Rowan has a great article up that digs a bit into the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for play. Penny Arcade fortuitously has a similar article from a game developer (for the game Don’t Starve, a curious game that I’m looking forward to playing).
I come down firmly on the intrinsic side. I love Minecraft because it lets me just go do stuff (especially in Creative mode where I can fly and have access to everything). I love Burnout Paradise because I can just go drive around and see what the city holds. I love SSX 3 because you can start at the top of the mountain and just snowboard down to the base, purely exploring the terrain. I love flying in World of Warcraft. I love just moving around in game spaces.
I want to do things that I do because I enjoy doing them, not because there’s a reward for doing them. Living and doing things you love are rewards in themselves.
Carpe Diem, as it were. Live, don’t just survive. Play.
…though I can admit this is fun. Metagaming the achievements, whee!
I am clearly on the extrinsic side of the fence. I love measures, constraints, and achievements. I was happy running dungeons in WoW with friends, but when they added an achievement for killing the final boss, that happiness was multiplied. I got a little badge for my effort that proved I had been there!
On the flip side, Minecraft bores me. Survival mode is good for a bit, but creative mode… I have enough other creative avenues. I do love flying in Azeroth, but I am also keenly aware that the ability to just fly around at high speed trivializes travel in the world. Being forced to walk everywhere was one of the foundations of my relationship with games like EQ and WoW.
Basically, I find overcoming adversity and constraints fulfilling. Having none, makes me wander off. That doesn’t mean I won’t complain about them at the time. I often do so loudly and at length.
Oddly enough, my grandfather telling me “adversity builds character,” as a kid seems to be true, at least for me. And it makes for the best stories. It is often better to fail gloriously, or at least hilariously, than it is to win easily in my book.
…and in games, you really *can* have it uphill both ways, in the snow.
Hm. I think I am in the middle ground about this. I like to exploring worlds to an extent. While everything is still fresh and new mostly. After a while I just get started to get tired of it and prefer to go back to whatever main quest the game has or go back to leveling or whatever. In my case it isn’t simply an exploration in terms of terrain either but also of story. If a game allows me multiple choices in the story I will start new characters just to see what the other options are. Although this too I can get bored of and stop.
I also like to get cool stuff out of it and achievements. Some times I might even go out of my way to get those, if I think they aren’t too much of a bother to pursue. But for the most part I consider it a bonus, one I can live without. I am just happy to have a fantasy world to run around in.
[...] Tesh and Rowan wrote about the motivation of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Tesh said he favored intrinsic rewards and pointed to how he likes Minecraft because it just lets him go do stuff. Which, oddly enough, is the exact reason I do not like Minecraft. Aside from survival mode, the game bores me. And survival mode became a chore once I figured out how to survive. [...]
“I love Burnout Paradise because I can just go drive around and see what the city holds.”
Have you played Just Cause 2 yet? It makes me happy, reminds me of GTA:SA, just driving around, blowing stuff up, exploring.
I don’t play M rated games, they aren’t my style… but I’ve heard a lot of good about JC2 in that vein, yes. There’s great fun in just exploring and messing around.