Game Development: Time for New Tricks?

If any of us care to think back to our high school careers, we can probably remember learning about the form and function of a “Skinner Box.” Just in case your personal lesson was given while you were sleepily digesting lunch or making an emergency trip to the smoke hole, here’s a reminder: A Skinner Box, invented by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, is a conditioning chamber that’s used in laboratories to study the reactions of small animals as they go through behavior conditioning. Typically, a rat, pigeon or small primate is conditioned to press a small lever in response to a simple stimulus, like a flashing light. Food or another reward is issued.

If you play games, the concept behind the Skinner Box probably sounds uncomfortably familiar.

Jon Radoff, the founder of the social media company GamerDNA and the author behind the book titled “Game On: Energize Your Business With Social Games,” believes it all sounds far too familiar. At Boston Post Mortem, a local developer gathering, he delivered a presentation that outlined the need for game developers, especially social game developers, to think outside the Skinner Box.

“Those two categories [social gaming and gamification] share one thing in common… this idea that you can reprogram peoples’ behaviors if you just give them enough rewards,” he said. “I want to demolish that theory and present you a more meaningful way to look at not just social games and gamification, but all games in general, something that’s a more all-encompassing theory of what makes games fun.

“Bringing games into a business, building any kind of game, is a lot harder than simply building a points system, or a rewards system.”

Radoff’s comparison of video games to the Skinner Box is very apt, and he’s also correct in saying that developers should think beyond the Box, so to speak. However, it should also be pointed out that many of our favorite gaming experiences rock the stimulus-response-reward model, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, the psychology behind a game is less important than the bottom line: Is the game fun to play? What makes it worth experiencing?

The original Super Mario Bros. is a classic Skinner Box experience. You collect coins for point rewards, as well as that now-iconic and satisfying “ching!” sound effect. If you want a good example of how deeply we’ve been conditioned to collect coins, watch this playthrough of Super Mario Bros, wherein the player avoids every coin for the sake of netting the lowest score possible. You will positively ache to hear the golden sound of coins adding up.

Mario still collects coins in his modern adventures, and all the basic rules still apply: Hit boxes, receive power-ups. Stomp enemies, receive points. Skinner Box or not, Mario’s games are still good fun because there’s always a solid adventure wrapped around the gameplay mechanics that we’ve committed to muscle memory. We don’t just want to hit boxes and grab coins: We want to see new worlds, fight familiar enemies, and rise above new challenges.

Another genre that relies heavily on the Skinner Box model of gaming is the Japanese RPG (JRPG), which often requires the player to grind for levels in order to beat the difficult boss monsters lurking in the bottommost chambers of whatever castles or caves we explore. There can be a great deal of satisfaction in slaughtering hordes of lesser enemies in order to slowly build up the experience points that are necessary to gain a level–but that also depends on what kind of person you are, as it’s an admittedly tedious task. JRPGs have come under fire in recent years for a supposed lack of variety in characters, villains, and environments. When we don’t have a worthwhile adventure wrapped around a Skinner Box, it becomes far more apparent that we’re simply acting like lab animals trapped in a glass box. That’s when we get irritated.

One game that offers an interesting compromise on the Skinner Box gameplay is Nimblebit’s iOS hit, Tiny Tower. The object of the game is to build a mixed residential/retail tower, move in tiny citizens, and keep the stores stocked (and maybe to build the tower tall enough to fire an arrow at God; we haven’t made it that far).

Like many free-to-play games, Tiny Tower requires a lot of waiting around while your stocks replenish and your money–which is necessary for adding onto your tower–slowly adds up. You can turn off the game and go do something else while you wait, or you can keep playing by ferrying tenants up the building’s elevator for small monetary rewards. Very occasionally, you’ll acquire a bigger reward, like a passenger who can knock off hours of construction time or automatically move in residents. So as tedious as operating the elevator in Tiny Tower is, it’s hard to turn away because it’s satisfying to see your rewards–both big and small–add up. What’s important, though, is that Tiny Tower gives you the choice to poke at mindless buttons for rewards, or you can turn down the offer and not suffer much for it.

It’s not a good idea for a game developer to begin a project by saying, “Gee, I think I’ll do what everyone else has done.” Therefore, Radoff’s drive to design games around the evolutionary psychology penned by Harvard’s Steve Pinker is important. Radoff wants to see more games based around “the idea that the human capacity for games stems from our capacity for play,” and we do need more games that challenge the core mechanics that are typical of today’s games. Succeed or fail, such experimentation is necessary.

That said, the “reward” system that powers many titles shouldn’t be scorned and disposed of like an old graphics engine. When a compelling adventure or puzzle is wrapped around such a system, it can make for a powerful experience indeed.

About Nadia Oxford
Nadia is a freelance writer living in Toronto. She played her first game at four, decided games were awesome, and has maintained her position since. She writes for 1UP.com, Slide to Play, GamePro and other publications, and is About.com’s Guide to the Nintendo DS.

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