Codex Entry 3 – Motivational Benefits

When it comes to intelligence, there are two types of people:

1. Those who believe that intelligence is fixed. That it is not malleable, and therefore can not be improved.
2. Or those that believe intelligence is changeable, and as such, can be cultivated through time and effort.

This is not an article about the motivations behind why people play video games, but one that explores how video games engender effective motivational characteristics both in and outside gaming contexts.

Congratulations on finding Codex 3. Here’s some experience to get you over to the next level.

I remember when I first played Portal 2. Despite buckets of praise being heaped on the game by my friends, I never finished the campaign. Shocking, right? It’s such a celebrated puzzle game, with interesting gameplay and an intriguing story, but I could never get past the constant feeling that I was the dumbest person in the world. Heads up: I don’t actually think I’m that stupid. But if there is one thing Portal 2 gets right, it’s the persistent modulation of my personal feelings of achievement and failure, which were both intense and intermittent, and frustrating in a way that puts me off playing other great puzzle games.

I felt the constant bubble of helplessness at every new level. For while I advanced and got quite far, each reappraisal of these feelings put me in a further state of frustration; playing this game wasn’t meant to make me feel stupid at my inability to interpret the puzzles as fast or as successfully as my peers.

When we talk about the motivational benefits of video games, we’re not discussing the reasons for playing the games that we do. Our conversation must go beyond that meaningful, though superficial (for our purposes) line of thought. More than anything, video games are “wizards of engagement”, and it is through the tactics that inspire constant reengagement with tasks in games — like my experience in Portal 2 — do we discover how video games promote feelings of persistence that lead to rewards over simply giving up.

In order to understand how this is achieved though, we must first examine certain beliefs that determine what we think about our own intelligence and abilities. As children, we can grow up thinking one of two ways: either we believe in an entity theory of intelligence or an incremental theory of intelligence. The former develops when we’re praised for our traits rather than our efforts, which lead to the belief that intelligence is a muted, fixed entity. The latter develops when we’re (you guessed it) praised for our efforts, which leads people to believe that failure is a mark of “effortful engagement” rather than personal incapabilities. The demarcation between these two beliefs is incredibly important, for it can determine how we treat personal effort and failure: are you more likely to give up when unsuccessful, or more determined to bolster your efforts?

The disadvantage of subscribing to an entity theory of intelligence is that failing can induce the most intense feelings of worthlessness and helplessness. The biggest advantage however? According to Granic and co., video games are in fact one of the best training grounds for acquiring an incremental theory of intelligence.

The way this works is due to the constant immediate feedback provided to players when engaging in certain efforts within video games. Since video games employ a wide range of psycho-techniques to amplify affect, they are able to simultaneously balance levels of success and frustration. This plays out in a skilled and dynamic relationship that modulates our experience of challenges by not only rewarding efforts of successful completion in creative ways, but setting the player up to try again when met with failure. The feedback loop is conducive to praising the efforts of constant persistence over giving up. Furthermore, it’s tempting to think that when met with failure players are inclined to feel long term anger or sadness, but that’s not the case. Granic and co. are quick to point out that, more than anything, video games short circuit these feelings of negativity, and instead rely on affective design to re-motivate players into being “relentlessly optimistic” about completing tasks and reaching specific goals.

Although video games are considered frivolous and a waste of time, there is no doubt the levels of engagement employed by developers have seen fruitful experiences. The ‘sweet spot’ video games manage to satisfy correlates with encouraging a persistent motivational style, which has the potential to bear real fruit outside of gaming contexts. We can’t draw immediate judgements yet, since no empirical studies on the correlation between gaming, persistence and real life success have been made, but it’s fair to say that video games do have impact on motivational outcomes at least within gaming scenarios.

So the next time you’re tempted to think you’re stupid because you can’t get past a challenging level in a video game, remember this:

It’s the game’s fault. Ha.

Source: The Benefits of Playing Video Games by Isabela Granic et al, 2014.