Achievement relocked : loss aversion and game design / Geoffrey Engelstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Engelstein, Geoffrey, author.

Series:

Playful thinking (Cambridge, Mass)

Playful Thinking

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Video games--Design.

Video games.

Loss aversion.

Video games--Psychological aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (152 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : The MIT Press, [2020]

Summary:

How game designers can use the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion to shape player experience. Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an "intensity of feeling" scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design. Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect--why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours--as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal 's use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to Loss Aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer's increasing mastery.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

On Thinking Playfully

Preface

Introduction

1. Loss Aversion

Losing Levels

Tracking

Casino Games

The Rest of the Book

2. Endowment Effect

Weighted Companion Cube

Robinson Crusoe and First Martians

Permadeath

3. Framing

Disease

Offsets and Isolation

Framing in Board Games

4. Utility Theory

Deal or No Deal

Path Dependence

Endowment Effect

Push-Your-Luck Games

The Ten-Times Game

5. Endowed Progress

Car Wash Experiment

Hearthstone Ranked Play

Chess Rankings

Liquor Store Experiment

The Settlers of Catan

Experience in RPGs

6. Regret and Competence

Legacy Games

Regret Game

Regret as a Game Design Tool

Regret and Endowed Progress

Competence

Attack/Defend Example: Who Chooses First?

Video Games versus Board Games

7. Putting It All Together

The Agricola Series

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262357050

0262357054

9780262357043

0262357046

OCLC:

1130310467