This is an great topic. I heard an indie game in development named Yes, Your Grace. It's a pitty that it seens it entered development hell, but it had a cool concept. You are a king, and want the best for your people, but it's not that simple. To be able to defend your kingom from bandits, moster and such, you need armies, and armies cost money, and money comes from taxes, and the commoners are alredy struggling due to a shortage of food. Decisions like this would make a very interesting game.
This sounds incredible. I think there's also the factor of that army being killed and that drawing on the very citizenry you intend to make happy. I would quite enjoy such a game.
That was such an inspirational video. I thought virtual reality would just become another game system but now that I see that companies are really trying to push to integrate it in other ways and after watching this video, virtual reality may just become good life changer that I've been waiting for my whole life.
Wouldn't this be counteracting the point you made in your propaganda in video games video? How exactly would you differentiate between propaganda and a simplified system?
Papers Please is a great example. You slowly realize how thinking about your customers and clients doesn't pay off. If someone doesn't bring out the passport or tickets, you *could* ask them to get them out, sure, but it's way more profitable to just deny them without an explanation, it's legal and they have no way to object and you get to process more people.
Im not a designer, coder, producer or anything of that sort. Im just a person who enjoys to play games and write stories. But despite not having a job in this field, or even considering having one I must say that your videos are really good for me to improve. I have noticed that i start to think more criticle about my games, thinking in a new way while writing my stories. It honestly helps me improve both as a consumer and a writer who enjoys to creat new worlds for my self. I really apreciate your videos and the hard work you all do. Well done and thanks for helping me and others :)
I sat here watching this while my two year old daughter yelled "Hey, Dan! Dan! Take this!" while trying to shove a little toy pirate into the laptop screen. Apparently we've been watching more Extra Credits together than I'd thought.
I'm clapping... This is by far the best episodes you guys have ever done. It's explains what incentives are, give examples of not thinking trough them and getting unwanted consequences, and how games can use them as a teaching tool. The most blatant and yet most people don't recognized about bad incentives is with raising children... 100% of parents at some point gave "rewards" t their children so they would stop crying, or making a scene in public or to just make them stop asking for it... If done regularly it teaches the child that if he behaves that way he gets a reward. - - - - - Only thing I think you should have mentioned is the other side... bad punishments... and maybe you guys can make a video on that. For example in some countries, if someone calls an ambulance or take someone to a hospital and that person can't pay their medical bill, the person who call or took them there is responsible for them. This creates a environment where people don't call for ambulances or help strangers for fear of having to pay their bills. Or like the cops in my city that created an environment where it's better for any criminal to kill cops on site them to let them live, doesn't matter the situation.
Just want to say, WOW! What an awesome channel, so much insight into game psychology, mechanics and narrative and how it all connects to create a cohesive and personal experience. As an Indie Dev in South Africa this channel is truly invaluable, even though we discovered you only a few days ago we've already learnt so much. We were actually thinking of a subject recently that could be quite interesting to investigate and that is power vs. powerlessness. We learn so much from films, music and books in terms of working show and tell into our games but all of those mediums, while they can have an empowering message or mood, are still static and passive experiences that leave the audience at a powerless state, I mean you can argue that in terms of sequels or market research for new experiences that the audience as a whole has some kind of "meta" form of control but with all those other mediums when the experience is right there in front of you to actually experience its static, which ultimately makes it a passive and powerless interaction, again not saying that the message these mediums can bring cant be empowering. Games can play with this dynamic in exciting and interesting ways between making the player/audience feel empowered and powerless and make them experience stories and experiences in different ways and in turn learn more about themselves not just in reflection from passive characters or experiences but from active decisions and lack of decisions. We just think that that the fact that games have that element of power over the outcome of a situation and/or story, that no other medium really has, gives it at least that element of working with power, of course too much power isnt a good thing either but its that balance that can create something beautiful and it would be great for this sentiment to become a little bit more talked about as it is one of the things that sets games apart from other mediums and it is something that the general public also needs to start to understand if we want this medium to become the respected art form that we want it to become in terms of the general public's eye. Again, awesome channel keep doing what your doing and we will keep tuning in :)
Incentive systems *are* value judgments, especially in a simulated world that has an intended player experience. Errant Signal makes a really good case for this talking about how Sim City's incentives make a value judgement that large cities are inherently better than rural towns or how Civilization's win states basically reflect American notions of success as a nation.
6:00 Except a coal fired plant is and always will be way more efficient than an internal combustion engine, additionally green energy sources will be available on large, power plant scale before they will ever be portable, if they are ever made portable at all, and electric cars will be able to take advantage of that right away. Not the point of the video, I know, but still very much worth pointing out.
Huh. I thought they would be talking about good reward systems in Video Games, like a JRPG superboss dropping the best equipment in the game upon death, or getting a special ending sequence if you get 100% of items, and not about Social Politics.
Extra Credits has shifted focus from "actual video game design in the industry" to "applying game design to social justice/political issues" for a while now.
+Voiced they talked about social politics from the early days. The first extra-credits video(the one by dan, don't ask me which dan) is about woman or something like that.
***** Maybe I just came in when they had a period of not doing that, or I am mis-remembering videos. but it definitely feels more prevalent than it used to be...
I can understant that. Game designers deal with people, behavior, expectation and engagement. They must have a lot of ideas for society, but are ignored because they're just "toy makers". I do miss some more game-focused analyses though
I had an interesting 'incentives' moment like this with Fallout 4 (spoiler-free). My first character was on one of the regular modes, and I usually took the goody-two shoes options because that is generally how I like to play. In that play-through I had an opportunity to kill some strangers for money and I turned it down and continued with the game. When survival mode launched things were, unsurprisingly, significantly harder and I found myself continually scrounging for money and resources, especially water. And this time when that same opportunity came up, I took the money and killed these strangers. This wasn't me making a conscious decision to play as a "bad guy" for my survival character, it was a decision that came from the mechanics of the game making my character (and therefore me) desperate for money and resources, a situation that was immediately alleviated by the dodgy decision I made. Of course, like most people I know intellectually that extreme poverty makes people more likely to turn to crime, but to have a comparable scenario simulated in a game was still a pretty fascinating experience that no other medium could really pull off.
A game that I feel does this well is Game Dev Tycoon. When you start the game you are one person just making games, trying out new things for the hell of it with limited systems but as you make your first hit, you start to serialise it and by the time you reach AAA standards you are now pumping out sequel after remake of successful games and failing to innovate just to stay afloat with your company. I just hated the fact that after you realise this it gives insight into the nature of a company to make money, if they see something work, they go for it.
My favorite example of this? HunieCam Studio, the spiritual successor to HuniePop. On the surface it's a cutesy resource management/clicking-on-things-repeatedly game, but when you start to get into it you realize it's an examination of the cynical attitudes bred into the sex industry and the damage it does to those who work in it. I don't know who is making these games, but they've got some serious chops.
