The Skinner Box
I am not saying Guild Wars 2 is the only game guilty of this. It isn’t, not by a long shot. I just wanted to share something with the rest of you to address a question that is asked of the segment who is generally disgruntled with the game as of recent events.
It’s interesting, you should check it out. Pretty much everything from Extra Credits is great food for thought if you are passionate about games.
I’ll cop to wanting to stay around to see where things are going lore-wise. Of course if the game stops being fun for me in a more serious manner?
I’ll just look for the cinematics on YouTube or something. (Read: how I stopped playing “Devil May Cry 3”).
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
I am not saying Guild Wars 2 is the only game guilty of this. It isn’t, not by a long shot. I just wanted to share something with the rest of you to address a question that is asked of the segment who is generally disgruntled with the game as of recent events.
I agree it’s an interesting video (although I think intent is often falsely assumed), but I’m curious why this is any more relevant to the game post-patch as it is to the game pre-patch. Levels, loot, personal story content, kill counters, critical hits, chests, map completion, achievements – they are all obvious reward cycles (and far more pervasive and limiting than a few new items), and were definitely in place long before any complaints about ascended gear or ‘broken promises’ could be raised.
I might be misunderstanding, and if you are arguing against the fundamental systems that GW2 was always advertised to have, then please disregard this objection.
I don’t really like Extra Credit. The series is an opinion box. A vlog. But the entire structure of the video is him acting like a teacher and telling you how wrong you are and how right he is. It makes him sound condescending; like he has some amazing insight into the world that nobody else has.
I don’t really like Extra Credit. The series is an opinion box. A vlog. But the entire structure of the video is him acting like a teacher and telling you how wrong you are and how right he is. It makes him sound condescending; like he has some amazing insight into the world that nobody else has.
Well . . . to be fair, the trio who put that together are in the industry. And I wager the show is written at a low level so they can introduce the ideas to people who don’t know anything about it at a basic level . . . and fit it into the video time.
You are right it’s something of a soapbox, but that isn’t exactly an invalidation of the work. It just means you have to be careful about how you take it.
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
I’m curious why this is any more relevant to the game post-patch as it is to the game pre-patch.
Many elements that would qualify for what is represented in the video were present since launch, but because there was a very real ceiling to it, it made the game into something people were more content wrapping their heads (and time) around.
Recent events make it seem like that ceiling is crumbling down on us and the lack of any real clarification exacerbates the panic response.
That’s all.
I don’t really like Extra Credit. The series is an opinion box. A vlog. But the entire structure of the video is him acting like a teacher and telling you how wrong you are and how right he is. It makes him sound condescending; like he has some amazing insight into the world that nobody else has.
You don’t have to agree with everything they say (I happened to cringe at the episodes about gamers being social pariahs and how basement dwellers are ruining it for everyone else) or how they convey their message to their viewers, but I personally would find it fairly ignorant of someone to dismiss what are extremely valid, well thought out and well explained traits of today’s gaming industry. No offense intended.
(edited by Space Cow.2431)
I dunno, I’m sure of any of us who were awake for at least 50% of our compulsory school days have a pretty good command of the theory and principles of a Skinner Box. I still think these little Extra Credit vids are kinda entertaining. I don’t think you can reduce GW2, or most decent games, down to strictly the push the button – get the pellet model though. I suppose the idea is woven into pretty much all games though, and not just MMOs or even just video games, to some extent.
The problem I see is that some people try to point out the existance of it in games in a durogatory manner. Kind of trying to draw some kind of connection between – mice eating tasty treats and humans enjoying a sense of accomplishment in their liesure activities. You know kind of some, “see you gamers areno better / more complex than a lab rat!”
I’m not saying the OP or even the Extra Credit team are trying to draw that connection, just commenting on how I’ve seen some attempt to use it in the past and over simplify (or complicate maybe?) everything from human greed to a game of darts…
I dunno, I’m sure of any of us who were awake for at least 50% of our compulsory school days have a pretty good command of the theory and principles of a Skinner Box. I still think these little Extra Credit vids are kinda entertaining. I don’t think you can reduce GW2, or most decent games, down to strictly the push the button – get the pellet model though. I suppose the idea is woven into pretty much all games though, and not just MMOs or even just video games, to some extent.
The problem I see is that some people try to point out the existance of it in games in a durogatory manner. Kind of trying to draw some kind of connection between – mice eating tasty treats and humans enjoying a sense of accomplishment in their liesure activities. You know kind of some, “see you gamers areno better / more complex than a lab rat!”
I’m not saying the OP or even the Extra Credit team are trying to draw that connection, just commenting on how I’ve seen some attempt to use it in the past and over simplify (or complicate maybe?) everything from human greed to a game of darts…
It’d be hard to draw that conclusion when they were writing that EC show, since I don’t think GW2 had been released at that point. And the thing about the Skinner Box and using similar mechanics is that they’re possibly buried under layers of obfuscation when used on human subjects . . . especially ones who might know of the Box.
. . . that said, not everything is “an obvious Skinner’s Box” just because you get a shiny reward for doing something. And the intent doesn’t have to be insidiously calculated. It can simply be:
“Alice, you know if we put these jumping puzzles . . . what do we do to entice someone to actually go looking for them?”
“I dunno, Bob. I know, let’s but a chest at the end so they don’t feel they wasted their time.”
“Good, what should the chest have in it?”
“Make it about two to three weapons, maybe some gold, scale it to the area level. How are they going to find that one we put in Diessa?”
“Make an achievement with the name of it, they’ll have a hint where to start looking.”
(Also, ummmm, I don’t think I handled a lesson about the Skinner Box when I took Psych. Standford Prison Experiment yes. Skinner Box, I’m not sure if I did. )
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
Many elements that would qualify for what is represented in the video were present since launch, but because there was a very real ceiling to it, it made the game into something people were more content wrapping their heads (and time) around.
Does it matter whether Skinner Box reward systems have a ceiling? If there is a fixed point at which the rewards stop entirely (say, death of the subject), does that mean that any rewards for repetitive actions leading up to that point can’t be related to a Skinner Box experiment any more? Is it really a ‘better box’?
It was also my understanding that as long as you keep playing GW2, most of those typical reinforcement/reward systems will continue indefinitely (loot, skill point gain, critical hits, other random rewards). Sure, there was a point at which gear could no longer be improved, but that remains the case after the patch as well – it’s just that the amount of actions to get there have increased slightly.
Recent events make it seem like that ceiling is crumbling down on us and the lack of any real clarification exacerbates the panic response.
That’s all.
Personally, I don’t think this has to do with the ‘Skinner Box’ experiments at all.
Unfortunately I think too often on these forums these buzz-words are thrown around to demonise an aspect of the game that we don’t like and make it sound as though the weight of game theory justifies our position – just like we tend to use the negative connotations of ‘grind’ as opposed to the positive connotations of ‘challenge’, ‘treadmill’ as opposed to ‘ladder’, or ‘casual/hard-core player’ as opposed to just ‘player’. I’m sure I’m guilty of it as well – I like to delve into speculation and theory as much as the next person – though I do try to make it clear that it’s only my opinion and no more.
I don’t mind debating whether “Skinner Box” reward systems are bad and why, but those discussions won’t be very productive if the meaning of the terms we use are entirely left to subjective interpretation and personal preferences. My own thoughts are that relating the experiments too much to gaming seems awkward, and I have doubts that developers are really exploiting that knowledge to any great degree – at least any more so than we do ourselves when we seek out activities that we find fun.