Self Determination Theory – The lenses of fun, Part 3

by Niklas Borglund · March 1, 2020

6 min read

This blog post is part of a series of posts regarding different ways of breaking down the word ‘fun’. Click here for part 1 and part 2.

Previously, I wrote about the Engines of Play and how to identify the taste of a game using taste maps. It is an incredible tool that can help identify why you play the games you do and what specific tastes you tend to look for.

But what happens when those are satisfied? How long do you play just for the realism in the game? Or the thrilling sensation of an explosion? What comes next?

In order for you to keep playing a game for hours, months and years ahead – you need something that tickles the very core of your being and creates lasting impressions. One of the Engines of Play explains this with Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

Self Determination Theory

Self-Determination Theory(SDT) is about human intrinsic motivation. It is based on the idea that we as a people have three major, universal and innate needs. If fulfilled they can foster growth and enable you to function optimally.
Many of our choices and motivations are governed by them and can explain why we do some of the things we do, even without external influence.

The three needs are the following (source: wikipedia):

Autonomy – “Desire to be causal agents of one’s own life and act in harmony with one’s integrated self”
Competence – “Seek to control the outcome and experience mastery“
Relatedness – “Will to interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others”

These three apply to all of us and are regarded as instinctive rather than learned. Some companies have taken certain aspects of it into their company structure very successfully by increasing their employee’s sense of autonomy. In creative endeavours, money in the form of an “if you do this, then you will get this”-reward often does more harm than good. It narrows the focus of the mind, and you often stop having a playful approach. You start to hunt the reward more than the result.

However, Scott Rigby & Richard Ryan, the founders of Immersyve, Inc. developed a model called The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS), which took the science of SDT and applied it to a video game context. They managed to statistically find a connection between the predictive powers of PENS with “[…] game ratings, sales, developer loyalty, and sustained player interest.”. In other words, they found a method that can predict long term retention and why you keep playing a game for months ahead.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the experience of choosing your own path and making your own decisions. One of the easiest examples of games with a high sense of autonomy is open world games like The Witcher 3, Skyrim, Minecraft. In these games, you get to choose what to do next and where to go within the bounds of the world.

That said, It doesn’t mean that you have to give your players full sandbox freedom in order to have a high sense of autonomy. You can have a fully linear story with strict boundaries. It’s all about giving the player a sense of fully endorsing the path they are on. If the character is on a path that you as a player also would take even if you had full freedom to do other activities, you are all set!

And as a game designer, you can find ways to nudge players in the direction you want (without directly controlling them), by using all the tricks available to you with level design, sounds, voice lines etc.

In addition to this, if you give a player a choice (or a simulated one), they will want to see the consequences of that action. As Jason VandenBerghe mentions in his GDC talk, “autonomy is not satisfied by the act of choosing” and gives the example of decorating your desk. He goes on by saying:

“[…] The act of decorating your desk is not autonomy. That’s just fun. You just make choices and deliver it. Autonomy is when you return to your desk the next day and you see the things on your desk. […]”.

Seeing evidence of your choice will cement the idea that you have been there before. That you have done something that gave real effect. A choice that you would (hopefully) do again.

An example that directly comes to mind for me is Divinity: Original Sin 2. Whenever I opt to engage in a fight and win – the remains of my enemies stay in the world even after I’ve reloaded the game. It’s very effectful. Everytime I pass those locations it reminds me of a choice I made.

The fight with the Black Ring Fearmaiden happened several play sessions ago, but I can still see the evidence that it occurred.

Competence / Mastery

As with anything in life, and not just games, we want to feel good at what we do. We have a need to feel effective and that we progress in our pursuit of mastery.

Games often times revolves around teaching the player one or several skills over time. When the player reaches some sort of mastery over that skill, another more difficult obstacle or new skill to learn needs to arise to stave off boredom.
The variations on how to do that are endless. Some games introduce tougher enemies like many RPG games. Some make it more difficult being in the lead with a negative feedback loop like Mario Kart. And some games heavily rely on other players to provide the challenge by playing against each other.

However, mastery it’s not just about providing an optimal challenge to your players – it’s also about providing growth over time and letting them know that they are progressing.

One thing I’ve noticed that many strategy games do, is to give in-depth information about the whole game when it’s over. Look at this image from Northgard below.

Just by a spike in the food production graph, you can quickly assess if your strategy was good enough at certain times. If your production was essentially zero for the first 20 minutes, your mind will start to work on a different strategy to mitigate that weakness.

Teaching your players how to get better and progress is of outmost importance – and it doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive in terms of development time.

Relatedness / Purpose

Relatedness is the motivation to connect with other entities in a way that feels real. Easiest way to explain this is in multiplayer co-op games, where you and a number of your friends work towards a common goal. The game can either provide the goal in the form of a story objective, or it can be decided by the players themselves. With your friends/teammates/guild, you create authentic connections and shared experiences that create memories that you will remember for a long time.

The feeling we want to achieve here is “I matter to you and you matter to me”. And that feeling doesn’t have to be towards a real person. It can be towards NPCs or even the game world. Scott Rigby in his GDC talk briefly gives the example of a tank and a healer. They will be much more powerful with their combined strengths than if they worked solo. Those mechanics alone instantly creates a bond in which they matter to each other.

One example that I thought of when reading up on this is The Walking Dead series by Telltale. Specifically the relation between Lee and Clementine. With the plethora of difficult choices combined with the brilliant phrase “Clementine will remember that.”, you get a stronger sense of “I matter” than in many other games.

Conclusion

As with my previous posts, this is a new perspective. A lens that you can use to understand the games you play (and the ones you don’t!) better. Specifically, this explains why you feel a motivation to come back to a game over and over. Likewise, it puts larger emphasis on the finer details and gives priority to features you waved off as “cool, but largely insignificant” before.

With this in mind, PENS and SDT can be a phenomenal lens. You can use it to predict and fine tune long term retention and engagement. As a result, it will be easier to understand the transformation of players. How someone starting out just testing your game to someone that uses your game to define themselves (e.g. “I am a Starcraft/Counterstrike/Civilization player”). If these principles are applied, your game can benefit greatly from it.

If you are eager to find out more, check out the reference and reading list below!

Thank you for reading! If you liked this type of post, please let me know! That way I can get a sense if I should do more of them. Also, If you have any comments, observations or perspectives about this – please talk to me on twitter!

Self Determination Theory – The lenses of fun, Part 3