Does Every Home Game Need A Reward?
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
It starts with a question posed by nDreams on their Facebook page:
“Is there a place in Home for games that don’t have rewards? Or do you feel that every game needs to give Home rewards, regardless of what kind of game/how good it is? We would love to hear your views!”
Now, I’ll admit, my knee-jerk reaction was to say no. To me, personally, the experience of playing a game is its own reward. It’s like asking if I won’t go to see a movie unless I get a pin at the end that says I saw the movie. That’s bleeping ridiculous. A good gaming experience is a good gaming experience, regardless of any rewards. The last PS3 game I actually played (back when I had time to do such things) was Dragon Age: Origins, and the various trophies I racked up were, frankly, just a distraction.
But then I had to take a step back and re-examine the question. Am I really against games in Home having rewards, or do I involuntarily recoil from it because I don’t like the idea of being associated with the people who do play a game just for the reward?
You have received a new item!
I freely admit I don’t understand people who play Home games exclusively for a reward. They’re just wired differently than I am. It’s like when I go play golf, and I see people screaming and getting all red-faced when they slice a drive. Hey, I don’t like to violate Newtonian physics with my golf swing either, but isn’t the whole point of golf to have a leisurely outing with friends and enjoy fantastic scenery? Unless you’re up against Mickelson with vast sums of money on the line, just chill and enjoy the breeze; playing to win a round is like going on a date with Jessica Alba and seeing who can finish their entree first. You’ve missed the whole point.
So no, I don’t like some of the more blatant examples of that personality type. They become obsessed with free rewards, trophies, or any other token for bragging rights. During a recent conversation in Home, I mentioned that Valkyria Chronicles was one of the best PS3 games I’d played; one of the other people in the group said, “Oh, I won’t play that game. No trophies.”
The world is turning into a cesspool of imbeciles.
I was actually taken aback by that comment. I remember staring aghast at the screen. The idea that a beautiful, innovative game could be so casually dismissed in favor of some piece-of-crap title — just because it had easy trophies — was angering me. It hits the same nerve when I see people walk right past Pablo Neruda at the bookstore and head straight for the latest sparkly-vampire novel. My inner Harlan Ellison wants to come out and thwap them all upside the head with some Chaucer. Repeatedly. And quite hard.
The other reason I tend to be against rewards and trophies is because I fear it can be used as a crutch to help drive numbers. Forget good writing, music composition, graphic design, and all the other elements that go into a proper game; just throw some rewards at it, and boom! Instant numbers. Like that scene from the South Park movie where they resort to advertising punch and pie to get people to show up to the La Resistance meeting. Forget the impassioned, well-reasoned call to arms; the masses just want punch and pie.
It. Makes. Me. Nuts.
Rewards and trophies should be icing on the cake; it should not be the cake itself, or the cake is a lie.
Here’s the thing, though: if I take a step back and look at the situation rationally, I shouldn’t use extremes to build my case. Okay, so I don’t like extreme examples of reward hunters. Does that invalidate the value of rewards in general? A developer still has a financial incentive to build an excellent gaming experience even if they do include rewards and trophies. And you know what? For some people, it really does add to their enjoyment. It becomes a sort of meta-game, just like some people use glitching to achieve the same aesthetic enjoyment of Home.
Also, if we look back through the history of video gaming, rewards aren’t exactly a new trend. Pitfall! and Ultima are two classic games (amongst many) which had tangible rewards if you beat them. It’s just that now I fear the tail is beginning to wag the dog: that gaming — and particularly gaming in Home — needs to have rewards in order to attract traffic.
Even here, though, there is perhaps an inevitability to this. What the consumer expects out of a car today is vastly different than what they expected thirty years ago. All industries evolve, and video gaming is no different. The first rule of behavioral economics is that people respond to incentives, both positive and negative.
So: does a Home game need a reward?
Yes.
The key is to identify the most potent rewards that deliver the desired results (revenue per average user, longer session time, positive word of mouth, etc.) at the lowest possible cost over the longest span of time. Every game has a reward (usually more than one) for the gamer, even if it is nothing more than the novelty of a new experience.
