While traveling back from India, from my friend's wedding, I got hold of a book by Rolf Dobelli called 'The Art of Thinking Clearly'. At first, it seemed like just any other book, however as I kept reading, I realized that it actually answered lots of questions of player's behavior in a game. Here are few of them that I'm sharing.
Social proof
Social proof states that an idea/action is more appropriate if it is performed by larger group of people. People tend to act in certain way just because they feel that a behavior is acceptable because more people are doing it. Which is complete nonsense. This would explains things like most popular products or restaurants, trends, viral youtubes, and flappy bird. Most advertisers use this behavior to sell their product because they know people tend to copy others around them, also known as the herd instinct. Popularity is the only reason why flappy bird was so successful.
Reciprocity
We live in a society with social obligations. These obligations comes from the fact that someone did something for you and you have to 'reciprocate'. Reciprocity is the back bone of social behavior, both good and bad. Good reciprocity would mean returning back a favor, whereas, bad reciprocity would mean revenge. Ever played a game where as soon as you start, it asks for iAP? What do you do? You delete that app! Why? Because you are not obligated or owe the app anything to give them back. Free to play model lives on this idea. They give you so many things for free that you end up feeling obligated. And so if you do an iAP you don't feel that bad! Same with gifting system, attack and revenge, and so on.
Authority bias
We are born to follow an authority. If you disobey God, you are rejected from heaven. Every authority wants us to feel that way. You have to follow your parents, doctors, teachers, boss, government etc. Authority bias is a behavior where you tend to do more things based on authority over things based on free will. Because it is so deeply rooted in our system, people are both following and desiring authority.
Authorities crave recognition, which explains doctors with white coat, uniforms and badges in Defense, separate cabins for bosses etc. Authority recognition is more evident now than ever, with employee of the month, badges, getting a interview in a local newspaper etc.
This craving for authority recognition is the reason why people spend hours in a game to be in top 10 of the leaderboards. Even a small, killing spree is a powerful recognition in a match of DoTA. Achievements, badges, hats they all come from authority bias.
Contrast effects
The word cheap or big or good is comparative word. These words only exist because there is something to compare with. Similar to childhood concept of hot and cold water bucket. An item is cheaper because something is more expensive. Contrast effects is such a powerful idea which basically explains the discount madness. Contrast effect forces you to believe that something is cheaper because it is under 75% discount. At this point, the player completely ignores the fact that s/he is still paying for that item. You might never buy an item or an app for $0.99 but you are likely to buy it for the same cost if it was on sale.
Cost fallacies
Cost fallacy is when you think you have invested on something too much to quit it. This, from developer point of view, is a pitfall. I've worked on a project to see it grow bigger and bigger, and eventually fail, because cost of developing the application became too much for the scope of the application. The only option left, from the management point of view, was to increase the scope of the application to recover the cost. This meant increasing the development cost and time. Eventually this became a cycle and you get the point.
This behavior is seen in players as well. Players invest so much of time and energy in a game, that they fall into cost fallacy. This results to them eventually doing an iAP to recover their 'lose'.
The right answer or solution to this problem is to not look at what is lost but to focus on what you have. Money gone isn't what you have control of, but focusing on the left expenditure and cutting cost at the right time might save your loses.
Social proof
Social proof states that an idea/action is more appropriate if it is performed by larger group of people. People tend to act in certain way just because they feel that a behavior is acceptable because more people are doing it. Which is complete nonsense. This would explains things like most popular products or restaurants, trends, viral youtubes, and flappy bird. Most advertisers use this behavior to sell their product because they know people tend to copy others around them, also known as the herd instinct. Popularity is the only reason why flappy bird was so successful.
Reciprocity
We live in a society with social obligations. These obligations comes from the fact that someone did something for you and you have to 'reciprocate'. Reciprocity is the back bone of social behavior, both good and bad. Good reciprocity would mean returning back a favor, whereas, bad reciprocity would mean revenge. Ever played a game where as soon as you start, it asks for iAP? What do you do? You delete that app! Why? Because you are not obligated or owe the app anything to give them back. Free to play model lives on this idea. They give you so many things for free that you end up feeling obligated. And so if you do an iAP you don't feel that bad! Same with gifting system, attack and revenge, and so on.
Authority bias
We are born to follow an authority. If you disobey God, you are rejected from heaven. Every authority wants us to feel that way. You have to follow your parents, doctors, teachers, boss, government etc. Authority bias is a behavior where you tend to do more things based on authority over things based on free will. Because it is so deeply rooted in our system, people are both following and desiring authority.
Authorities crave recognition, which explains doctors with white coat, uniforms and badges in Defense, separate cabins for bosses etc. Authority recognition is more evident now than ever, with employee of the month, badges, getting a interview in a local newspaper etc.
This craving for authority recognition is the reason why people spend hours in a game to be in top 10 of the leaderboards. Even a small, killing spree is a powerful recognition in a match of DoTA. Achievements, badges, hats they all come from authority bias.
Contrast effects
The word cheap or big or good is comparative word. These words only exist because there is something to compare with. Similar to childhood concept of hot and cold water bucket. An item is cheaper because something is more expensive. Contrast effects is such a powerful idea which basically explains the discount madness. Contrast effect forces you to believe that something is cheaper because it is under 75% discount. At this point, the player completely ignores the fact that s/he is still paying for that item. You might never buy an item or an app for $0.99 but you are likely to buy it for the same cost if it was on sale.
Cost fallacies
Cost fallacy is when you think you have invested on something too much to quit it. This, from developer point of view, is a pitfall. I've worked on a project to see it grow bigger and bigger, and eventually fail, because cost of developing the application became too much for the scope of the application. The only option left, from the management point of view, was to increase the scope of the application to recover the cost. This meant increasing the development cost and time. Eventually this became a cycle and you get the point.
This behavior is seen in players as well. Players invest so much of time and energy in a game, that they fall into cost fallacy. This results to them eventually doing an iAP to recover their 'lose'.
The right answer or solution to this problem is to not look at what is lost but to focus on what you have. Money gone isn't what you have control of, but focusing on the left expenditure and cutting cost at the right time might save your loses.
I'll be posting another discussion where I'll elaborate on these ideas but from iAP point of view. How to help players do an iAP and make them feel happy about it.
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