Yo Momma HuniePop certainly subverts a number of the established tropes of the dating sim genre, including a surprisingly deep central puzzle mechanic. I wouldn't call it a satire by any means, but it's definitely more complex than your average poorly-disguised-porn-em-up.
Any point you might have (and to be fair, you do) is buried under that condescending tone and/or attitude of treating them like they're seven. I mean, was it REALLY necessary?!
Civilization 5 was also a great example of how real world incentives work , It was so hard not going to war and the playthroughs I didn't go to war on first I would just wipe out the civilization anyway ;sometimes turning everyone else against them with diplomacy ( looking at you U.N) or crippled their trade so they could never attack my "peaceful" & cultured society.
I am deeply saddened by how many comments are complaining about how politicized this game design video is. People that believe this is proposing propaganda in game design not only managed to miss the point of this video, but completely subvert its meaning...
Loved the video, and as usual I was surprised by how deep you went with the direction for the topic. There are plenty of bad incentive systems in games that affect players on a personal basis, games that make you feel obligated, or drained, or simply frustrated because of the path they take you on, but you just jumped directly towards the incentive systems that affect entire societies! Would love to see more in-depth and specific exploration of incentive systems in the future, either on a scale of world affairs or just as game design for game design's sake. Definitely a lot to learn, and I'm sure you've touched on it in previous videos, too.
This channel is perfect for me. I've always had philosophical views on video games and I love the variety of topics you guys cover relating to video games.
I've been campaigning for a basic income as a means of simplifying welfare for quite a while now... thank you guys for addressing one of the aspects that is hardest to explain and also most crucial :)
the loss of health coverage going from unemployed to meagerly employed should really be stressed more because the poverty level itself is calculated based on outdated estimates of the cost of living where the cost of healthcare is not nearly as high, and minimum wage isnt scaled to ANYTHING
Great episode as always. I"d just like to add that Papers Please is another great example of a game that allows the player to feel the pull of morally dubious yet realistic incentives, though it is less subtle and contemporary then Prison Architect
I love that this has been brought up. We seem to be run by incentives and therefore, games, are a really good way for people to learn about the world. I think schools should have something like this in general, so we can be educated about how incentives have a large part of everything we do in our lives.
This dovetails nicely with the episode about the danger of gamification -- incentives are a powerful behavioral tool. In the microcosm of games, they can help direct the player's focus, while in the real world, they can be used to accomplish a cultural result.
you guys astound me for having so much enlightening content, i just wanna watch everything!!! Your research is valuable, noteworthy, easy to understand and especially entertaining with those cute drawing analogies.
As a prison architect player. I can really agree with you. The game makes it really hard to keep all of them happy and keeping the money coming in at the same time. If gangs exist, however, it becomes nigh impossible... For real!
I agree with basically everything in this episode, but I feel like you guys imply that welfare reform in the 80's and 90's fixed all of the incentive problems that Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC] had, when it really only fixed the single issue that you guys brought up while also creating a myriad of other issues. (Also the majority of the statistics i'll be using here are from "Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform" by Sharon Hays. If anything goes uncited, it is referenced within that book.) While AFDC had come under scrutiny of the law throughout the 80's and 90's, the current welfare system called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] was put into place with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 [PRWORA]. And to be fair AFDC did have major problems, the main one being what you mentioned in the video. At the time, a great majority of the US populace was in favor of changing how welfare works, principally getting those in welfare into work. And TANF was marketed as just that. But PRWORA lists four specific goals in the creation of TANF; only one of which mentions promoting work and is put alongside "promoting marriage" with encouraging marriage being heavily implied in the three other goals. The fact that PRWORA was built to incentivize marriage and not incentivize work is built into the very beginning of the text of the act [Section 101] which states "Marriage is the foundation of a successful society. Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children" (Source 1). But work of course was an important part of TANF, but the ways that it incentivizes work is completely broken. Most of the time spent both in and out of the welfare office is focused on job preparation and instilling the values of working into those on TANF, but that neglects the fact that 83% of those on TANF already have work experience with 65% of them being recently employed. Those on welfare must make 40 job contacts in 30 days which is reasonable enough, but the welfare recipient does not find a job within 30 days, they must enter a job training program that their welfare caseworker choses for them. These job training programs can last anywhere from weeks to months, and should the welfare recipient get a paying job while they are in this program, they are not allowed to leave the program. And should a person quit their job or be fired while being on TANF, they must obviously provide a "good cause". But gender discrimination, a sexually hostile environment, being fired for being in the hospital with illness or injury are all not considered good cause to lose the job, with even more severe cases such as having the apartment building you live in burn down and being forced out of the distance of their job and being physically assaulted by employees both being reported as not being "good cause" to lose the job. And should good cause not be found, sanctions will be put onto the welfare recipient. Sanctions are a removal of most but most commonly all benefits while still being technically on welfare, so it still counts down on the a 5 year lifetime limit of being on welfare. Sanctions can last from weeks to months, and one out of four welfare clients are currently under sanction. And it is common for recipients who come out of sanction to be put into the previously mentioned job training programs, sometimes participating in them while on sanction. All of these systems are built to create environments where welfare recipients are barred from getting a job and also do not receive welfare benefits, forcing them into either illegal work or, as PRWORA explicitly states, into marriage. But those are only the restrictions built into the work programs. There are many other restrictions that are built into TANF to encourage marriage. Men are not allowed to live with women if they are not married and women are not allowed to live with men if they are unmarried. This means that if someone is under sanction for losing a job, they lose half of the population to house with while looking for the next. In addition to this, TANF maintained the spending of $50,000,000 per year on abstinence education provided in AFDC which "has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity" (Source 2). And on top of this, an option that 19 states have opted into prevents all children born to people currently on welfare from receiving benefits, which is known as the family cap. This includes all children born of rape or even within marriage (Source 3). All of these restrictions built to encourage the ideals of "family values" politicians who drafted PRWORA disproportionately hurt women and children. Two out of three welfare recipients are children, and 90% of the adult welfare clients are mothers. You guys note how there are benefits for all of society if the poor receive welfare, but it's important to remember that the US's current welfare system actively disincentivizes the poor from being on welfare. In 1996 before the passage of PRWORA, 12.2 million people received welfare benefits which was 84% of those eligible for AFDC. By 2001, only 5.3 million people received welfare benefits which was less than half of those eligible for TANF. Over the same time, the percent of people living within the eligibility limit was only reduced by 15%, not nearly enough to explain the massive drop in welfare rolls. And because the PRWORA is so focused on incentivizing marriage and not work, it rarely creates lasting workplace success. Those who sponsored PRWORA are now proud of the mildly impressive 60% of former welfare clients of find work after dropping out of welfare. But over half of that 60% would lose their jobs over the course of the year, and nearly less than half of those who did find work didn't make enough money to raise their families out of poverty. AFDC was an ineffective program at creating jobs, but TANF is arguably just as ineffective. And these weren't downsides that were unknown at the passage of PRWORA. Two of Bill Clinton's highest ranking aides in DC, Mary Jo Bane and Peter B. Edelman, resigned as a result of Clinton allowing PRWORA to pass under his watch. Edelman was one of Clinton's top evangelists and close friends in DC throughout the whole of Clinton's first term, but when PRWORA passed he famously said "I have devoted the last 30-plus years to doing whatever I could to help in reducing poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare bill goes in the opposite direction.'' (Source 4). This isn't me railing against people who stand for "traditional family values" but rather noting how blatantly members of Congress put "traditional family values" over the well-being of the nation's poor. If people really wanted to include the mothers (who make up the vast majority of welfare rolls) as active working citizens, it doesn't make sense to use the mechanisms currently in place to mentor them and inspire them. But if, on the other hand, PRWORA was designed to force dependency of mothers onto fathers and only occasionally work the most menial jobs available in society by taking away all agency and making them feel thankful for receiving dead-end jobs, then it was very successful in doing just that. Source 1: The Text of PRWORA thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c104:1:./temp/~c104S8Q6FL:e0: Source 2: The Social Security Act; Section 510 (b) of Title V, P.L. 104-193 www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title05/0510.htm Source 3: The National Conference of State Legislatures www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/welfare-reform-family-cap-policies.aspx Source 4: The New York Times www.nytimes.com/1996/09/12/us/two-clinton-aides-resign-to-protest-new-welfare-law.html
This takes me back to when I played Civilization 4 on the Earth map and automated my workers, and saw them happily chopping away at the Amazonian rain forest. Because the politics I had chosen made that the most viable tile improvement. That was a sobering moment.
