Reflecting on the Furiously Joshing Podcast Episode 1: Player Motivations

Hello! Welcome to the Furiously Joshing blog, where I, Josh (furiously so), get serious about games. 

If you haven't listened to my most recent and very first podcast episode here, (also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!), you should go check that out first! Otherwise, not much of this will make sense to you.

Now it's often hard for me to put my thoughts into words, especially when I'm on the spot like, for example, one may be when recording audio for a brand new podcast that will be posted on the internet for all to listen to. Through the power of editing, it may actually sound as if I have the slightest inkling of knowledge of what I'm talking about or that I'm capable of having a single coherent thought sometimes... Oh, how lucky you are to be unable to hear the unedited version! If there was a category of rap that was comprised of only "uhh's," "umm's," "y'know's," "like's," and excessively long pauses, then I would most definitely be your guy. Alas, I recorded a podcast with the intention of capturing introspective, interesting, and coherent discussion, which means I had to do a lot of editing.

Anyway, apart from getting sick of the sound of myself trying to get a thought out, I had the opportunity to consider some of the ideas that we discussed and gather my thoughts on the subject.

One part of the discussion that I felt that I had a hard time with was applying the concepts I read about in the primary study I used in my preparation for this episode. For your convenience, the 28 Dimensions of gamer motivations I talked about was from the meta-ethnography that I read here (that one I mentioned about gamers in China vs. the "West"/US on the podcast was this one, btw). I've known for a while that I personally enjoy progression systems, like upgrading weapons, skills, acquiring perks, etc. and that is conveniently one dimension defined in this study (called "Progression"). The impact that this dimension had on my motivation was most apparent in my experience with Starfield. The various ways that you can level up your character, improve weapons and spacesuits, and upgrade your ships really did a lot of heavy lifting for me, because as soon as I had maxed out most of what was available, the main thing that kept me playing was the thought of finally finishing the game—not that it was a bad game per se, but I have a number of caveats about it which will hopefully be featured in my content soon if you're interested (actually regardless of whether you're interested, full disclosure).

But this example also raises an interesting question for me, which is how best to understand the nuances between examples within the same category of motivation. If loads of games can satisfy a dimension like Progression, why do some systems work significantly better for me than others? One thing I genuinely loved about Starfield was the ability to build your ship from the ground up and the variety of options that you had to create a living space for you and your crew. It was one of the rare occasions where I really enjoyed and took full advantage of the opportunity to be creative. In many other games where you can be similarly creative, I often feel overwhelmed or otherwise don't really have the desire to engage in those systems at all, but I did in Starfield. Why? Does that mean I'm motivated by creativity or not? Similarly, I've tried to make cool structures in Minecraft before, a game known for being the epitome of a sandbox, but I don't remember making anything that I was especially proud of or enjoyed making, and whenever I've tried, I can't really stay in the same game for more than a few hours. For whatever reason, some games don't click at all, and in others like Starfield and Valheim, I have spent literal hours and hours decorating, redecorating, and expanding my house, base, or ship. Although, generally speaking, the Creativity dimension is fairly low on my list in terms of how much it motivates me, I can engage in those systems for literal hours when done in some ways, but not others. How exactly should I understand that? Can I even say I'm not a "creative gamer" even though I very much am in very specific situations? Can these categories even be generalized when no system across games is the same? And even if we look at near-identical examples, like ship-building in Starfield vs the same system in No Man's Sky, why does one click with me and the other just doesn't? How do those seemingly subtle nuances and differences in the implementation of these systems have such a profound effect on gamers like me? And how do we deal with that when we talk about gamer motivation? Exactly how much of that can be generalized at all?

Another thought that I've had since we recorded the podcast was whether or not modern gamers are getting pushed too far to play games. A very disheartening experience I had recently with a young member of my family was when we organized a trip for them to a museum that was all about their special interest: rockets and space. We get there, we start looking around, and it barely took any time at all for them to get bored and want to go back to grinding the various games they played on Roblox. This entire experience has had me very conflicted, because I remember being their age and I loved when I could play games from sun up to sun down (and much later). I'm still very nostalgic for those days, so on the one hand, I feel like this family member is a kid who enjoys the same hobby I had when I was their age and I should let them enjoy it all while they still can. But on the other hand, they're a nerdy kid who likes talking about rockets and space, and they didn't have a shred of curiosity for the wealth of information about rockets and space that was right in front of them. I was pretty obsessed with games when I was a kid, but I remember being curious about other things as well. Was this due to the differences in games we played? Was Sly Cooper not addictive enough for me to abandon all other interests, but Roblox is? Is gaming possibly interfering with their ability to be curious about other things? I understand games are a lot different now, but is it possible that they are actually pushing gamers to different extremes now compared to 20 years ago? There are so many other things that could help explain this experience, like mood, reaction to crowds, expectations for the day, the lack of information they had about the museum prior to going, how hungry they were, even who we went with, etc., but I can't help but consider whether or not games may have also had something to do with it. Similar to whenever games are used as scapegoats to explain violent crimes, I want to believe that gaming in general has no fault, but the possibility can't be credibly dismissed unless it's tested, and I don't know where to start understanding how to test that theory in a meaningful way. As games change, how reasonable is it to consider that they change us as well?

