作者： Will Freeman

当开发者苦思冥想消费者喜欢什么样的游戏时，他们其实是在琢磨玩家心理学。

这与在游戏制作过程中进行真正的科学心理学研究是非常不同的，但是，几乎可以肯定的是，制作游戏与理解、如何最好地取悦和奖励人类心理有关。

现在学者们正在开展新一轮针对电子游戏的心理学研究，给开发者们提供了新的实用工具，这个事实应该让人感到有点儿惊讶吧。随着越来越多专家开始探索人类与技术的互动方式，思维开阔的游戏开发者们现在可以利用新方式来理解如何为他们的消费者提供最容易理解和最有利可图的体验。

“网络心理学家”Berni Good就是那些专家们当中的一员，她曾经从事游戏业，经历涉及营销、品牌建设和发行。

在爱尔兰的艺术、设计和技术学会，Good最近把大量时间花在探索空网络心理学上，她的学术研究范围包括AI和虚拟现实。正是在那里，她开始考虑自己的工作对游戏制作有何价值。

Heavy_Rain_Psych(from develop-online)

Good解释道：“我意识到，我有机会考察所有正在进展中的学术研究，以及从应用的层面上看看它们可以如何帮助现在的开发者。”她现在正在为7月的开发大会的演讲做收尾工作。

“我的研究不只是关于优化玩家体验，还有伦理和责任方面的问题，以及游戏如何运用于治疗。”

研究

根据Good，在游戏开发过程中利用心理学理论具有重大意义，比如，优化游戏的机制和角色以便满足玩家追求快乐的基本心理。

Good列举道:“就比如增加忠诚度和沉浸感方面，我们可以借助心理学理论来掌握玩家的心理，以及更好地理解如‘流状态’和‘角色依恋’等概念。”

“通过科学研究，把可靠的结果运用于开发模式，我们可以学习到那些知识。”

这里，Good突然想到新出现的游戏心理学的特点。早期的游戏心理学，如Sherry Turkle对80年代初的多人冒险游戏中的人机关系进行研究，其成果当然启发了开发者。

但现在，游戏心理学更加强调实用性。换句话说，现在的心理学的理论模型要与游戏设计过程中的实际执行相结合。

例如，游戏开发者在制作游戏时就会想到泛心理学理论“自决”。

自决理论研究的是人类的内在动机、需求和决策。学者Edward L. Deci和Richard M. Ryan早在30多年以前就提出了这个理论，至今仍被当作是一个可靠实用的模型。

它是一个与追求快乐有关的理论——从外行人的角度说，也就是快乐和个人幸福感的科学。根据该理论，人类天生就有自我动机和人格整合的基本心理需求。这些需求就是“自主”、“关系性”和“胜任能力”，都与玩家互动和享受电子游戏的方式有关。

根据心理学家，自主是我们具有行动自由的能力和渴望；它是人类产生满足感的重要因素。游戏设计师给予玩家选择，正是利用自主心理优化游戏体验的表现。

关系性是一种与他人产生交互作用的心理需求。要获得成就感就必须产生胜任能力——这显然可以直接运用于游戏设计。

“游戏确实可以满足人类的内在需求。能够做出自己的选择可以增强你的自尊心，使你觉得更快乐，更有动力。将这个原理与游戏设计相结合，如增加玩家选择，确实可以改进玩家的游戏体验。游戏是满足人类的基本需求，而不是欲望。”

HR_TRIALFLY_HD(from develop-online)

学者Scott Rigby和Richard Ryan继续把这个理论发展成“玩家体验需求满足感”或简称为“PENS模型”——这是一个游戏开发者用于判断游戏是否满足玩家需求的商业标准。

“许多开发者都已经把这类理论与游戏相结合了，但考虑到不同的游戏类型和不同的平台，他们确实知道为什么和怎么改进这种给合吗？”对于这个问题，Good的结论是，如果开发者们能好好学习关于电子游戏心理学的成果，并将其运用于项目，总是确保批判性评估研究及其有效性，那么开发者有可能找到答案。

游戏开发的伦理问题

显然，考虑心理学以及它如何影响玩家理解和享受游戏的方式，可能给你的游戏带来评论和商业利益。但是，Berni认为心理学对开发者的意义还不限于此。

她指出：“在这里，我怎么强调心理学对游戏伦理的作用都不过分。”

开发者们必须考虑的不只是Good的开发大会的演讲内容（关于游戏心理学的其他方面），还有关注类似于形像理论的分歧。

“我个人对游戏和游戏对人们影响抱有非常积极的看法，但我不得不承认，游戏也存在与致瘾和赢利有关的伦理问题。我认为游戏开发者应该站在道德的立场上处理这些情况。”

“事实上，我打算谈谈‘恐怖谷理论’（游戏邦注：这是由日本机器人专家森井弘提出的，是指由于机器人与人类在外表、动作上都相当相似,所以人类亦会对机器人产生正面的情感；直至到了一个特定程度,他们的反应便会突然变得极之反感）。Angela Tinwell领导的专家团队做了一些相当有意义的研究。她非常乐意我把她的一些研究放到我的演讲中，也就是玩家可能因为对游戏角色的产生恐怖谷心理，进而对游戏产生反感。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Using psychology in game design

by Will Freeman

Every time a developer contemplates what a customer might like about a game, they’re arguably tackling player psychology.