In the case of Home, the problem is that the marketing is backwards; the belief is that a compelling game will drive people to commerce points to purchase unrelated wares. Thus, Reversi should have me purchasing Loco Roco wares. The ModNation Racers minigame should have me out purchasing related clothing items. Buzz! HQ should have me driving to Gamestop to buy the actual game title.
This is why there are so many spaces in Home which produce huge numbers in their launch week, and then fade away shortly thereafter: because the game was a blatant means to an end, rather than an end unto itself. What is only now being realized is that Home itself is a gaming experience, not just a platform to promote gaming experiences. Home, for the longest time, felt like being stuck in a perpetual commercial break. The Hub, hopefully, will change some of this.
Is it thus any wonder why Xi is commonly cited to this day as the high-water mark of Home? It made Home itself an experience, not just a billboard.
Of course, developing an ARG is an arduous and expensive proposition (I’m sure that Lewis Hamilton project nDreams put together cost a few quid). So the cheap and easy way to develop a game that will keep people coming back to your commerce points is to offer a ridiculous number of levels and scaling rewards. Developing these rewards costs money, however, and the endpoint is still the same; it just takes longer to realize diminishing returns.
Social rewards, thus, are the best and least expensive to produce. Notably, Hudson Gate’s dolphy races are a good example of this: you can witness others participating in a social gathering, you must spend money to be a part of it, and the reward is derived more from social recognition than tangible reward. There’s nothing wrong with offering exclusive rewards — note how people used to compete for certain hard-to-obtain items in the old EA poker rooms — but that was merely an incentive to measure one’s success against others, not an end unto itself. A social reward. And gamers tend to be inherently competitive people.
Some hotels in Las Vegas will let you have free lodging and food for the duration of your stay — if you spend a certain amount of time and money, per day, at the gaming tables. The consumer doesn’t mind this at all, since he came to Vegas to game. In his mind, he was going to spend the money anyway. So the rewards — free lodging and food — allow him to logically justify an emotional investment, because he can focus nearly all of his money on gaming, and the hope of winning a big payoff and getting his photo taken with a huge check.
To me, a developer in Home ought to have the courage to do exactly the same thing: you can have every single virtual item in my catalogue, for free — but you must spend a certain amount of time and money playing my game. Since you own a game console you are probably in Home to game anyway, and if I can create a game with sufficient social enticements to keep you coming back, then you don’t feel like you got ripped off — since you wanted to play the game anyway.
And, who knows, you might even want to stick around and talk to someone.
November 8th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 14 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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I agree with most of your assessment Norse. I believe that a game should be interesting enough in its own merit and beating it should be the reward you get. This is especially true to me when it comes to disk based games. I am not a trophy hunter, maybe because I have been playing video games since long before they existed.
When it comes to Home I think that rewards are nice, and I do believe they drive people to play the games that offer them. I like a reward as much as they next person, and some of them are pretty cool, like the new RC car companions. But I agree that the game itself has to be engaging or it will just be forgotten when the user has done all of what it has to offer and gotten the rewards offered.
I think that Home is going to explode with new content in the next year, just look at what the past year has offered us. Much of it will be gaming experiences as Sony has stated that this is their focus for now. I think that’s a good thing for now, but I hope they also expand the social aspects right along with it, because at the end of the day, it is the main reason many of us go into Home at all.
Great article as always!
Your picture’s caption says”The world is turning into a cesspool of imbeciles.” but I’d say the world has always been a cesspool of imbeciles with a few islands of sanity and reason scattered about here and there.Occasionally I will play a game just for a certain reward if I like the reward but if the game doesn’t interest me much I won’t be playing the game after I get the item.More often than not the rewards I do get I get unintentionally by just trying a game out which indicates to me that maybe many rewards are given out too easily solely as some sort of “hook” rather than as a true reward for my playing skills.Are they important?sure.Are they necessary?IMO certainly not.If I truly enjoy a game it’s rewards won’t mean all that much to me.As an example:I have the bracelet for winning at a full black table from the old EA Poker room but I didn’t play it for the reward nor do I even wear it much now yet I played those tables far,far more than any other game I’ve played on Home and still view it as the high point in Home games.Rewards are the salt for my gaming but not a meal unto themselves.
