Leveraging Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Motivation is commonly separated into two different types, Intrinsic and extrinsic and these are important for designers to understand. Motivation can also be linked to the self-determination theory. Users can lean towards one to the other and can be motivated to use your product through rewards and incentives but other users can be motivated by the internal personal satisfaction playing the game.
Intrinisic Motivation
intrinsic motivation is the drive for someone to engage in an activity for the sake of its own enjoyment. The user doesn’t rely on external pressures or incentives to perform it. An example of an Intrinsic motivation could be solving puzzles simply because you like being challenged or doing an awesome stunt in a video game-like Just Cause 4.
Intrinsic motivation is when you are merely exploring the game's terrain, trying out different difficulty modes, or hunting other enemies. And you exert effort in doing these tasks not because of the rewards (some of the tasks you like doing may not even reward you with anything). Instead, you accomplish these tasks due to the satisfaction you get after successfully finishing these tasks.
Intrinsic Motivation Heuristics
Purpose and Meaning: Give players affordances that help them identify a meaningful goal that will be achieved in the game and a sense of self-improvement.
Challenge and Competence: Give players affordances that satisfy their intrinsic need for competence through accomplishing difficult challenges or goals. The game should offer challenges that grow with the user’s skill level and allows them to discover or create new challenges to test themselves.
Completeness and Mastery: Give players affordances that satisfy their intrinsic need for competence by completing progressive tasks or collecting virtual achievements.
Autonomy and Creativity: Give players affordances that satisfy their intrinsic need for autonomy by offering meaningful choices and opportunities for self-expression. Give players ways to express themselves and experiment with new or different paths without fear of serious consequences.
Relatedness: Give players affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need for relatedness through social interaction that let users connect and interact socially or gives them the opportunity of working together towards achieving common goals in a fair and balanced way.
Immersion: Give players affordances aimed at immersing in the aesthetic experience of the game and taking part in its themes, narratives or story.
Extrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivation in video games can be fueled by a wide variety of incentives or rewards. Overall, extrinsic motivation in video games includes accomplishing particular tasks in a game to receive in-game currency, game materials, and experience for you to level up. Overall, extrinsic motivation in games is about getting tasks done to receive shiny rewards and other in-game perks.
So, even if the tasks are pretty challenging, you still try to finish them to the best of your abilities. You might even look up helpful guides that will help you get the job done. And as expected, what motivates you to finish these tasks are the excellent completion rewards offered by the game.
Some concrete examples of extrinsic motivation include joining an essay writing contest for the prize money. Extrinsic motivation also includes doing chores in exchange for extra money from your parents. Another good example is joining a sports competition for the reward you'll get if you ever win.
Extrinsic Motivation Heuristics
Ownership and Rewards: Give players affordances that motivate them through extrinsic rewards or possession of real or virtual goods. Ownership is different from competence when acquiring goods is perceived by the user as the reason for interacting with the system, instead of feeling competent.
Ownership: The system lets users own virtual goods or build an individual profile over time, which can be developed by continued use of the system and with which users can relate to.
Rewards: The system offers incentive rewards for interaction and continued use, which are valuable to users and proportional to the amount of effort invested.
Virtual Economy: The system lets users exchange the result of their efforts with in-system or outside rewards.
Scarcity: Give players affordances aimed at motivating them through feelings of status or exclusivity by means of the acquisition of difficult rewards and achievements that are rare or difficult to obtain.
Loss Avoidance: Give players affordances aimed at leading users to act with urgency, by creating situations in which they could loose acquired or potential rewards, goods, or achievements if they do not act immediately.
Conclusion
Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are important factors for designers to understand and utilise depending on the needs of the game. This is something UX and Game Design should work together on to identify what balance of the two will keep players engaged and motivated to keep playing.