its great how sometimes you sound like youre talking from the perspective of a person in the industry, which you are, to an actual personified game, or at least that how it sounds to me sometimes its great
Hey guys! Amazing episode. You guys taught me so much over these years! You know, Skinner (the same one you guys seem to not like a lot) wrote a lot about these systems. We, Behavior Analysts, call them "Contingencies of Reinforcement" and their design is a very important matter! Some articles that point out this subject: THe Design of Cultures, Why are We not Saving the World, "Man", and perhaps even some of Hayes's extensive metanalysis in Enviromental Problems, Behavioral Solutions. If you guys would like to discuss a behaviorist view of those subjects, I'd be glad to shoot out some pointers! Good luck on the next episode. Bye!
It's funny because I've always thought about these things on a small scale, like giving your dog a treat to do a trick is an incentive, but i never thought about how governments do the same thing with it's citizens. I guess they really do make the world go round.
Thanks for this episode. I had an exam in Systems Thinking where we needed to give exampless of various system behaviors. I used the cobra example for one of them
Recettear is an excellent example of this. You naturally end up engaging in profiling, price gouging, and favoritism as you try and keep your item shop open. It changed the way I think about stores.
This is sort of on topic, When i was first starting to get intersted in history. I would play games like Harts of Iron I would then just build all the factory. Then i would run out of fuel and then i would have to make economic deals with nations like nations I did not want to deal with just to fulfill my quota then before long i found my self having to suck up to nations i did not like, or attack weak nations and take their stuff... After that I began to understand the resource war aspect of our world.
hey extra credits, you guys are really amazing breaking down games and figuring out how games work. I am absolutely positive that you guys would make a really amazing game. James could create the coding or mechanics, and use the art you guys already have. it would be an incredible game.
Have you guys ever thought about doing a podcast? These videos are so well done that I can listen to them without any visuals and get exactly what you are trying to say. A podcast could help you more broadly explore these ideas. I, at least, would listen to it.
The biggest incentive I've ever felt in both games and reality was the dark soul achievement in dark souls series it was the only achievement that meant something it was the most incentivizing thing I felt due to the difficulty of the game so getting that felt amazing
This is a very informative video that makes you think outside the box for sure. Some of these things seem so obvious a mistake but hindsight is easy, decisions are hard. Also, my mind was blown that I happened to be playing Prison Architect while playing this then it suddenly came up in the video XD
Much enjoyed this episode. I've felt for a while that legislators have a lot to learn from computer system design. Which I feel relates to this episode.
This concept is good in theory, but we are still restricted by the rules and biases of a video game. Let's take that car pollution game example. A game developer could have just as easily not realized that the pollution would not go down and implemented that the pollution numbers in the game do go down when the cars are all electric. It is good when a game developer does think their game through to all logical conclusions, but developers are humans, too like the rest of us, each with their own views, biases and unintentional consequences built into their work.
Do agree there. Switch to electric would likely reduce pollution a fair bit anyway just because is more efferent in general. (But money might be better spent elsewhere. I am sure it a problem one have to look at on a case by case bases.) But that is why should have a critical view of all media. Even games. Especially games. Games do not hit you over the head with there message (most of the time. Especially not the good ones.) So one need to be extra sceptical to what the message of a game is. Not to mention that games have a unintended message sent out to it audience simple because game designers sometimes fail to with there incentives. But games are also very good at engaging people in way other media often can't.
what I think is important is to engage people into the problem e into discussions about it. As soon as someone mentioned this game, someone else would claim it's an imperfect simulation. But what if the solution from the game IS correct? And if not, why? What ELSE can be done? It's far much better than people not caring at all
PCzDan kindq like these videos. They are not perfect and there's bias and personal views show up from time to time but they give us something to think and talk about.
Can you make an episode that explains network effects/strategic complementarity, portfolio optimization (in terms of deck building and risk hedging (you touched in the ballpark with your discussion of delta spreads on enjoyability), keynesian beauty contests and equilibrium strategies? these are all deep economic concepts that have profound impacts on gaming meta strategy and explain why many simple incentive structures fail.
This got me thinking about why I can't stand working full time. I have a salaried position. If I work really hard and get my work done quickly, I get nothing. I don't get to leave early. I don't get extra pay. I just get more work. My boss would argue that my incentive is to potentially get a promotion one day. I don't really feel like that incentive matches the effort. If I work slowly, doing the bare minimum, browsing reddit and youtube all day, I still get paid, I still keep my job, and I get an immediate daily reward; my day is more entertaining. When I freelance, I negotiate the incentive with the client. If either party feels that what they're getting isn't worth the money/time/effort, we can refuse the terms or renegotiate to find something that works for both of us. It feels like a much better system.
I know I'm going to get flamed hard for this, but a really interesting example of exploring incentives can be found in Undertale which explores how far people are willing to go to see everything in a game. *Raises flame shield*
What they're describing in the video are economic models, repackaged in more fun forms. So if this interests you, there's a whole world out there of these kinds of models.
