evilthecat said:
So, the problem is that operant conditioning is incredibly deeply woven with the fabric of what actually makes gameplay fun. Almost all games use a system of reward and punishment to manipulate the player's volition (to make them want to keep playing) even though the player isn't gaining any inherent reward for doing so. Most of what we do in games is not inherently "fun", it becomes fun because it is making progress towards something which is fun, like shooting an enemy in a cool way, or getting a piece of a game's story, or unlocking a new ability and getting to use it for the first time. The reward or "fun" of games is a form of psychological manipulation, just one that we willingly subject ourselves to in order to have fun and be entertained.
The fact that a game is grindy or takes a long time to get anywhere doesn't mean it's more of a "skinner box" than any other game. In fact, making this observation kind of implies the game is bad at conditioning you. You have not been given enough (or the right kind of) reinforcement to want to keep going. The actual problem, I think, is that people have different levels of susceptibility to different kinds of rewards. Some people get addicted to slot machines, others will never see the appeal no matter how many times they play, but might be obsessed with dungeon crawling RPGs which use a more consistent and less random reward set-up.
Ehhh, operant conditioning is specifically about strengthening a behaviour response. I love Resistance: Avalon as much as the next person, but the thing is that I won't have the same pleasure anywhere else of lying to my friend's faces, manipulating and deceiving them in turn. The thing about operant conditioning is the idea of voluntary behaviour being strengthened. But we don't play games for that reason. Most 'games' don't really fall into what can be considered truly operant conditioning becausea game is an open gamestate with multiple projected behavioural models of engagement, with unequal certainty and unequal reward on that basis that can neither totally affirm or deny another's behaviour.
So playing Resistance: Avalon does not make your more inclined to lie to your friends and be a manipulative arsehole.... because that is typically penalized outside of the game. And because doing so has no gamestate or unequal certainty of participation or reward (you win, you lose). One could make the argument that it might make you better at lying to your friends which might influence your desire to do so due to operant conditioning ... but it's the difference between training to kill someone and actually killing someone has no correlation beyond capacity... you need a separate binding force of reinforcement process.
Just thought I'd throw that in there. Definitely there are some games that tow that line and get into really skeevy shit that is rife in video games ... and it should be called out when people see it when it involves microtransactions, virtual currency, loot boxes, and so on. But it's hard to say games represent operant conditioning on their own ...
Playing games
in general may be operant conditioning... but only in the loosest, and vaguest definition of it. The problem of the definition is that games alone do not reinforce voluntary behaviour beyond playing games
in general. If there's no definitive action of reinforced behaviour, a sign that behaviour has been strengthened, then it's not really a skinner box.
Playing games can't be likened to a rat pressing a buzzer and getting food.
In fact the reason why Resistance and other hidden role games are so muich fun is because occasionally you will be by chance selected to
try to break your common operant conditioning. By being a devious, conniving, two-faced manipulator of your friends. But hidden role games do not a conniving manipulator make. What makes the game fun is knowing full well you might be a person that has to play on other people's thoughts, lie to their face, manipulate them ... but most times you won't be.
And that's fun. Because it gives you a momentary licence to act like awful human beings. But it's a stretch to say that that actually sticks with you or reinforces those tendencies.
True skinner boxes represent games that addict people through a false sense of progression. Like if you play an MMORPG ... you're rewarded with all these character options, and classes, and races, and cheap gear ... then you go out into the world ... and the first mobs you find you can easily dispatch by yourself.
And you get rewarded some more ... you level up, you get the quest rewards of things youcan solo. But then the game gets progressively harder ... and you can't just level up that way anymore. You need a party of other players ... so you get invested in sitting around, waiting for an ideal group. And then you go hunting again ... and you get more xp, you level up faster, better drops, complete more quests ...
And that sense of completion drives you further, and for each and every level requires more investment than the last. More time waiting for the best group to party with, joining guilds, forming social connections of which becoming binding andreinforcing agents to yourcontinued activities, as both of you are invested in playing in this MMORPG ... You can't quit after all these months ... you've put so much time into it already and you've made some nice friends online, and you're having fun, so it can't be that bad, right?
That's operant conditioning...
Go into Steam or Good Old Games, and even with popular games you'll notice barely anyone actually completes. Like Pillars of Eternity. I actually have a lot of problems with that game and I don't like it ... but I still finished the main game ... unlike about 80% of people that own it. That's not to say things like videogame addiction doesn't exist for those 80% of people... but clearly the particular stimuli and repetitive behaviour demonstration is lacking. People didn't just sit down and keep playing it.
Unlike what we see in many MMORPGs...