Coming back now to what we discussed on this episode of the podcast, I've reflected a lot on what drives me to play certain games whenever I want to sit down and play and I, unfortunately, don't have a much better answer than I did during the podcast, which is just that I tend to bounce between games. But, fortunately, I do have much more insight into why, even if applying these theories may not be so straightforward. I, personally, like to have a few different kinds of games available to me for when I'm in different moods. Sometimes, I like something that will keep my hands and eyes busy while I engage in other activities, like listening to a podcast, talking to friends, or watching a movie or TV show I've seen before. I normally refer to these kinds of games as "mindless," although that's not entirely accurate. Warframe often fits this category for me now, but games like PowerWash Simulator, Snowrunner, and American Truck Simulator have also worked for me. If I understand correctly, that means that "Idle" is one dimension that motivates me more than a number of others, since I'm really just keeping busy for a time, and I find this act of keeping busy relaxing, which is another dimension ("Relaxation"). Most of the games that work for me in this category also have some way to progress through the game, like moving through a list of jobs or accessing new areas, which normally just feels like an efficient use of downtime. But that's also likely described by the "Continuation" dimension. If I'm relaxing to escape from some stress of the day, that could also be considered Escapism. So in one self-made category of games I play, the theoretical framework from this study could describe at least four distinguishable categories. But I also like a good story, I like puzzles, I like some challenges, I like immersing myself in fantasy worlds, and I especially love some movement systems in certain games, like Spider-man, Warframe, or the Batman Arkham games to some extent. So there are quite a few reasons I like to play even a single game, let alone the handful I cycle between on a weekly basis, and some of those reasons may be a bit difficult to find a dimension for. So I suppose even asking why I play the games I play isn't quite as simple a question as it once seemed.

Additionally, having friends on a particular game does sometimes motivate me to play it, likewise there are a number of games that I basically don't play solo, like Phasmophobia, Lethal Company, and Peak. But other times, I'll hop on my own game even if my friends are all playing something else together that I could join in on. One day, I was heavily motivated by what my friends were playing, so I started out with them on one game and wanted to keep playing together even after we finished on that one. Once we moved, I was hooked on the game and stayed on for another hour after they got off because I wanted to finish up a task, build a new weapon the devs released in a recent update, and tend to some of the farms and get back in the swing of things, since it had been a while before this day since I'd been on. There's a sort of project-oriented grind present in games like Valheim that really pull me in. Gathering resources, farming, making food, assembling good loadouts and testing them against enemies, building structures that we'll all find useful—where does all of that fit into the dimension framework, when I can shift around every other hour, let alone every day? On other days it can be pretty different. Some days it's just satisfying to boot up Helldivers 2 and experience the cinematic (at least to the extent possible on a Steam Deck) chaos of fighting the various enemies of Managed Democracy, no matter who's playing what. Speaking of, where exactly does that fit into the dimension framework? It's very satisfying to take down enemies, especially with my recently-acquired Maxigun, but does that mean I'm motivated by violence? Facing difficult enemies and coming out on top is its own thing, but why is it so fun to kill things in game? I like to think of myself as a pacifist and I don't enjoy real-life violence, movies with excessive gore, or especially violent games, but something about successfully taking down enemies with fun weapons is just very pleasing. Why is that? And what does that mean with regards to what motivates me in games? Why, too, is gunplay significantly more satisfying in some games than it is others, when it's basically the same action at the heart of it all?

There's a lot that I don't have the answer to, but I don't think that finding an answer is quite the point for me yet. It's interesting and thought-provoking to consider why things are the way they are, find theories that help explain why, and to test those theories against real-life examples and see how they stack up. I'm much closer than I am to understanding this part of myself, but I still have a long way to go. I appreciate you, dear reader, for joining me this far, and I'd love to hear some of your thoughts. What motivates you to play the games you do and to avoid the ones you don't? Did anything we discussed on the podcast help you to understand some part of yourself you didn't quite know before? What's your take on the dimension framework and the variations in games or mood that it doesn't quite account for? How much of an impact do you think games have on us and has it changed over time? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts in the comments.