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Achievement Relocked: Loss Aversion and Game Design
How game designers can use the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion to shape player experience.
Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an "intensity of feeling" scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design.
Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect--why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours--as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal's use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to Loss Aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer's increasing mastery.
Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an "intensity of feeling" scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design.
Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect--why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours--as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal's use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to Loss Aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer's increasing mastery.
152 pages, Hardcover
Published February 18, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 20, 2021
I read this for my consulting job at Latitude, as I'm having to make a lot of game design choices and I want more theory to guide me. This is a surprisingly in-depth examination of one principle of game design-- that most people really dislike losing something they already had, even if functionally it is the same as not getting the thing in the first place or there is a higher expected value on a gamble they could trade it for. He teases out a lot of consequences of this and shows how it plays out in a lot of games.
It made me do some introspection about why I dislike competitive games so much. I wonder if my strong irrational aversion to losing games has held me back from taking some risks in my life that I would actually have had a pretty good chance of coming out ahead on.
It made me do some introspection about why I dislike competitive games so much. I wonder if my strong irrational aversion to losing games has held me back from taking some risks in my life that I would actually have had a pretty good chance of coming out ahead on.
May 16, 2020
Loss aversion is one of the closest things that psychology has to a law. The idea is that people feel more pain from a loss than they do pleasure from a comparable gain. And they tend to do all kinds of irrational things to avoid losses.
It's a great little book if you're a game designer and want to be aware of how this feature of human nature can be leveraged to make better games. Or worse ones, if you're into that. Each chapter covers a sub-topic of the larger concept: loss aversion, endowment effect, framing, utility theory, endowed progress, and regret. For each of these, Englestein shares some supporting research and then provides several illustrations of how the topic shows up in the design of board and/or video games. It's fun to see it laid bare and made so plainly understood what's going on when we play these games.
It's a great little book if you're a game designer and want to be aware of how this feature of human nature can be leveraged to make better games. Or worse ones, if you're into that. Each chapter covers a sub-topic of the larger concept: loss aversion, endowment effect, framing, utility theory, endowed progress, and regret. For each of these, Englestein shares some supporting research and then provides several illustrations of how the topic shows up in the design of board and/or video games. It's fun to see it laid bare and made so plainly understood what's going on when we play these games.
April 19, 2021
Great quick read about human psychology through examples of video games and board games. The examples are fun to read. It feels even better if you are familiar with the games. I would love to read more about other aspects of psychology through more game design.
December 12, 2023
Gran libro que explica la psicología de muchas decisiones humanas, pero en este caso en el contexto de los juegos y en cómo se pueden aplicar estos aprendizajes (con algunos ejemplos de juegos reales y sus consecuencias) para que el jugador o el usuario se mueva hacia donde queremos o para crear una mejor experiencia en general.
Me quedo con varios aprendizajes que tienen múltiples formas de aplicarse:
- La aversión a la pérdida es cómo los humanos tenemos sentimientos negativos cuando perdemos algo que creemos que era nuestro y por lo tanto tomamos acciones para minimizar estos sentimientos.
- Los experimentos demuestran varias cosas:
1. La gente en general prefiere una ganancia segura más pequeña que una ganancia más grande que no sea tan segura.
2. Es preferible jugársela a perder más, pero que no sea seguro, que tener una pérdida asegurada (ej. las personas prefieren tener la 80% de probabilidad de perder $5,000 que tener 100% de probabilidad de perder $4000)
3. Los humanos no procesamos correctamente las probabilidades muy grandes o muy pequeñas. También consideramos iguales probabilidades cercanas.
4. 0 y 100% de probabilidad son especiales en nuestras mentes, causan un efecto que nos hace enfocarnos en ellas cuando se presentan.
5. Cuando alguien tiene algo en su poder o lo considera suyo, tiene un valor especial, aunque prácticamente no haya ninguna diferencia con otros objetos.
6. "Regalarle" a las personas algo de lo que necesitan para completar un objetivo puede ayudarlas a tener la motivación para conseguir las piezas faltantes de ese objetivo.
7. Las personas evitan al máximo el arrepentimiento, que en ambientes controlados (como los juegos) es causado por las decisiones irreversibles y en las que es claro qué consecuencias tienen.
Este libro es muy instructivo, también en el aspecto matemático sobre la toma de decisiones aunque ese no es su objetivo. Lo recomendaría a todos los diseñadores de interacción y aquellos que están a cargo de diseñar experiencias para aumentar el bienestar de las personas.
Me quedo con varios aprendizajes que tienen múltiples formas de aplicarse:
- La aversión a la pérdida es cómo los humanos tenemos sentimientos negativos cuando perdemos algo que creemos que era nuestro y por lo tanto tomamos acciones para minimizar estos sentimientos.
- Los experimentos demuestran varias cosas:
1. La gente en general prefiere una ganancia segura más pequeña que una ganancia más grande que no sea tan segura.
2. Es preferible jugársela a perder más, pero que no sea seguro, que tener una pérdida asegurada (ej. las personas prefieren tener la 80% de probabilidad de perder $5,000 que tener 100% de probabilidad de perder $4000)
3. Los humanos no procesamos correctamente las probabilidades muy grandes o muy pequeñas. También consideramos iguales probabilidades cercanas.