I agree Cthulu I think that the old and the new poker games are a lot of fun. I am glad they have decided to bring them back. I too don’t play it for the rewards but for the fun I can have with a bunch of friends, and this new one is so much easier to get into. The main reason I didn’t play the old one much was you had to wait all of the time to get into a game, it was kind of boring because of that. The new one has done away with that problem nicely.
I love decorating my apartments with rewards from Home games -- furniture, wall hangings, trophies, random ornaments, whatever. For me, it makes a statement that my involvement in Home goes beyond just buying whatever new items pop up in the mall. I’ve stated over and over again that I’m more impressed by rewards that are difficult to earn compared to some overpriced “Exclusive” item from the mall.
It saves a lot of money too. Most of my personal spaces are probably furnished with almost all rewards and I always receive compliments on the decor.
I have already experienced this in the poker rooms. People are coming to play the game strictly for the reward items offered. I am just the opposite. I am here for the game and the fellowship. I would play poker even if I did not get the Smexi black skirt or smoking hot glasses. Same applies to MOST games on Home. I did play the tower defense game strictly to receive the non working big screen television and I was about to play a game to receive the personal bodyguard of butterflies. I also know of people who played the Trigger Happy game just to get the stripped suit But overall those are exceptions to the rule.
I wear my Diamond Poker bracelet daily. Like CTHULU93 stated. I am stoked I got it but I did not play the black table merely with that goal in mind. Once I discovered that you get a bracelet for winning on a table, that was just the sausage gravy on the beer battered fried bacon….
The answer lies with this generation. We are a society of promoting good feelings. These days, The populous raises their children to feel good about themselves to the point that even failure is rewarded. For example I have two nephews who play youth soccer-they love it, simply because they are awarded every time they play, win or loose. The truth is they are very very bad soccer players,but if you were to see all the “participation” trophy’s, ribbons, and awards they have from soccer you would think these two are the next David Beckham. Now, if they were not rewarded for playing I know they would loose interest in the game fairly quickly.
Likewise, game developers know with this current generation of gamers. Rewards keeps players playing, especially in these days where big title games are released with either a sequels, or prequels, almost every 12 months.( not to mention countless additional DLC for extend or enhanced play)
As for me, I suck at FPS and Fighting games, but I can pick up any title and mash buttons to collect a minimum of 80% of the rewards. Then put that game down and move on to the next. This is what i think major gaming developers are hoping for: Buy our game, for bragging rights -- I know rewards does not necessarily make me a better player -- it just made me feel better about a game I may have rented, or purchased. If I got a good feeling about a game -- no mater what my skill level is I, maybe will be more likely to purchase extra DLC for that game or more games from that developer.
Likewise in Home, If you get a reward for simply showing up to an event, or playing a game. chances are you may return. Remember Home’s last years Christmas event?- We all open a present one day, play a mini game the next, each day getting some type of reward. It kept many of us coming back day after day even when many people were very busy with Holiday shopping, traveling and family. The goal was to kept people logging into Home consistently in a time when many gamer’s would typically be offline, and it worked . As The more people returning to Home the more attractive Home becomes to advertisers and game developers. Sometimes a reward is nothing more then free advertising. IF I’m running around in a God of War avatar T-shirt -- I’m essentially am a walking virtual billboard for that game.
Rewards, are not necessarily a bad thing -- although they don’t accurately reflect a players skill level, They do serve a purpose and there is no denying adding rewards to games is a genius marketing strategy.
well…I am waiting for the HSMagazine tee shirts????
I can trace this phenomenon back to 1896 when Thomas Sperry and Shelly Hutchinson created S&H Green Stamps. If you’re too young to know about these, Google them. But the list of rewards continues with cash back, rebates, buy one get one free, it goes on. The difference here is there is no purchase necessary. Something for nothing. A bribe if you will. Play our free game and get your free prize. And btw, no t-shirts. They are unwanted free items.
The question is whether they work. To answer the question, we have to define “work”. Working rewards work if they get people to play a game they would otherwise skip over AND some number of those people pay for items or the game itself when they would not have otherwise. On an individual basis, I do not think this is the case. Rewards have become so common place that they have lost their new item smell. People don’t want just stuff anymore (see t-shirts). For individuals they become a destination unto themselves and the game, just a mechanism for getting free stuff. So items by themselves I do not believe are a draw that works.