It’s very different from the potential execution of true scientific psychology on the games making process, but, almost certainly, creating games is about understanding the human mind, and how to best please and reward it.

So it should come as little surprise that a new wave of academic psychological study around video games is underway, offering developers a fresh tool in their arsenal. As more experts explore how humans interact with technology, games developers with open minds can now employ new methods of understanding how to offer their customers the most well received – and most profitable – experiences.

One of those experts is ‘cyberpsychologist’ Berni Good, a former employee of the games industry with experience across marketing, branding and publishing, and part of the team that at the turn of the millennium made Game Domain a global succes story.

Good recently devoted much of her time to studies in cyberpsychology at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Ireland, working alongside academics investigating everything from AI to virtual reality. It was there that she started to consider the value of her work to the process of making games.

“I realised there was an opportunity to look at all this academic research that is really gaining ground, and look at how that can be used in an applied perspective for today’s developers,” explains Good, who is currently putting the finishing touches on a talk to be delivered at July’s Develop in Brighton conference.
“This is about more than just upping the ante for the players’ experiences; there’s issues to be explored around ethics and responsibility, and what clinical aspects of games can be used in an applied perspective.”

DO YOUR RESEARCH

According to Good, considering well-researched psychological theory in the games making process can offer much to studios, from bettering the mechanics and characters in their games to precisely satisfying the foundations of a player’s innate desire for happiness.

“We can ask questions about what we can understand about the gamer’s mind, in terms of increasing things like, for example, engagement and immersion, and better understanding of concepts like flow and character attachment,” reveals Good.

“We can learn about things like that by doing scientific research that is robust enough for developers to apply within their development model.”

There, Good has hit on a distinguishing feature of the new wave of games psychology. The early work of those like the still-active Sherry Turkle, who investigated the relationship between human and machine in early MUDs in the early 1980s, was certainly of use to developers.

But now more than ever, there is an emphasis on applied perspective. In other words, theoretical models of psychology are today built with practical implementation in the games design process in mind.

Take, for example, the way the broader psychological theory of self-determination has been re-appropriated with games developers in mind.

Self-determination theory looks at humans’ internal motivations, needs and decision-making. Academics Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan can take much credit for establishing the theory, which is over 30 years old and famously reliable as a model.

It’s an example of a eudemonic approach – meaning the science of happiness and personal wellbeing in layman’s terms. People, the theory states, have innate psychological needs that are the basis for both self-motivation and personality integration. The theory states that those needs are  ‘autonomy’, ‘relatedness’ and ‘competence’, and all are relevant in the way a player interacts with and enjoys a video game.

Autonomy, to a psychologist, is our ability and desire to have freedom over our own actions. It’s important in order to feel fulfilled, and it’s something games designers can harness to make their games more enjoyable through giving the player choice.

Similary relatedness – the intrinsic need for interaction with others – and competence – the necessity of achieving in life – can be specifically applied to games design.

“Games can really address intrinsic needs we have as human beings. Being able to make your own choices in life can help self-esteem, make you feel happier and motivate you,” states Good. “Incorporating that thinking into the design of a game, through things like player choice, will really improve the experience for the game player. And it’s satisfying needs rather than wants; those intrinsic needs.”

Academics Scott Rigby and Richard Ryan went on to develop this approach into the ‘player experience need satisfaction’ or PENS model – a commercial standard that games developers can use to determine if a game is meeting a player’s needs in this regard.

“A lot of developers already incorporate many of these things into games, but do they know why, and do they know how they can refine that incorporation considering different genres and different platforms?” ponders Good, who concludes that developers can be served very well indeed if they look at the growing body of psychological research around video games, utilise that study by applying it to their projects, and always make sure they critically evaluate the research and its validity.

DEV THE RIGHT THING

It is clear, then, that considering psychology and how it can impact the way a player absorbs and enjoys your game could have stark critical and commercial benefits for your game. But, says Berni, psychology can offer a developer more than that.

“I can’t stress enough here how much psychology can help with the ethics of games,” she insists.

“I personally have very, very positive things to say about games and they ways they can impact people, but there are other consideration that could have ethical implications around issues like addiction and monetisation. And I believe games developers want to be ethical in these situations.”

It’s vitally important to consider, but not the subject of Good’s Develop in Brighton talk, which will be tackling another element of games psychology, and one that is focused on a near iconic theoretical chasm.

“I’m actually going to be talking about psychopathy within the uncanny valley. There’s been some really interesting research from a group of academics led by Angela Tinwell. She’s very kindly agreed for me to incorporate some of her research into my talk, and that is going to be about how gamers may be potentially turned off by perceiving psychopathic traits in a game’s character that may exist in the uncanny valley.”

The Develop in Brighton conference takes place from July 9th to 11th at the Hilton Brighton Metropole in Brighton, UK.(source:develop-online)