The title of this blog also serves as the center of the modern gaming universe. The compulsion loop is a psychological theory suggesting that a persons drive can be looped if one finds the proper trigger to create the loop. The graphic below demonstrates how this plays out in gaming, and thus controls the gaming industry:
In short, any completed task results in a reward which allows your character (PC/Avatar) to complete more and harder tasks, to complete the same tasks in a more dominant fashion, or to acquire material that makes you appear more fashionable completing those same tasks again. I personally refer to this last one as the Flex Paradigm. It governs the behaviors of gamers who complete tasks not for a competitive advantage but for the visual compliment that allows others to recognize them as special. This is largely attributed to Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) such as the NBA 2K series, Fortnite, Roblox, and Madden. It also applies to MMORPGs such as Eve. What governs all this is a three step sequence of Anticipation, Action, and Reward. While this exists in all games (and all things, frankly), the games that have shortened this recursive loop are far more popular these days.
Madden is a wonderful example of the loop. A popular mode on the game is Superstar KO. In this game mode you play a brief game of football with an online opponent. You start the game by picking from a partially randomized list of players, in which there are usually one or more gems (superstars). Each player plays a series and has a chance to score. If one scores and the other doesn’t game over. If both score the same, it goes into a tug of war mode, where you each get three plays to move the ball farthest down the field. It is brief and intense. If you win you are rewarded with one of the loser’s best players. Then you get to keep that player and move on to play someone else… Anticipation, Action, Reward. EA Sports got smart. The game used to max out at 5 wins. Now they have an endless mode where you can sit there all day and play. The most one of my kids ever got was 26 in a row. It is a sinkhole of time and focus, and that is entirely what the game wants.
NBA 2K is worse, because each win improves your singular character and there are many different builds and ways to improve and options and positions and… It snatches the life out of you and puts it in the system. I haven’t even ventured to play this year, for fear of what might happen to me and to my wallet, because unlike Superstar KO, you can pay to level up your character to a certain point and pay for the Flex Paradigm and pay for boosts to let you perform beyond your abilities for a short while (what ever happened to teaching kids to avoid drugs?).
All of this comes from a conversation with my partner about gaming. She and I once talked about gaming together and playing cool games collectively. This has not happened because all of my gaming hours go towards one of two Madden franchise mode games. One is with my kids (two kids quit and one remains involved) and the other is solo, allowing me to play as much or as little as possible). Our conversation forced me to think about this loop a bit more, how it is an integral part of my addiction, and what I need to do in order to separate from it and do the sort of gaming we both can enjoy. I’m still thinking about that. And writing about it…
Some Thoughts:
- On another note, I really struggle remembering small snatches of everyday information, such as names of actors or, most recently, how old my kid actually is. I thought he was 14, but he isn’t. That’s rough. However, is it early onset alzheimer’s? Dementia? I can’t live like that and I cannot figure out how to fix it.
- No, it’s not a tumor.