The problem with this is that the consequences have to be made by developers and will be biased towards one side or another and not give an accurate representation of what might happen.
Age of Empires really made me think about an organization's resources differently. Sometimes having more isn't as important as having the right balance.
Enjoyed the video (which is par for the course, great work). You should do a follow up video that includes a number of examples beyond Prison Architect. MMO economic incentives and unexpected outcomes or something.
When i saw this video , imediately tought of fate of the world. The electric transport sure is a nice example of the topic in hand. (hehehe) Altough i argue if the game was more "organized" in their data , i would bet that the strategies would vary, not much..., but they would. And in conclusion , i agree that games are a nice tool to examine the world , being fate of the world an example. If you play the game with a genuine interest in how the game works and the message of the game also, you come to realise that not everything is a simple as it is, which caused me to learn more on how to manage the planet , which in turn gave me a valuable insight of the problems that our society is likely to face in coming years. My comment is aligned with the video argument , but i just want to share XD
AFDC was NOT a part of the social security agency (SSA). It was created by the social security ACT (which created the agency) but was administered by the department for Health and Human Services (HHS), the bureau that contained SSA until the mid 90's.
My EXACT problem when I was on Welfare myself in a nutshell, it was extremely difficult to get off of it because finding a fulfilling full time job was so difficult. This is why we need Min-Income.
The gap he speaks of with social benefits is too freaking real. If you cross the poverty line and stop qualifying for medical care, subsidized or rent-controlled housing, grocery money, tax credits, etc...you'd have to make 15-25k more per year to put yourself back where you were. Ask me how I know.
Eep. The more I learn about the "wellfare" system in America, the more scared I am. (Seriously, it can't be that hard to design a system that prevents the unemployed and minimum-wage workers from starving while at the same time making the "earn more money" choice always a no-brainer.)
Unfortunately, here in the US, we have politicians who go too far trying to "compromise" with those who want to do nothing, so we end up only getting half-progress that often doesn't do _any_ of what it was intended to do.
Jake, I couldn't agree more. Everything our government does on a national level ends up either not happening at all, or being the worst of both worlds. We even get mandatory insurances that come from private companies. It's madness.
Was expecting this to be on intrinsic vs extrinsic incentives, maybe just the differences between the two, maybe on how there's evidence for extrinsic incentives, while good for motivation in the short term, particularly with people who aren't interested in the thing, can kill the drive behind intrinsic incentives, which can result in people who were interested in e.g. reading to no longer be able to engage with it without the extrinsic motivation (Which is a problem with poorly implemented gamification)
I remember in Railroad Tycoon 3 I could create a small company, load it up with debt, buy back stock so my own stock value goes up, sell the stock, leave the company, and start a new one with the money I got from the first one, which is now in ruins. Now from a gameplay perspective, this is an exploit. However things like this really did happen, so it's perfectly reasonable for it to be possible in the game.
Thanks, I've been thinking a lot about this. I always find it odd, how lawmakers never seem to contemplate, how they law can be "gamed". Making laws it not much different than setting up game mechanics and rules.
...what? why? They included a girl who chose to wear a traditional head cover for cultural or religious reasons but the main focus was that she was having fun playing games. She's a human being that isn't the default.
I have family moving out of an apartment where the employees are incentivised to keep the apartments full via a bonus when a new tenant is signed on. So employees began to provide poor service and absurd fees to get tenants to want to move to get more bonuses.
I remember you talking about a dungeon crawling RPG once that had a mechanic around the mental health of your party, and how the game slowly incentivized you to hire-and-sacrifice expendables in your dungeon crawls. It was in one of your "games to try out" lists, and if I remember correctly, you compared it to the modern workforce exploiting workers. I can't remember the name of that game, but I am surprised you don't mention it here.
I think you're referring to Darkest Dungeon. Mark Brown over at the UA-cam channel "Game Maker's Toolkit" talked about the same idea in his video on Morality in Video Game Mechanics.
This topic was - weirdly enough - explored in some depth once in an episode of Stargate Atlantis called appropriately "The Game". (s3e15) If you haven't seen the episode, I don't want to spoil it, so I'll just recommend it.
Almost 300 hours in Prison Architect, great game :P I agree that the beauty of that game is that it doesn't say anything about right or wrong, it just simulates the systems, and the consequences of your actions.
This is an great topic. I heard an indie game in development named Yes, Your Grace. It's a pitty that it seens it entered development hell, but it had a cool concept. You are a king, and want the best for your people, but it's not that simple. To be able to defend your kingom from bandits, moster and such, you need armies, and armies cost money, and money comes from taxes, and the commoners are alredy struggling due to a shortage of food. Decisions like this would make a very interesting game.
This sounds incredible. I think there's also the factor of that army being killed and that drawing on the very citizenry you intend to make happy. I would quite enjoy such a game.
They did tried to do something like that in Fable 3, but like a lot of other things in that game, they fucked it up.
Crusader Kings 2 is all that and more.
pogo575 Yeah, CK2 is cool in regards to politics, but in regards to economy and things like such, it's not that great.
really sounds like Democracy 3 but Medieval Edition :D
Our world is run by incentives, and games are the perfect tool for showing us how.
ayyyyyyyyyyyy
I love you guys.
It says you posted the comment 5 hours ago, in that five hours is that the video uploading?
That was such an inspirational video.
I thought virtual reality would just become another game system but now that I see that companies are really trying to push to integrate it in other ways and after watching this video, virtual reality may just become good life changer that I've been waiting for my whole life.
Wouldn't this be counteracting the point you made in your propaganda in video games video?
How exactly would you differentiate between propaganda and a simplified system?
This year, in Mexico, the government decided to double the amount of days your can't drive, due to higher smog... We learnt nothing.
Lol (i feel you bro)
I thought they would make drivers wear lucha libre masks in traffic, that would be better.
Papers Please is a great example.
You slowly realize how thinking about your customers and clients doesn't pay off. If someone doesn't bring out the passport or tickets, you *could* ask them to get them out, sure, but it's way more profitable to just deny them without an explanation, it's legal and they have no way to object and you get to process more people.
1:32
Yes Dan, we know you beat Dark Souls and we're all terribly proud of you.
Im not a designer, coder, producer or anything of that sort. Im just a person who enjoys to play games and write stories. But despite not having a job in this field, or even considering having one I must say that your videos are really good for me to improve. I have noticed that i start to think more criticle about my games, thinking in a new way while writing my stories. It honestly helps me improve both as a consumer and a writer who enjoys to creat new worlds for my self. I really apreciate your videos and the hard work you all do. Well done and thanks for helping me and others :)
I sat here watching this while my two year old daughter yelled "Hey, Dan! Dan! Take this!" while trying to shove a little toy pirate into the laptop screen. Apparently we've been watching more Extra Credits together than I'd thought.
