GDP2 - Knowledge Keeper #6: Reward Systems

Reward system is an important component in game. It offers things in return when players accomplish a certain mission or goals, which keeps motivating/luring players to complete one challenge after another.


There are many forms of rewards, and Wang&Sun lists the 8 major reward forms as the following:

1. Score System
2. Experience Leveling Systems
3. Item Granting System Rewards
4. Collectible and Usable Resources
5. Achievements Systems
6. Feeback Messages
7. Plot Animations and Pictures
8. Unlocking Mechanisms

They are the types of reward players usually get in games and they reward players in different aspects. Some of them adds social value to players where the rewards help them stand out or to be different from other players; some have impact on gameplay; and some are for collection and viewing purposes. The following diagram explains how people use rewards, which also shows how rewards influence the player in different ways.

When the players focus on their personal progress, they tend to look for advancement rewards such as unlocking new mechanisms in Skyrims: the Elder's Scroll; if the players focus on socializing and casual gaming, they to look for rewards that have sociability to establish their social status, such as collectible items to decorate their avatars on many Facebook social game. Understanding these factors help to understand what kind of reward would help to motivate players in different perspective. Moreover, the amount of motivation distributes to players have strong relationship with the challenge they are facing. 

In BJ Fogg's Behaviour Model, it clearly states that difficult tasks require high motivation, which essentially the greater the reward is, the bigger motivations for players to achieve hard tasks. Whereas easy tasks only require small motivation to keep players engaged.

Referring back to the very first blog about Game Design & Production 2 (http://hadva.blogspot.ca/2013/09/gdp-blog1.html), its system has a very good rewarding system. The homework questions are divided into different quests that weight differently. We can choose which quest to do based on our ability, and base on the effort we put we get XP as reward in return. I find this positively reinforce students to do their assignments while providing much freedom for them to do the ones they are interested. So they are always motivated during the process. And thanks to the reward system, it has been motivating me from a noob at lv0 to a cadet at lv9.