#because Gachas thrive on FOMO events

[nezumasa]

Octopath: Champions of the Continent sits in a zone where I think concerns of shutdown are fine since unless you’re a big name gacha like FEH, FGO, Honkaiverse, Grandblue Fantasy, Cookie Run, etc., shutdowns are always a threat. Especially for non-JP (ie. The OG server; replace with CN and KR as needed) servers.

However, people are being rather unreasonable about it (ie. Complaining 24/7) considering that 3-5 months is not long at all, especially for a team that is apparently split between Global and JP. You cannot spit out a new road map or change course easily considering how much coding, translation, testing, and general bureaucracy there is in companies. Not to mention submissions to Apple and Google Play to see if they agree with the version update and content.

[leam1983]

To be clear extrinsic motivation is something you'll find in apps. "Do you enjoy playing X? Link up with your Facebook and you'll gain Y amount of Funbucks!" would be an attempt at extrinsic motivation.

However, demonizing the concept gets you nowhere fast, seeing as a lot of MMORPGs rely on a specific form of extrinsic motivation: the one that's garnered from seeking and joining like-minded players. You're getting something that's fundamentally external to the game itself (friends and social interaction) and are using it to complete something that is internal to the experience (beating a raid boss, finishing a quest, learning the ropes, etc.)

Also take a minute to understand that no game can exist as an all-extrinsic rabbit hole. Overwatch might be the exact type of honeypot needed to trigger someone's propensity towards addiction, and it'll be just another team-based shooter for someone else - as it is for me. In clearer terms, I don't play Overwatch to get skins or voice lines, I play Overwatch because the character mechanics are sufficiently entertaining for me. To use the term's counterpart, I find intrinsic motivation in Overwatch.

I've also heard some people demonize games that use any and all sorts of Skinner box mechanics as being extrinsic. They're not. Evil Genius 2: World Domination lists main and side objectives, with a number of procedurally-generated third-rate goals to chase for quick cash boosts. Concretely, the game does expect you to eventually put down the 64 tiles needed for a full-fledged Mess Hall for your minions, but you're not badgered into doing so. These ancillary goals are just there, waiting for you to decide what to do with them.

Personally, I just forget this system exists when it's included by a dev. I know I'll naturally stumble into these goals in playing how I normally would. Where that becomes extrinsic is if Dailies enter the fray. Some service-based games are better than others at marking Dailies for what they are and emphasizing their optional nature (Destiny 2) and others mostly drop the ball (see browser games or your favourite app store's current Staff Picks).

PopCap, Playrix and the like depend on addiction as a factor, and they know precisely who to target. Games like Gardenscapes appeal to people with a need to optimize and clean a space that feels as though it were wholly theirs, which invariably brings up the Bored Housewife trope or virtually anyone else who wants to enjoy a little more control over some facet of their lives. It's unsurprising, then, that these companies thrive on veritable laundry lists of Dailies and on the very concept of ticking off boxes. It's obvious, when you think about it: the player is presented as the only one who could clean up a dilapidated garden, a crumbling mansion or save a flagging small-town bakery, and these notions come with busywork. They come with tasks that are made meaningful in-context, as opposed to the real world's seemingly endless series of chores. That's the perfect cocktail to plant extrinsic motivation virtually everywhere in the finished product. Playrix and the others are mostly just following the playbook established by Zynga in the early aughts, but the real pros are behind such titles as Raid: Shadow Legends or AFK Arena.

As to why that is, you don't need much more than to look at their main menu.

This is Raid's main UI. The right side is cluttered with event notifications (there is no better extrinsic motivator than FOMO, obviously), and each of the options at the bottom, while intrinsic in design, all link back to extrinsic factors, such as levelling boosters or means to obtain new champions in what's effectively a gacha sim. The diegetic view in the middle also links to several poorly-hidden attempts at extrinsic affect, seeing as any store's randomly-generated selection can be improved using in-game items - which themselves can be purchased for real-world cash.

The only means to access the actual game is to click the de-emphasized Battle button in the bottom right, said battles not being much more than surface-level ARPG brawls along a linear path. Tactics are limited to a rock-paper-scissors mechanic and, crucially, only higher values really matter. Gamefreak's at least had the guts to create an entire universe and roleplaying system around Pokémon's transparent Gacha sim basics; Plarium hasn't done anything except ensuring that they'd be able to squeeze an admittedly impressive polycount out of mid-to-high-range SOCs.

Again, this isn't to demonize these mechanics. The image I sourced came from a site that reviews gambling apps and, in obvious Gacha fashion, Raid more than qualifies. If you're lucky not to have an addictive personality and can invest responsibly, that's on you. The problem is that the industry isn't doing enough to cover those that aren't so lucky - and actively closes its eyes on cases of gross abuse. See the attention-grabbing attempts with FIFA Ultimate Team pack-opening streams, where thousands of dollars in virtual goods are laid out in the open for a fanbase that's usually vulnerable.

Avoid video games that use extrinsic motivation. A video game should at least mostly rely on intrinsic motivation, meaning that the playing of the game itself is the fun part, not the reward you get for playing the game. If you don’t enjoy the gameplay, but you want to earn lootboxes, you’ve fallen into the intentionally exploitative system operating within so many games nowadays, and you need to find another game, because you’re not having fun.

It doesn’t sound serious, but this kind of thing can make depression way worse if you’ve already got depression.