I'm clapping... This is by far the best episodes you guys have ever done. It's explains what incentives are, give examples of not thinking trough them and getting unwanted consequences, and how games can use them as a teaching tool. The most blatant and yet most people don't recognized about bad incentives is with raising children... 100% of parents at some point gave "rewards" t their children so they would stop crying, or making a scene in public or to just make them stop asking for it... If done regularly it teaches the child that if he behaves that way he gets a reward. - - - - - Only thing I think you should have mentioned is the other side... bad punishments... and maybe you guys can make a video on that. For example in some countries, if someone calls an ambulance or take someone to a hospital and that person can't pay their medical bill, the person who call or took them there is responsible for them. This creates a environment where people don't call for ambulances or help strangers for fear of having to pay their bills. Or like the cops in my city that created an environment where it's better for any criminal to kill cops on site them to let them live, doesn't matter the situation.
Just want to say, WOW! What an awesome channel, so much insight into game psychology, mechanics and narrative and how it all connects to create a cohesive and personal experience. As an Indie Dev in South Africa this channel is truly invaluable, even though we discovered you only a few days ago we've already learnt so much.
We were actually thinking of a subject recently that could be quite interesting to investigate and that is power vs. powerlessness. We learn so much from films, music and books in terms of working show and tell into our games but all of those mediums, while they can have an empowering message or mood, are still static and passive experiences that leave the audience at a powerless state, I mean you can argue that in terms of sequels or market research for new experiences that the audience as a whole has some kind of "meta" form of control but with all those other mediums when the experience is right there in front of you to actually experience its static, which ultimately makes it a passive and powerless interaction, again not saying that the message these mediums can bring cant be empowering.
Games can play with this dynamic in exciting and interesting ways between making the player/audience feel empowered and powerless and make them experience stories and experiences in different ways and in turn learn more about themselves not just in reflection from passive characters or experiences but from active decisions and lack of decisions.
We just think that that the fact that games have that element of power over the outcome of a situation and/or story, that no other medium really has, gives it at least that element of working with power, of course too much power isnt a good thing either but its that balance that can create something beautiful and it would be great for this sentiment to become a little bit more talked about as it is one of the things that sets games apart from other mediums and it is something that the general public also needs to start to understand if we want this medium to become the respected art form that we want it to become in terms of the general public's eye.
Again, awesome channel keep doing what your doing and we will keep tuning in :)
Gosh... real life needs a patch ASAP~
But then you won't be able to have fun with the games exploits.
Better buff diddy.
+LeoBattlerOfSinsX84 and nerf Greninja
Wait for the DLC. Too bad most won't be able to afford it.
Ebola op, Plz nerf.
Incentive systems *are* value judgments, especially in a simulated world that has an intended player experience. Errant Signal makes a really good case for this talking about how Sim City's incentives make a value judgement that large cities are inherently better than rural towns or how Civilization's win states basically reflect American notions of success as a nation.
6:00 Except a coal fired plant is and always will be way more efficient than an internal combustion engine, additionally green energy sources will be available on large, power plant scale before they will ever be portable, if they are ever made portable at all, and electric cars will be able to take advantage of that right away. Not the point of the video, I know, but still very much worth pointing out.
Hey, guys! That cobra at 1:32 beat Dark Souls
Huh. I thought they would be talking about good reward systems in Video Games, like a JRPG superboss dropping the best equipment in the game upon death, or getting a special ending sequence if you get 100% of items, and not about Social Politics.
Extra Credits has shifted focus from "actual video game design in the industry" to "applying game design to social justice/political issues" for a while now.
+Voiced they talked about social politics from the early days. The first extra-credits video(the one by dan, don't ask me which dan) is about woman or something like that.
***** Maybe I just came in when they had a period of not doing that, or I am mis-remembering videos. but it definitely feels more prevalent than it used to be...
I can understant that. Game designers deal with people, behavior, expectation and engagement. They must have a lot of ideas for society, but are ignored because they're just "toy makers".
I do miss some more game-focused analyses though
PCzDan 50 years down the line they won't be considered "toymakers" anymore.
I had an interesting 'incentives' moment like this with Fallout 4 (spoiler-free). My first character was on one of the regular modes, and I usually took the goody-two shoes options because that is generally how I like to play. In that play-through I had an opportunity to kill some strangers for money and I turned it down and continued with the game.
When survival mode launched things were, unsurprisingly, significantly harder and I found myself continually scrounging for money and resources, especially water. And this time when that same opportunity came up, I took the money and killed these strangers. This wasn't me making a conscious decision to play as a "bad guy" for my survival character, it was a decision that came from the mechanics of the game making my character (and therefore me) desperate for money and resources, a situation that was immediately alleviated by the dodgy decision I made. Of course, like most people I know intellectually that extreme poverty makes people more likely to turn to crime, but to have a comparable scenario simulated in a game was still a pretty fascinating experience that no other medium could really pull off.
A game that I feel does this well is Game Dev Tycoon.
When you start the game you are one person just making games, trying out new things for the hell of it with limited systems but as you make your first hit, you start to serialise it and by the time you reach AAA standards you are now pumping out sequel after remake of successful games and failing to innovate just to stay afloat with your company. I just hated the fact that after you realise this it gives insight into the nature of a company to make money, if they see something work, they go for it.
My favorite example of this? HunieCam Studio, the spiritual successor to HuniePop. On the surface it's a cutesy resource management/clicking-on-things-repeatedly game, but when you start to get into it you realize it's an examination of the cynical attitudes bred into the sex industry and the damage it does to those who work in it. I don't know who is making these games, but they've got some serious chops.
+Zoe Papillon doesn't that apply to lead based paint only?
Yo Momma HuniePop certainly subverts a number of the established tropes of the dating sim genre, including a surprisingly deep central puzzle mechanic. I wouldn't call it a satire by any means, but it's definitely more complex than your average poorly-disguised-porn-em-up.
Any point you might have (and to be fair, you do) is buried under that condescending tone and/or attitude of treating them like they're seven. I mean, was it REALLY necessary?!
+Zoe Papillon
Holy shit, are you literally a bond villain? I don't think I've ever met someone as ridiculous as you. It's quite entertaining.
one could also see Huniepop as an analysis of pick-up artresty. I've even referred to it as "Asshole simulator" in the past
Civilization 5 was also a great example of how real world incentives work , It was so hard not going to war and the playthroughs I didn't go to war on first I would just wipe out the civilization anyway ;sometimes turning everyone else against them with diplomacy
( looking at you U.N) or crippled their trade so they could never attack my "peaceful" & cultured society.
And sometimes you endup in bankrupt, because fucking Attila is your neighbor and that fucker the only thing he is good at is starting a war....
+El Spooky How do I get Prison Architect, Civilisations 5?
Tois Sin Cera Steam Summer Sales
offworld trading company is also a good one.
