Emotion through Freedom and Creativity

Description:

Motivator 3: Freedom is the intrinsic human desire. It sits on the golden corner of the motivation map and as a result has the potential for infinite engagement. In other words, if a human is properly motivated by freedom and creativity, he will pursue them as long as possible. This is due to a real phenomenon called Flow. When the brain experience the flow state, the outside world disappears, all of the unnecessary information is cut and the focus on the activity become heightened. When an athlete or a gamer experience the flow state, they feel alive and in control of their destiny. However achieving flow takes a lot of careful designing, testing and experimentation. As a rule of thumb, the difficulty of the activity must be perfectly balanced with the skill level of the individual in order to reach flow state.

Motivator 3: Freedom on the motivation map

Strengths:

·       Creates long-term engagement and addiction – perhaps into infinity

·       Low resistance by the participants

·       Flow state

Weaknesses:

·       Requires attention and investment from the users

·       Slow to build up engagement at the start

·       Very hard to implement correctly

·       Requires a lot of resources for development

Relationship with other motivators:

.    Motivator 2: Progress works very well together with Motivator 3 if used interchangeably. By that I mean, you use Motivator 2 and then Motivator 3 and then Motivator 2. If one can clearly see the progress of their creative progress, they are compelled to finish it and gain an accomplishment.

.    Motivator 6: Essentialism enhances the power of creativity as a sense of scarcity motivate the mind to become more inventive.

.    Motivator 8: Fear is the primary enemy of Motivator 3. When fear is motivating the person, creative brain areas are shut down due to flight or fight responses. Constant stress and anxiety undermine the use of choice and creativity in problem-solving. 

.    Motivator 4: Security is required before using Motivator 3. The environment of relative safety and confidence must be established before the human is ready to use his creativity. Introduce new tools and skills slowly until the player is familiar with the rules. Then let them go into the big wide world. 

Psychological Techniques:

Creative platform: User generated content is a buzzword that is regularly used in the gaming world when the players create new content in the game by using the rules and mechanics provided by the game itself. Doom has a very deep and satisfying creative platform to engage their users to create incredible levels for other players in the community to play. Character creation in Mass Effect and Dragon Age games are also amazing platforms for the players to express their skills creating the best looking protagonist.

Crafting: Crafting is all about combining small pieces of equipment and resources in a special way to create something that is better than the sum of its parts. This game mechanic is very popular in role-playing games because it encourages the player’s strategic and tactical thinking to solve difficult tasks. Not every crafted item is a solution to everything. You have to adapt your resources to create items that is tailor made to solve a particular problem.

Meaningful choice: Dragon Age was popular for providing deep narrative and character stories mainly because of its conversation wheel. The player chooses suitable conversation to be said to each character. No choice is wrong and every choice is meaningful because the characters dynamically react to your choice. Moreover when you level up by one step, you receive one skill point. Then you have to think long and hard where you can invest this point in the skill tree. Do you want to be an all-rounder? Or do you want to be a fire mage but weak in ice? How would you compensate your weaknesses with your teammates? These are choices the players have to constantly make in the game which is why I have played this game for 100 hours and I am not even close to being tired yet.

Power-up: A power-up is a temporary item which grants you extraordinary powers and benefits for a short period of time. Mario games for example are famous for its power-up mushrooms. It takes skills for the player to exploit them as much as possible before time runs out. Moreover, providing power-ups in the beginning of the journey will allow the players to temporarily experience how powerful he will be when he reaches higher levels. This is a very motivating technique to encourage the player to master the game. Power-ups can also be provided as a micro-transaction or unlocked randomly. The former will increase the developer’s purse while the latter will increase emotional connection of the game by the player.