The Joy Return

What an amazing world and an amazing time in which we live. I am actually spending time doing two things:

1. Playing games
2. Writing about playing games

Now that demonstrates that we have, as a civil society, an exorbitant amount of time not dedicated to pursuing our basic biological and safety needs. But what return to we get for the investment of time in gaming pursuits?

• Do they teach us?
• Do they entertain?
• Do they fulfill a social need?
• Do they breathe life into the barren waters of our industrialized psyche?

Let me offer an observation related to game design and how people enjoy and consume various entertainment properties. I base this on the economic theory of diminishing marginal returns and expected utility theory. This means that on the edge of the production possibilities frontier, it takes more inputs to yield ever increasingly smaller amounts of output.

Let’s review the chart. First, I leave the definition of Joy to the reader … just go ahead and substitute what you get out of your time investment in your MMORPG or digital property of choice. Next, I assume that today’s MMORPGs, First Person Shooters, and Real Time Strategy Games all roughly play the same (i.e. MMORPGs all have grinding, farming, levels, buffs, debuffs, crafting, prestige rankings, quests, skills to train and develop, PvP, etc.) with minor variations on combat systems and major variations art. Finally, I constructed a model to represent the output (JOY) relative to the input (PLAYER’s TIME) over the course of 52 weeks. I plotted the relationship between the time investment and the return on that investment.

I contend that for the first couple of months, the player gets a decent amount of joy for the amount of time invested. During Weeks 1-10, the reader gets 1 unit of joy for every hour playing. However, as the player levels, gets more powers, and must undertake more complex quests and fight more robust opponents, he or she harvests less joy for the time invested. As complexity increases and players rise to the highest level the game offers, special quests and special loot drops become more important. The joy of exploration has gone by 20-30 weeks of game play, and the player knows the virtual landscape. Imagine reading the same novel for the 5th time, and I think that is what happens: first couple times is fine .. but that third time is a chore, and beyond that, it’s a major pain to crack open the book.

The only thing that perpetuates a desire for continued time investment is if the players are driving the content and can make a marked difference in the world. Crafting, economy, and political fighting make for sustainable game play, and this means a virtual world with player persistent components.

Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, some form of dynamic content generation or live events must be applied to give the person some additional return. Social relationships and guilds certainly help retain the players, but even that loses its utility and can be ported to other properties and virtual worlds.

Is this the unified field theory of the video game? Or is it another expression of my grand ability to master the obvious? Would love to hear comments back on this topic.

~ by xaviermorgan on October 15, 2006.