make it, say, smaller or faster.

So in Zach's first two commercial games, Spacechem
and Infinifactory, he added a few Steam achievements

that encourage this sort of optimisation - like
the Spacechem achievement "Beat the assignment

"No Thanks Necessary" in under 2200 cycles."

But, in all the games released after that
- those achievements are completely gone.

What's up with that?

ZACH: "We wanted to add achievements because
that was back when achievements were cool.

That was back before I thought achievements
were awful."

ZACH: "The thing i don't like about them is
that the game already has a reward system.

We have something that's far more meaningful
and far less arbitrary than a random threshold."

What Zach's talking about is a bounty of metrics
that you can use to gauge how well you've done.

There's your own personal score.

There's leaderboards that compare you to your
Steam friends.

And there are these brilliant histograms that
show you how your solution stacks up in comparison

to every other player.

All of these - the strive to beat your personal
best, or the drive to do better than other

players - are extremely strong motivators
to do better.

As Zach says: "a goal that you set yourself
is way more powerful than a goal someone else

sets for you".

So if a game is about improving yourself,
a personal or social goal can be a stronger

motivator than a set threshold.

My final story comes from the adorable track-laying
puzzle game Mini Metro.

The game's developers wanted to focus on personal
growth and high scores.

And so - according to UI designer Jamie Churchman
- the team specifically tried to avoid these

goal and reward meta structures as they can
become a "means to an end".

For example, the game does have unlockable
cities - which is just to limit player choice

at the beginning of the game.

But Jamie acknowledges that some people will
play each city until the threshold, unlock

the next one, and when they've unlocked all
the cities they feel like they've finished

the game and can stop playing.

We should remember that goals are a checklist
that can be completed.

And like with Don't Starve, some players will
exclusively rely on the game to give them

purpose and direction.

But measurements of your skill - such as leaderboards
and scoring systems, have no finish: you can

continue to improve on your personal best
forever - which partly explains why we can

still play Tetris after three decades.

To truly understand what's happening here,
we need to take a quick detour into the world

of behavioural psychology.

When thinking about motivation, one of the
most popular models is the idea of extrinsic

and intrinsic motivation.

To make it simple, extrinsic motivation is
when we are doing a task for reasons beyond

the task itself - usually in order to receive
a reward.

Or, as that's better known: a job.

On the other hand, intrinsic motivation is
when we do a task for its own sake, simply

because we find it enjoyable or meaningful.

Or, as that's better known: a hobby.

Intrinsic motivation is shown to be far stronger
- and it lasts longer too.

People can enjoy a hobby for a lifetime.

Extrinsic motivation will only last as long
as the rewards are there.

Just see if someone will still work in your
factory after you stop paying them.

And this bring us back to that classroom from
earlier.

Okay, so the point of the study was that the
kids had already shown interest in drawing

before the study began.

They were intrinsically motivated.

Then, they were asked to make a picture - and,
like I said, one group was promised a reward,

and the second group wasn't.

Afterwards, the researchers continued to watch
the kids in their classroom for a couple weeks

and found that the children who received a
reward for their drawing?

Well, they showed much less interest in drawing
afterwards.

And their pictures were of a lower quality
too.

Which is - wow, way to burn a bunch of kids,
science.

This is called the overjustification effect.

And there's a huge body of evidence that says
when extrinsic motivation is attached to a

task that we already find intrinsically motivating,
we suddenly become way less interested in

the task.

And other studies show rewards also make people
less creative, worse at problem solving, more

prone to cheating, and may lose motivation
entirely once the rewards stop - even though

previously they were happy to do it for its
own sake!

Whoops!

And I think we can apply this idea to game
design.

Because there are certainly games that lean
more towards intrinsic motivation.

Like games that focus on exploration, creativity,
expression, and growth.

There are games where you set your own goals
and expect no rewards in return.

And so when more extrinsically motivating
systems - like explicit goals, progression

meters, and achievements - are added to these
games, our motivation can take a hit.

We become blinkered to creative solutions.

We're less motivated to improve ourselves.

We put an arbitrary threshold on how much
we attain.

And developers now need to create a constant
drip feed of new goals and rewards, or risk

losing us entirely.

Of course, that's not to say that developers
should never add goals and rewards to these

more intrinsically motivating games.

Because, I think it's clear that some people
just aren't very good or interested in motivating

themselves.

For every Minecraft super fan who generates
their own fun, there's someone else who is

simply lost and without direction.

It reminds me of my all-time favourite Steam
forum post.

In a thread about the open-ended whodunnit
Her Story, one user said "It's up to you to

decide when you are satisfied with the information
you have found".

To which the thread's author replied, "how
do I decide when I am satisfied?".

That post keeps me up at night.

Anyway - the nice thing about goals and rewards
is that they can provide structure and progression

to play.

So they can still be used, they just have
to be applied carefully.

For example, with goals - it's better to use
large, overarching goals that players can

complete however they want, rather than restrictive
step-by-step instructions.

You can focus on comparative metrics, like
leaderboards, histograms, and personal bests,

rather than absolute thresholds.

Make goals optional, like Hitman's challenges,
or hidden, like Outer Wilds' achievements.

And in terms of rewards - well, actually there
is one type of reward that has been shown

to not trigger the overjustification effect.

Because, in that study with the children - there
was actually a third group: children that

were simply told to go off and draw - but
then were given a reward at the end, as a surprise.

In the following weeks, these children spent
the largest amount of time drawing… of all

- if only by a small margin beyond the kids
without rewards.

This, and plenty of other studies, show that
rewards can have a motivational effect in

intrinsic situations - provided that they're
unexpected, reasonably low value, and feel

tied to the actual performance of the action.

An example of this in games might be Overwatch's
Play of the Game, which is a short highlight

reel showcasing the best moment in the match.

It doesn't really do anything, but it's a
huge boost to the ego of the player who gets

the starring role.

And this is all over Nintendo's latest blockbusters.

In Odyssey, there's nothing telling you to
clamber up here with Mario's advanced move-set:

but here's a cheeky cache of coins as a pat
on the back.

And in Breath of the Wild, every suspicious
nook could be a reward, like a Korok seed.

As Nintendo's Bill Trinen says: "When they
create their games, [Nintendo's designers]

don't tell you how to play their game in order
to achieve some kind of mythical reward.

There are things you can do in the game that
will result in some sort of reward or unexpected

surprise.

In my mind, that really encourages the sense
of exploration rather than the sense of 'If

I do that, I'm going to get some sort of artificial
point or score'."

Hey, thanks for watching!

Just wanted to let you know that GMTK videos
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of my Patrons for supporting this work and
making these videos possible.

You are amazing.