4. 0 y 100% de probabilidad son especiales en nuestras mentes, causan un efecto que nos hace enfocarnos en ellas cuando se presentan.
5. Cuando alguien tiene algo en su poder o lo considera suyo, tiene un valor especial, aunque prácticamente no haya ninguna diferencia con otros objetos.
6. "Regalarle" a las personas algo de lo que necesitan para completar un objetivo puede ayudarlas a tener la motivación para conseguir las piezas faltantes de ese objetivo.
7. Las personas evitan al máximo el arrepentimiento, que en ambientes controlados (como los juegos) es causado por las decisiones irreversibles y en las que es claro qué consecuencias tienen.
Este libro es muy instructivo, también en el aspecto matemático sobre la toma de decisiones aunque ese no es su objetivo. Lo recomendaría a todos los diseñadores de interacción y aquellos que están a cargo de diseñar experiencias para aumentar el bienestar de las personas.
February 29, 2020
A concise, illuminating treatise
With this book and 2019's Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design (which he co-authored with Isaac Shalev), Geoff Engelstein has swiftly established himself as the preeminent academic author on game design.
Achievement Relocked is a thorough introduction to the underlying psychology of decision-making in games. Starting with a basic exploration of Loss Aversion--the idea that people dislike losing more than they like winning--and then expanding into related concepts such as the Endowment effect and Framing, the author imparts a wealth of information in a quick 120 pages.
Supporting examples are scattered throughout: from academic studies in psychology, to breakdowns of popular games such as Catan, Hearthstone, and Deal or No Deal.
Essentially a primer for students and designers, Achievement Relocked isn't exactly ground-breaking. Nevertheless, by deftly relating these (often underappreciated) topics through the lens of game design, Engelstein has created a new a foundational text in the field of ludology, comfortable on the shelf next to works like Huizinga's Homo Ludens and Koster's A Theory Of Fun.
I am confident that this book will inspire a new generation of game designers to think more deeply about the experiences they are crafting. I highly recommend it.
With this book and 2019's Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design (which he co-authored with Isaac Shalev), Geoff Engelstein has swiftly established himself as the preeminent academic author on game design.
Achievement Relocked is a thorough introduction to the underlying psychology of decision-making in games. Starting with a basic exploration of Loss Aversion--the idea that people dislike losing more than they like winning--and then expanding into related concepts such as the Endowment effect and Framing, the author imparts a wealth of information in a quick 120 pages.
Supporting examples are scattered throughout: from academic studies in psychology, to breakdowns of popular games such as Catan, Hearthstone, and Deal or No Deal.
Essentially a primer for students and designers, Achievement Relocked isn't exactly ground-breaking. Nevertheless, by deftly relating these (often underappreciated) topics through the lens of game design, Engelstein has created a new a foundational text in the field of ludology, comfortable on the shelf next to works like Huizinga's Homo Ludens and Koster's A Theory Of Fun.
I am confident that this book will inspire a new generation of game designers to think more deeply about the experiences they are crafting. I highly recommend it.
May 15, 2023
A relatively small volume on the psychological concept of loss aversion. The idea that people dislike loss more than they like gain.
The author is able to thoroughly cover the topic of loss aversion, and its related concepts, in a clear manner. He then goes on to give examples of how they can be used in game design.
Highly recommended to both game designers, and people who just want to know more about the psychology behind why some games are more enjoyable than others.
The author is able to thoroughly cover the topic of loss aversion, and its related concepts, in a clear manner. He then goes on to give examples of how they can be used in game design.
Highly recommended to both game designers, and people who just want to know more about the psychology behind why some games are more enjoyable than others.
January 17, 2023
engaging writing and clear/explicit explanations of how to use behavioral psychology to get your players to fuck around and find out. found it more informative of some slightly more novel concepts re: design choices, or at least the reasoning behind those concepts was novel to me. loved how the monetary game examples were so simple, that helped them stick
December 28, 2020
Very intresting and well laid out. Reads like a Textbook but in a way that anyone can read and enjoy. I enjoyed connecting my own experiences with the games mentioned within to the concepts presented. Would recommend to anyone looking to design a game.
April 12, 2024
This is a fantastic discussion of the psychology that motivates people and, I'd argue, should be essential reading for game designers. I do think, though, that anyone trying to motivate anyone to do anything would benefit from reading it.
May 9, 2024
Compact yet engaging. The author makes very cool examples and cites interesting experiments related to people’s reasoning in the face of loss. Including the studies speculation for this loss aversive behavior. While also relating to the gamers (mostly the tabletop board gamers) but still.
May 23, 2024
این کتاب با عنوان "دستاورد بازپس گرفته شده" در ایران ترجمه و توسط انتشارات وارش چاپ شده است.
کتاب حول مفهوم روانشناختی زیانگریزی و نقش احساسات در طراحی بازی است و مناسب طراحان بازی و علاقمندان طراحی تجربهی کاربری است.
کتاب حول مفهوم روانشناختی زیانگریزی و نقش احساسات در طراحی بازی است و مناسب طراحان بازی و علاقمندان طراحی تجربهی کاربری است.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews