june gloom on 31/3/2013 at 23:21
Giving me the link to an abstract of a paper from 1999 is not an answer. I want an answer. How do achievements sap intrinsic motivation to play games?
Tomi on 31/3/2013 at 23:21
Quote Posted by Goldmoon Dawn
We "know" that these achievements will have a toggle (awaiting official confirmation?
Assuming that Thief 4 will be on Steam, you can disable all the in-game pop-ups, including those achievement pop-ups that appear in the bottom right corner of the screen for like five seconds. The achievements will still work normally of course, you just won't be notified of them anymore. I haven't tried this myself, but I believe it should work.
Starker on 31/3/2013 at 23:22
Quote Posted by Tomi
So turn off the achievement notifications and you won't ever have to even think about rewards. Problem solved.
Like I said, I don't personally care about achievements, but I worry about what effect they might have on the industry and gamer culture.
Quote Posted by Tomi
Was your intrinsic motivation reduced every time you completed a bonus objective in Thief? Did the "objective completed" sound effect bother you a lot? I thought that the bonus objectives were fun and it was nice when the game notified/rewarded me for doing something special.
Those would actually fall under the verbal, unexpected, informational feedback.
Quote Posted by Tomi
So let's hope that all achievements in Thief 4 will have a positive effect, eh? :p
A lot of the current achievements that I've seen, would unfortunately fall under the negative category.
SubJeff on 31/3/2013 at 23:26
Quote Posted by Starker
Go read the page. Or, better yet, listen to the talk.
I read it.
I disagree.
june gloom on 31/3/2013 at 23:26
The abstract of a paper from 1984. Fascinating. I'm not seeing how this answers my question, though.
Starker on 31/3/2013 at 23:27
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Giving me the link to an abstract of a paper from 1999 is not an answer. I want an answer. How do achievements sap intrinsic motivation to play games?
What? These are the findings of a meta-analysis of 128(!) studies that researched exactly the thing I'm talking about.
Quote:
As predicted,
engagement-contingent, completion-contingent, and performance-contingent rewards significantly
undermined free-choice intrinsic motivation (d = -0.40, -0.36, and -0.28, respectively), as did
all rewards, all tangible rewards, and all expected rewards.
Engagement-contingent and completion-contingent rewards also significantly
undermined self-reported interest (d = -0.15, and -0.17), as did all
tangible rewards and all expected rewards.
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
june gloom on 31/3/2013 at 23:29
But what does any of this have to do with achievements? Can you give me a single cited example of where achievements have demonstrably done what you are claiming they do?
Starker on 31/3/2013 at 23:32
Quote Posted by dethtoll
But what does any of this have to do with achievements? Can you give me a single cited example of where achievements have demonstrably done what you are claiming they do?
That's what the talk was about. Because the achievements are so similar to the rewards researched in papers like these, there is a reason for concern.
Tomi on 31/3/2013 at 23:34
Can you give us a concrete example of such an achievement then?