I agree with the postulation that they do work though at effecting people as a group, creating peer pressure and ultimately leading people to discover games that they would not otherwise play. Keeping up with the Joneses. And once in, the peer pressure continues to stay. This combination I believe is what leads reward farmers to become paying customers.
“Where did you get that?” is the victory cry of working rewards. Which means they have to be visible to work. This means that clothes and companions are the best rewards as they are the most visible. Items work also, but get less exposure.
The reason for the glut in t-shirts is they are easy to make and are visible when people wear them. The flaw is they are no longer cool. So the cool factor has to be involved for a reward to work. Non-cool rewards are relinquished to storage as fast as they are earned.
Disclaimer: All this is based on observation and conjecture. Without real numbers, we are the blind men standing around the elephant feeling like we each know the nature of the beast. I have already been proven wrong in that I never anticipated people would complain about a free reward that came from owning a combination of multiple items. But they did. Go figure.
A big problem with the t-shirts is that seldom do they look appealing to me.Often they are plastered with product placements which unless I REALLY love the product is a problem for me I don’t consider myself a walking billboard for just anyone willing to give me a shirt,even in real life.The t-shirts might gain favor with ppl if they were designed to look “better” than they have been.Maybe a “Fashionista” could help with that?idk but it SEEMS like they are often put out with little thought to how they will look on an avatar in a public place from a users perspective,they need someone to do for them as Andy Warhol did for soup cans,they need “jazzing up”.Jewelry is another much appreciated reward,the old beach gave out alot of it and it’s some of the best looking free items I’ve ever gotten on Home.As with you this is 1 person’s observation and conjecture but these are things I’ve observed coming from many different ppl’s mouth(except for the Andy analogy).
I think that some games are good enough to stand on their own with small reward for finishing, other than bragging rights. Salt Shooter comes to mind. It keeps you playing long after you are at level fifty because not only is it fun, you can earn credits to buy stuff with from the store there(though the store could use more updating than it gets). Perhaps this model of credits could work in a long run scenario of different games that are being developed to keep the interest going. I know it has kept me coming back to play the game, a game I actually paid for because of all of these factors.
And when it comes to t-shirts I agree with Cthulu, they need to be stylish. But I have a suggestion as well, I have found through my “Living off the Land” article that free pants are the thing most missing in Home. There are some in the new poker game, and that would be a most welcome trend I think, especially for new people since they are so hard to come by. Just a thought.
Duece, I am sorry, but for me the rewards of playing a game are moot. I am sure I am in the minority here for I am not a group but an individual. S&H green stamps?? Really?? You went that far back?? I’m 50 and those are something I laughed at then. Maybe this is a economical issue. I can buy what I want when I want. Maybe the market is for those people who do not have my financial freedom and that in itself has created the basis for the rewards program. Just like Affirmative Action, this to is apparently causing a bit of stir. I am no expert in anything but merely just sharing an opinion and thought. I apologize if something was said that was out of context or just plain out of this world. Still coming off of the rush of sausage gravy covered fried bacon..
Darth Vader: ” Bring my shuttle”.
7000 S&H green points got me a free Whopper at Burger King -- Word!
Some people want rewards, no matter what, and some people care only about the game. I think most work for rewards if they really want the items. Last year’s Christmas games were fun & the rewards really nice. I endure the freezes & the irritating seaweed head and crab finger of Granzella beach for the earrings because they are my passion. I have very nearly every one available in Home, reward or purchase. (Some I just don’t like.) Items other than t-shirts would be nice—if thought is given to them. Some t-shirts are plain yucky. I wear the ones I like, even if they are “noob wear.”
I wish there was more to the jetski race , I think its great but not as cool as the dolphy race . Ohh and how you get the two sitter jetski , will i have to buy it , if so when ? I do think some things are priced too much . but homes gotta pay for itself someway . i think home does great things , dont get read of rewards , sometimes after playing socom confrontion i need the left up cause the cheaters make me want to throw everything sony in the trash . ( if sony doen t fix it maybe i should join them cheaters they laugh at sony that it easy hack they say ( why i buy psn cards instead of my visa) but any way i love home after a hard day at work it helps me . im a worm ( we drill oil and gas ) i take my playstation with me to the hotal . i ve loved sony before i bought sony stuff my car is everything sony .( I LOVE SONY ) thanks for reading ……….