Examining Game Design from the Perspective of “Behavior Analysis” Vol.2

*This article was originally written by Japanese indie game creator Daraneko, and translated by PLAYISM.

Now, we'll continue on.
The previous installment can be found here.


[h2]◆Fact #4: Behavior “increases” (reinforcement)[/h2]

First, let's talk about reinforcement, the principle of increasing behavior.

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◆Positive reinforcement (reinforcement through provision of a reinforcer)
　⇒Acting causes “good things to happen”, therefore behavior increases
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The most obvious, healthy, and powerful is this "reinforcement through promising a reinforcer". If you get rewarded for your actions, you will do more of that behavior.
I think "eroge", or "sexy games", are easy to understand and would make a good example. As a chart, it would look like this.



Even if the scenario is relatively toned down, or the game itself is a rather boring, if you - as the player - can get your hands on an image that you find to be super hot, then that's a strong example of a “reinforcer” and you're gonna work hard to get it. (Also, you nasty.)

Alright, moving on.

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◆Negative reinforcement: (reinforcement through removal of aversive conditions)
　Acting prevents “bad things from happening”, therefore behavior increases
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This is the same example as the antidotal herb thing that I've been using. Since we want the “aversive condition” represented by poison to be gone, we use the antidotal herb.



This is the kind of thing you do because you don't want to "lose" anything.

In this case, "pulling a gacha when a new character appears" is also included in "reinforcement through removal of aversive conditions". Since reinforcement and disinforcement are compounded, in this example, the behavior of "pulling the gacha" is reinforced by two reinforcements: the reinforcement of the appearance of a new character, which is a provision of a reinforcer, and the reinforcement of the removal of aversive conditions, which is that you will lose if you don't get the character. Gacha can be scary.





Next is disinforcement, or the principle of decreasing behavior.

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◆Disinforcement: behavior decreases
・Positive disinforcement (disinforcement through provision of aversive conditions)
　⇒Acting causes “bad things to happen”, therefore behavior decreases
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This means that you refrain from performing certain actions if you know you’ll be penalized for it.
Like, say you acquire some "red grass", and you try to use it and you end up taking damage... You won't try using that "red grass" again. Also, if you are constantly losing in a competitive game, you will stop playing that game.



OK next. Let’s burn right through these.

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◆Negative disinforcement (disinforcement through removal of a reinforcer)
　⇒Acting prevents “good things from happening”, therefore behavior decreases
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This one is pretty hard to explain. I’m not a fan of this one.
But my feelings here don’t matter. Anyway, to give an example, if the more you fight enemies, the lower your level drops, then you’re gonna stop fighting altogether... That. That’s pretty much it.



Another example of negative disinforcement is when your mom says “You’re not getting any snacks if you play more than an hour of video games per day!”


[h2]◆In Practice (Digression): “Reinforcement” is a game’s foundation[/h2]

These facts are gonna continue for a little longer... But I don't want to keep droning on with explanations too much. I'd like to touch on how reinforcement and disinforcement can be applied to game design.

First, let's go back to the goal I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Here it is.
Also, this time, as is the case with behavior analysis, our goal will not be to "make a fun game". Instead, the goal is to increase the player's behavior of "playing the (super-duper fun and awesome) game (that I totally made)".

Increasing behavior is reinforcement. So, in game design, it is very important to think about how to reinforce the behavior of "playing the (super-duper fun and awesome) game (that I totally made)".

For example, let's think about "leveling up. It's used in all sorts of games, right? Level up. When you level up, your status increases and you learn skills, so it is easy to use as "reinforcement through provision of a reinforcer". As an example, think of a game with a bit of level-up action. It can be a game you like, a game you dislike, or even your own game.
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OK. So, is leveling-up in that game actually fun? Do you feel satisfied when you level up? Does it make you feel like you want to go and level up even further?
To put it a different way: how strong is the “reinforcer” provided when leveling up?
I know it's probably hard to imagine, so let’s set up a rough guide for this “strength”.

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[ S Rank ]
I enjoy playing this game so much that I end up leveling up. I actually play this game specifically for the sake of leveling up.

[ A Rank ]
I'm happy when I level up, and I can set "goals" like "I want to get to level XX".

[ B Rank ]
I feel that I'm getting stronger as I level up, and I'll be happy when my level goes up.

[ C Rank ]
It's good to have a high level, but I don't really think about it that much.

[ D Rank ]
Leveling up doesn't fully function as a "provision of a reinforcer". It has become unimportant.
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If you want to reinforce something, of course, you should have a strong "provision of a reinforcer", and conversely, a weak "provision of a reinforcer" is not useful for reinforcement. The stronger this “reinforcer” is, the better.

If I were to use my own rough guide above, I would say that a rank of B or higher is desirable, and if you are going to put a lot of effort into that content, you should use something ranking A.
On the other hand, if it's C rank or lower, it needs to be tweaked or it's just a useless feature, so you might want to consider removing it.

In this case, I used level-up as an example, but if you thoroughly peruse and judge whether or not this “reinforcer” is functioning properly for every element of the game, you will be able to see what needs to be fixed in the game.

It can be good to handle a large framework in subdivisions, for example, when evaluating a "character enhancement system" in subdivisions.

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◆Level up [C]
When your EXP reaches a certain level, your level will increase and your parameters will rise. The amount of increase is more modest than that of equipment.

◆Updating equipment [A]
Obtained in armory shops and dungeons. When you get new equipment, your parameters will increase significantly. Due to its high importance, it works well as a strong reward.

◆Learning skills [A]
You learn skills as you get used to them and as your skill level increases. The higher-level skills are clearly stronger and become the goal of raising the skill level.
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In this case, leveling up is weak, because the role of "parameters increase" is already covered by equipment updating, and it's not as good as that either, so its function as a "provision of a reinforcer" is weak. There are a few ways to fix this, such as "include a parameter that only increases as you level up" or "change the skill level increase to be done with points obtained through leveling up".

As an example of how to use this, you can use it to "evaluate" a game in this way. You don't need to know anything about behavior analysis to do this, but naming concepts like "reinforcement" and “reinforcer” makes it easier to fully grasp. Since you can measure every element of the game on the same scale, it's easy to spot areas that need to be leveraged.

So, uh... yeah.
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Well, sure, this stuff can be used for evaluation, too, but...
Just how exactly can it be used for game design itself?
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This is probably what you’re thinking right now, isn’t it? Yeah, I can tell. I was afraid of that.
It's not that I can't explain that stuff, but I need to toss out a couple more of those facts first. Otherwise my explanation is gonna come out all half-baked. So please join me once again for a little more of that "Facts" section.

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That’s all for the second installment.
The next installment will mark the end of the Facts section, but I’d like to take some of the stuff I’ve explained and put that toward discussing and analyzing the oft-lamented phenomenon that could be described as, “That thing where you’re like, ‘I've made it all the way to the end of the game, but I've lost my motivation and haven't beaten the last boss’”.

The next update will be tomorrow.See you again then.

[A Little Bit of Promotion]
I’m currently developing the “game book-style RPG” The Use of Life.
The theme is "Dueling", and it features some pretty intense battles that will really keep you on the edge of your seat.
The demo version is now available on Steam, so by all means give it a try if you’re interested.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1483370/_/