Normally...Civ 5 is a bad example because...Their isn't enough to consider normally
I am deeply saddened by how many comments are complaining about how politicized this game design video is. People that believe this is proposing propaganda in game design not only managed to miss the point of this video, but completely subvert its meaning...
Loved the video, and as usual I was surprised by how deep you went with the direction for the topic. There are plenty of bad incentive systems in games that affect players on a personal basis, games that make you feel obligated, or drained, or simply frustrated because of the path they take you on, but you just jumped directly towards the incentive systems that affect entire societies!
Would love to see more in-depth and specific exploration of incentive systems in the future, either on a scale of world affairs or just as game design for game design's sake. Definitely a lot to learn, and I'm sure you've touched on it in previous videos, too.
This channel is perfect for me. I've always had philosophical views on video games and I love the variety of topics you guys cover relating to video games.
I've been campaigning for a basic income as a means of simplifying welfare for quite a while now... thank you guys for addressing one of the aspects that is hardest to explain and also most crucial :)
Great video! As a game developer myself I love your channel even the non-game related history videos!
the loss of health coverage going from unemployed to meagerly employed should really be stressed more because the poverty level itself is calculated based on outdated estimates of the cost of living where the cost of healthcare is not nearly as high, and minimum wage isnt scaled to ANYTHING
Just came across the channel few days back, can't get enough of it! just want to say great work!
Great episode as always. I"d just like to add that Papers Please is another great example of a game that allows the player to feel the pull of morally dubious yet realistic incentives, though it is less subtle and contemporary then Prison Architect
I love that this has been brought up. We seem to be run by incentives and therefore, games, are a really good way for people to learn about the world. I think schools should have something like this in general, so we can be educated about how incentives have a large part of everything we do in our lives.
This dovetails nicely with the episode about the danger of gamification -- incentives are a powerful behavioral tool. In the microcosm of games, they can help direct the player's focus, while in the real world, they can be used to accomplish a cultural result.
I’m really surprised you didn’t mention “Papers Please”
It’s a really good example of a game that’s essentially built around this topic.
you guys astound me for having so much enlightening content, i just wanna watch everything!!! Your research is valuable, noteworthy, easy to understand and especially entertaining with those cute drawing analogies.
Ah yes a legend was born right here as they say
6:12 The game "Thoughts and Prayers" is also an eye opening experience kinda because of the same reasons as this video
As a prison architect player. I can really agree with you. The game makes it really hard to keep all of them happy and keeping the money coming in at the same time. If gangs exist, however, it becomes nigh impossible... For real!
Always happy to hear more quality discussion, keep up the good work EC!
So, in effect, the title could be: "Games Exemplify Game Theory"
No surprise there. Great episode though. :D
I agree with basically everything in this episode, but I feel like you guys imply that welfare reform in the 80's and 90's fixed all of the incentive problems that Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC] had, when it really only fixed the single issue that you guys brought up while also creating a myriad of other issues. (Also the majority of the statistics i'll be using here are from "Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform" by Sharon Hays. If anything goes uncited, it is referenced within that book.)
While AFDC had come under scrutiny of the law throughout the 80's and 90's, the current welfare system called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] was put into place with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 [PRWORA]. And to be fair AFDC did have major problems, the main one being what you mentioned in the video. At the time, a great majority of the US populace was in favor of changing how welfare works, principally getting those in welfare into work. And TANF was marketed as just that. But PRWORA lists four specific goals in the creation of TANF; only one of which mentions promoting work and is put alongside "promoting marriage" with encouraging marriage being heavily implied in the three other goals. The fact that PRWORA was built to incentivize marriage and not incentivize work is built into the very beginning of the text of the act [Section 101] which states "Marriage is the foundation of a successful society. Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children" (Source 1).
But work of course was an important part of TANF, but the ways that it incentivizes work is completely broken. Most of the time spent both in and out of the welfare office is focused on job preparation and instilling the values of working into those on TANF, but that neglects the fact that 83% of those on TANF already have work experience with 65% of them being recently employed. Those on welfare must make 40 job contacts in 30 days which is reasonable enough, but the welfare recipient does not find a job within 30 days, they must enter a job training program that their welfare caseworker choses for them. These job training programs can last anywhere from weeks to months, and should the welfare recipient get a paying job while they are in this program, they are not allowed to leave the program. And should a person quit their job or be fired while being on TANF, they must obviously provide a "good cause". But gender discrimination, a sexually hostile environment, being fired for being in the hospital with illness or injury are all not considered good cause to lose the job, with even more severe cases such as having the apartment building you live in burn down and being forced out of the distance of their job and being physically assaulted by employees both being reported as not being "good cause" to lose the job. And should good cause not be found, sanctions will be put onto the welfare recipient. Sanctions are a removal of most but most commonly all benefits while still being technically on welfare, so it still counts down on the a 5 year lifetime limit of being on welfare. Sanctions can last from weeks to months, and one out of four welfare clients are currently under sanction. And it is common for recipients who come out of sanction to be put into the previously mentioned job training programs, sometimes participating in them while on sanction. All of these systems are built to create environments where welfare recipients are barred from getting a job and also do not receive welfare benefits, forcing them into either illegal work or, as PRWORA explicitly states, into marriage.
But those are only the restrictions built into the work programs. There are many other restrictions that are built into TANF to encourage marriage. Men are not allowed to live with women if they are not married and women are not allowed to live with men if they are unmarried. This means that if someone is under sanction for losing a job, they lose half of the population to house with while looking for the next. In addition to this, TANF maintained the spending of $50,000,000 per year on abstinence education provided in AFDC which "has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity" (Source 2). And on top of this, an option that 19 states have opted into prevents all children born to people currently on welfare from receiving benefits, which is known as the family cap. This includes all children born of rape or even within marriage (Source 3).
All of these restrictions built to encourage the ideals of "family values" politicians who drafted PRWORA disproportionately hurt women and children. Two out of three welfare recipients are children, and 90% of the adult welfare clients are mothers. You guys note how there are benefits for all of society if the poor receive welfare, but it's important to remember that the US's current welfare system actively disincentivizes the poor from being on welfare. In 1996 before the passage of PRWORA, 12.2 million people received welfare benefits which was 84% of those eligible for AFDC. By 2001, only 5.3 million people received welfare benefits which was less than half of those eligible for TANF. Over the same time, the percent of people living within the eligibility limit was only reduced by 15%, not nearly enough to explain the massive drop in welfare rolls. And because the PRWORA is so focused on incentivizing marriage and not work, it rarely creates lasting workplace success. Those who sponsored PRWORA are now proud of the mildly impressive 60% of former welfare clients of find work after dropping out of welfare. But over half of that 60% would lose their jobs over the course of the year, and nearly less than half of those who did find work didn't make enough money to raise their families out of poverty. AFDC was an ineffective program at creating jobs, but TANF is arguably just as ineffective. And these weren't downsides that were unknown at the passage of PRWORA. Two of Bill Clinton's highest ranking aides in DC, Mary Jo Bane and Peter B. Edelman, resigned as a result of Clinton allowing PRWORA to pass under his watch. Edelman was one of Clinton's top evangelists and close friends in DC throughout the whole of Clinton's first term, but when PRWORA passed he famously said "I have devoted the last 30-plus years to doing whatever I could to help in reducing poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare bill goes in the opposite direction.'' (Source 4). This isn't me railing against people who stand for "traditional family values" but rather noting how blatantly members of Congress put "traditional family values" over the well-being of the nation's poor. If people really wanted to include the mothers (who make up the vast majority of welfare rolls) as active working citizens, it doesn't make sense to use the mechanisms currently in place to mentor them and inspire them. But if, on the other hand, PRWORA was designed to force dependency of mothers onto fathers and only occasionally work the most menial jobs available in society by taking away all agency and making them feel thankful for receiving dead-end jobs, then it was very successful in doing just that.
