MDA & Player Motivation
MDA
Common Designer Errors: Game Designer Block, Mechanical Indecisiveness, Dry Walls.
A General Game Design Starting point
Generally we can start with Aesthetics, Narrative, Technology, Mechanics.
MDA - Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics
History: Developed by Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek. 2004. MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research.
A commonly used shared vocabulary in industries.
Mechanics - The rules and components
Dynamics - The interactive system
Aesthetics - The emotional player response
Use the MDA backwards
In short, to deliver emotional experiences to players, we create interaction between game and the player, defining mechanics to allow those interaction and experience to take place.
Starting with Aesthetics. What emotions that player experience when play the game.
Dynamics, what kind of systems we want to accomplish those emotional responses. If we want a game feel dramatic. Maybe we want the heroes winning in the nick of time or maybe the system results in many conflicts between important characters.
Mechanics. After defining the dynamics of the systems, we can decompose them into components, rules.
8 kinds of Fun
Provided by Author of MDA, providing a concise list of game aesthetics
Sensation - Strong sensory experiences, if a game put me on my seat or have me all the feels
Fantasy - Enter a world of make believe. Any RPG, Simulation
Narrative - Keep me anticipating the final outcome of a compelling story
Challenge - Obstacles. Every game sort of challenge.
Fellowship - Make playing game meaningful.
Discovery - Exploring, Uncover map, collect Pokémon
Expression - Building. living what we like, to be whoever we want. Simulation game - second life, The forest, RPG.
Submission - Give time to game in order to relax. Engage something mindless. Just drift away with the vibe of the game.
Player Motivation
To find experience, a good start is player motivation research.
Bob’s research was all about media psychology, communication science. Academically speaking, there are many differences between emotions, gratifications, player motives, personality types and so on. Practically, many overlaps in between.
Two Models of player types
Richard Bartle
Derived from multi-user dungeons, early text-based MMO-RPGs, resonated strongly with game designers that they are still being used.
Achievers - Players looking for challenges.
Explorers - Players explore all possibilities of game.
Socializers - Players hang out with others to do fun stuff together.
Killers - Players impose themselves on others.
Jason Vandenberghe
Aside designing AAA games, he ties vast industry experience to academia by translating the Big Five (psychological theory of human personality) into game design.
OCEAN (Redefine <- Origin)
Novelty <- Openness to new experiences - repeating conventional experiences from more imaginative
Challenge <- Conscientiousness <- desire to do tasks
Stimulation <- Extraversion - relaxing or solitary vs stimulating or social content
Harmony <- Agreeableness - in relation to cutthroat competition vs peaceful cooperation
Threat <- Neuroticism - calm or empowering vs stressful and hostile
More Models of player types
John Sherry
The difference is that John Sherry’s theory was derived from empirical research. Use gratification approach to develop player motivation model. It is a theory from communication science that explains how game develop motives to engage with various media such as video game based on their basic needs. If we pick these as starting aesthetics, we can use questionnaires as a part of instrument to evaluate if the game is actually in need of the aesthetics we set out for.
Six player motives: Challenge, Fantasy, Social Interaction, Competition, Diversion, Arousal.
Nick Yee
Summary
Player personality is not always the best way to explain gaming preferences, it does have some explanatory value.
Player motives often have stronger correlations with gaming preference.
Bob’s Aesthetics
Discussion:
What is your favorite aesthetic in games and why?
What is an aesthetic that is entirely underutilized?
Any player motivation that has not been mentioned.