Review of Achievement Relocked
Review of Achievement Relocked by Geoffrey Engelstein, published by MIT Press. I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
Games, especially board games, have seen a resurgence in popularity over the past five years. In Achievement Relocked, NYU instructor and game designer Geoffrey Engelstein focuses on lessons that developers can draw from the field of behavioral psychology.
Modeling Behavior Quantitatively
Behavioral psychology, which is the study of how cognitive processes affect action, is a staple of contemporary business and economic thinking. The field jumped in popularity with the prospect theory work done by Kahneman and Tversky in the late 1970s, but initial insights date at least as far back as the 1950s.
One of the core tenets of prospect theory is that individuals are willing to give up some utility to prevent loss. As an example, many people (myself included) would prefer to receive $5,000 with no risk than a 50% chance at $10,000. Both expected values are the same (1 * 5,000 = .5 * 10,000), but the risk-free offer of $5,000 would make a return of zero seem like a loss of $5,000. The expected payoff of the 50% wager would need to be significantly higher than the guaranteed amount to induce a participant to take the risk.
The key insight into this loss aversion, borne out by many experiments, is that losses cause more pain than wins bring pleasure. Participants consistently overvalued items they owned (the endowment effect) or accepted a loss of expected value to reduce or eliminate risk.
Applying Loss Aversion to Games
The central question of Achievement Relocked is how game creators might incorporate loss aversion into our work to add tension or, if the threat is realized, a sense of loss. It is possible to protect their feelings too much, though. The United States Chess Federation (USCF), for example, uses a variation of the Elo rating system to grade player performance. In addition to some other quirks, such as reducing the rate at which high-rated players gain or lose rating points, the USCF assigns players “rating floors.”
Engelstein notes that rating floors protect player egos, but they also introduce significant distortions into the system. If a player beats a competitor whose true rating should be below their rating floor, the winner gains more points than they should. This policy results in rating inflation, a problem that gets worse as time goes on.
Achievement Relocked is part of the Playful Thinking Series from MIT Press, which includes many outstanding books. It would have been easy to crank out a quick 150 pages on the basics of prospect theory and reminisce about how games such as Wizardry and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (AD&D 2E) caused intense player pain by allowing wights and other monsters to drain experience levels when they successfully attacked a character. Instead, Engelstein draws on his experience as a game designer, player, and instructor to explain why loss aversion is a valid tool in games, describe how it has been used with varying results in the past, and provide a path forward for designers who want to incorporate the threat of loss into their own games.
Conclusion
I recommend Achievement Unlocked for anyone designing board or video games, but also to anyone who wants to tell a compelling story. Engelstein’s thoughtful approach to incorporating loss aversion into a gaming narrative translates easily to stories told in any format.