Source 1: The Text of PRWORA thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c104:1:./temp/~c104S8Q6FL:e0:
Source 2: The Social Security Act; Section 510 (b) of Title V, P.L. 104-193 www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/ssact/title05/0510.htm
Source 3: The National Conference of State Legislatures www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/welfare-reform-family-cap-policies.aspx
Source 4: The New York Times www.nytimes.com/1996/09/12/us/two-clinton-aides-resign-to-protest-new-welfare-law.html
This takes me back to when I played Civilization 4 on the Earth map and automated my workers, and saw them happily chopping away at the Amazonian rain forest. Because the politics I had chosen made that the most viable tile improvement. That was a sobering moment.
Man this is fascinating. You opened my eyes once more, EC!
its great how sometimes you sound like youre talking from the perspective of a person in the industry, which you are, to an actual personified game, or at least that how it sounds to me sometimes its great
Hey guys! Amazing episode. You guys taught me so much over these years!
You know, Skinner (the same one you guys seem to not like a lot) wrote a lot about these systems. We, Behavior Analysts, call them "Contingencies of Reinforcement" and their design is a very important matter! Some articles that point out this subject: THe Design of Cultures, Why are We not Saving the World, "Man", and perhaps even some of Hayes's extensive metanalysis in Enviromental Problems, Behavioral Solutions. If you guys would like to discuss a behaviorist view of those subjects, I'd be glad to shoot out some pointers!
Good luck on the next episode. Bye!
You guys rarely fail to be interesting. Nice job :)
It's funny because I've always thought about these things on a small scale, like giving your dog a treat to do a trick is an incentive, but i never thought about how governments do the same thing with it's citizens. I guess they really do make the world go round.
Thanks for this episode. I had an exam in Systems Thinking where we needed to give exampless of various system behaviors. I used the cobra example for one of them
Recettear is an excellent example of this. You naturally end up engaging in profiling, price gouging, and favoritism as you try and keep your item shop open. It changed the way I think about stores.
This is sort of on topic, When i was first starting to get intersted in history. I would play games like Harts of Iron I would then just build all the factory. Then i would run out of fuel and then i would have to make economic deals with nations like nations I did not want to deal with just to fulfill my quota then before long i found my self having to suck up to nations i did not like, or attack weak nations and take their stuff... After that I began to understand the resource war aspect of our world.
When I have kids I plan to watch videos like this one and all of Extra History with them. That'd be fun and I could talk to them about our world.
hey extra credits, you guys are really amazing breaking down games and figuring out how games work. I am absolutely positive that you guys would make a really amazing game. James could create the coding or mechanics, and use the art you guys already have. it would be an incredible game.
Have you guys ever thought about doing a podcast? These videos are so well done that I can listen to them without any visuals and get exactly what you are trying to say. A podcast could help you more broadly explore these ideas. I, at least, would listen to it.
I did not expected to see "Hoy no circula" in an EC video. That is a great example!
The biggest incentive I've ever felt in both games and reality was the dark soul achievement in dark souls series it was the only achievement that meant something it was the most incentivizing thing I felt due to the difficulty of the game so getting that felt amazing
This is a very informative video that makes you think outside the box for sure. Some of these things seem so obvious a mistake but hindsight is easy, decisions are hard. Also, my mind was blown that I happened to be playing Prison Architect while playing this then it suddenly came up in the video XD
I love how the criticism of the old welfare system is basically an argument for basic income.
That cobra thing is fantastic.
Also a really good episode with a really good message overall.
Great video. I feel the influence of extra history on the recent episodes
All your video's are really insiteful. I like it
Your spelling is also insightful :)
ah, my b
+icedragon769 most insightful comment
Really cool episode. I feel there are a lot of games out there that do this sort of thing.
Best episode in a while! Love this
He caught'd you, bro. Them snakes be adorbls!
Much enjoyed this episode. I've felt for a while that legislators have a lot to learn from computer system design. Which I feel relates to this episode.
This concept is good in theory, but we are still restricted by the rules and biases of a video game. Let's take that car pollution game example. A game developer could have just as easily not realized that the pollution would not go down and implemented that the pollution numbers in the game do go down when the cars are all electric. It is good when a game developer does think their game through to all logical conclusions, but developers are humans, too like the rest of us, each with their own views, biases and unintentional consequences built into their work.
I really enjoyed this video, but I wanted to say the same thing as MWestover. I feel like this could easily lead to propaganda.
Do agree there. Switch to electric would likely reduce pollution a fair bit anyway just because is more efferent in general. (But money might be better spent elsewhere. I am sure it a problem one have to look at on a case by case bases.)
But that is why should have a critical view of all media. Even games. Especially games. Games do not hit you over the head with there message (most of the time. Especially not the good ones.) So one need to be extra sceptical to what the message of a game is. Not to mention that games have a unintended message sent out to it audience simple because game designers sometimes fail to with there incentives.
But games are also very good at engaging people in way other media often can't.
We should try our best to filter out propaganda/bias/whatever when we learn something.
what I think is important is to engage people into the problem e into discussions about it. As soon as someone mentioned this game, someone else would claim it's an imperfect simulation. But what if the solution from the game IS correct? And if not, why? What ELSE can be done?
It's far much better than people not caring at all
PCzDan kindq like these videos. They are not perfect and there's bias and personal views show up from time to time but they give us something to think and talk about.
I never thought about it like this before. Great video, thanks ExtraCredits!
This is the best episode in a while
Can you make an episode that explains network effects/strategic complementarity, portfolio optimization (in terms of deck building and risk hedging (you touched in the ballpark with your discussion of delta spreads on enjoyability), keynesian beauty contests and equilibrium strategies?
these are all deep economic concepts that have profound impacts on gaming meta strategy and explain why many simple incentive structures fail.
Wonderful episode! Keep em coming!
this'll be one of your episode i always return to before starting a game
Excellent episode, very interesting. The kind of stuff you'd like to see taught in school tbh.
Well said! Art at its finest should challenge us to think and grow as people!
This got me thinking about why I can't stand working full time. I have a salaried position. If I work really hard and get my work done quickly, I get nothing. I don't get to leave early. I don't get extra pay. I just get more work. My boss would argue that my incentive is to potentially get a promotion one day. I don't really feel like that incentive matches the effort. If I work slowly, doing the bare minimum, browsing reddit and youtube all day, I still get paid, I still keep my job, and I get an immediate daily reward; my day is more entertaining. When I freelance, I negotiate the incentive with the client. If either party feels that what they're getting isn't worth the money/time/effort, we can refuse the terms or renegotiate to find something that works for both of us. It feels like a much better system.
This is the essence of video games
I know I'm going to get flamed hard for this, but a really interesting example of exploring incentives can be found in Undertale which explores how far people are willing to go to see everything in a game. *Raises flame shield*
What they're describing in the video are economic models, repackaged in more fun forms. So if this interests you, there's a whole world out there of these kinds of models.
Great video, guys. I really enjoyed this one.
Your best episode yet!
The problem with this is that the consequences have to be made by developers and will be biased towards one side or another and not give an accurate representation of what might happen.
Age of Empires really made me think about an organization's resources differently.
Sometimes having more isn't as important as having the right balance.
Enjoyed the video (which is par for the course, great work). You should do a follow up video that includes a number of examples beyond Prison Architect. MMO economic incentives and unexpected outcomes or something.
When i saw this video , imediately tought of fate of the world.
The electric transport sure is a nice example of the topic in hand. (hehehe)
Altough i argue if the game was more "organized" in their data , i would bet that the strategies would vary, not much..., but they would.
And in conclusion , i agree that games are a nice tool to examine the world , being fate of the world an example.
If you play the game with a genuine interest in how the game works and the message of the game also, you come to realise that not everything is a simple as it is, which caused me to learn more on how to manage the planet , which in turn gave me a valuable insight of the problems that our society is likely to face in coming years.
My comment is aligned with the video argument , but i just want to share XD
AFDC was NOT a part of the social security agency (SSA). It was created by the social security ACT (which created the agency) but was administered by the department for Health and Human Services (HHS), the bureau that contained SSA until the mid 90's.
My EXACT problem when I was on Welfare myself in a nutshell, it was extremely difficult to get off of it because finding a fulfilling full time job was so difficult. This is why we need Min-Income.
This was a VERY good episode. Definitely something to consider when making games. :D
The gap he speaks of with social benefits is too freaking real.
If you cross the poverty line and stop qualifying for medical care, subsidized or rent-controlled housing, grocery money, tax credits, etc...you'd have to make 15-25k more per year to put yourself back where you were.
Ask me how I know.
Eep. The more I learn about the "wellfare" system in America, the more scared I am.
(Seriously, it can't be that hard to design a system that prevents the unemployed and minimum-wage workers from starving while at the same time making the "earn more money" choice always a no-brainer.)
Unfortunately, here in the US, we have politicians who go too far trying to "compromise" with those who want to do nothing, so we end up only getting half-progress that often doesn't do _any_ of what it was intended to do.
Jake, I couldn't agree more. Everything our government does on a national level ends up either not happening at all, or being the worst of both worlds. We even get mandatory insurances that come from private companies. It's madness.
yeah guys complain about usa economy. Look at Europe's and Italy's GDP and compare it to USA
GDP is not a good measure of how a country's economy affects its citizens on an individual, personal level.
Interesting and thought provoking EC, I only wish more developers would watch your work.
Thanks for giving me the incentive to like this video.
Really good episode guys!
I couldn't agree more. Thanks for the great video.
In Argentina we have a saying "Hecha la ley, hecha la trampa"
which roughly translates to "Created the law, made the cheat"
Was expecting this to be on intrinsic vs extrinsic incentives, maybe just the differences between the two, maybe on how there's evidence for extrinsic incentives, while good for motivation in the short term, particularly with people who aren't interested in the thing, can kill the drive behind intrinsic incentives, which can result in people who were interested in e.g. reading to no longer be able to engage with it without the extrinsic motivation (Which is a problem with poorly implemented gamification)
They've done a video on that exact topic before. :)
I absolutely loved this video!
Its nice to be early to watch Extra credits :D
I remember in Railroad Tycoon 3 I could create a small company, load it up with debt, buy back stock so my own stock value goes up, sell the stock, leave the company, and start a new one with the money I got from the first one, which is now in ruins.
Now from a gameplay perspective, this is an exploit. However things like this really did happen, so it's perfectly reasonable for it to be possible in the game.
Thanks, I've been thinking a lot about this. I always find it odd, how lawmakers never seem to contemplate, how they law can be "gamed". Making laws it not much different than setting up game mechanics and rules.
The girl playing VR while wearing a hijab might be my favorite thing ever. Thanks, EC, for being inclusive.
LOL that is the opposite of being inclusive.
...what? why? They included a girl who chose to wear a traditional head cover for cultural or religious reasons but the main focus was that she was having fun playing games. She's a human being that isn't the default.
What I Bought on Steam The illusion of choice is strong on this one.
The woman with the hijab has always been on the show even as it cycled through various artists.
YCCCm7 Agreed. It's an easy mistake to make, but it's that polish that makes EC so great.
I learned more with this video than i ever have in history class...
I have family moving out of an apartment where the employees are incentivised to keep the apartments full via a bonus when a new tenant is signed on. So employees began to provide poor service and absurd fees to get tenants to want to move to get more bonuses.
I remember you talking about a dungeon crawling RPG once that had a mechanic around the mental health of your party, and how the game slowly incentivized you to hire-and-sacrifice expendables in your dungeon crawls. It was in one of your "games to try out" lists, and if I remember correctly, you compared it to the modern workforce exploiting workers. I can't remember the name of that game, but I am surprised you don't mention it here.
I think you're referring to Darkest Dungeon. Mark Brown over at the UA-cam channel "Game Maker's Toolkit" talked about the same idea in his video on Morality in Video Game Mechanics.
It's totally Red Hook's Darkest Dungeon. It's really extreme (mostly due to the fucked up setting) but I can totally see the parallel.
This topic was - weirdly enough - explored in some depth once in an episode of Stargate Atlantis called appropriately "The Game". (s3e15) If you haven't seen the episode, I don't want to spoil it, so I'll just recommend it.
Almost 300 hours in Prison Architect, great game :P
I agree that the beauty of that game is that it doesn't say anything about right or wrong, it just simulates the systems, and the consequences of your actions.
this is clear, and more people should watch this...
Finally a topic I can get behind.
This episode was a real goodun. Seriously got me thinking!