Video games have become a diverse and popular form of entertainment, offering everything from story-driven adventures to action-packed games. Strategic challenges to creative sandbox worlds. What makes them so engaging and hard to put down? Simply put, they’re designed to be fun!
The brain’s reward system operates using dopamine, a naturally occurring chemical that serves to reinforce certain behaviors or experiences. This is the chemical that helps us feel pleasure. When you and a friend belly laugh, that pleasure feeling is the dopamine working in your brain, telling you “do that again!”
Video games provide entertainment by rewarding our brain with dopamine by completing tasks. Solving a puzzle, defeating a difficult boss (or monster), or building your own world are all ways of giving our brain these rewards. This creates a feedback loop in our brain. For example:
- Challenge the boss
- Defeat the boss
- Get a new item as a reward
- Use the item to move forward in the game
- Challenge the next boss.
These feedback loops take many different forms depending on the style of game you’re playing. And they are often the reason it can be difficult to put the game down.
As a player it’s important to understand these loops so they don’t control you. Below we will take a look at some of the different kinds of games, some of the loops they create, and how to not let them control you.
The first question when it comes to understanding motivation is: are you playing on your own or with someone else?
Solo Play
Video Games have grown far and wide in genre. Most games feature the broad elements below, typically overlapping across several areas.
Minecraft, for example, can be a sandbox game where players can create, a competitive online multiplayer game with competitions like “Bedwars,” or a single-player action game fighting to survive and defeat the Enderdragon. The style of play and motivation are totally up to the individual and switch depending on mood. The specific game examples are only some of the many varieties available.
Story
An immersive and interactive experience set in a vivid universe. Decision-based games such as role-playing games (RPGs) often have huge worlds for players to explore and influence how the story unfolds. Others are linear stories where players complete challenges to advance the story but have limited influence on the ultimate outcome.
Examples: The Last of Us, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Fallout
Some common loops players get stuck in are wanting to fully explore new areas, starting multiple side-stories at the same time and wanting to complete them all, wanting to know what happens next in the story, and getting stuck on a specific challenge and becoming fixated on completing it.
Action
Fighting and shooting games are some of the most common forms of action games. Players advance by learning about opponents in the game and strategizing how to defeat them, learning new techniques such as button sequences, or by unlocking more powerful weapons or powerups. Games where players jump from platform to platform or complete parkour challenges also fit into this genre.
Examples: Fortnite, Rocket League, Red Dead Redemption, and Super Smash Bros.
The thrill of competition is the strongest hook in action games. Players can often get “stuck” on a level or boss and have a hard time walking away until advancing further in the game. Ironically enough, the act of breaking a loop and doing something else for even for 10-15 minutes is a great strategy to get unstuck!
Strategy
Strategy games have players use a combination of planning, managing resources, and tactics to achieve their goals. Players usually compete against computer or human opponents. Play happens either simultaneously (real-time) or by taking turns.
Examples: Tetris, Civilization, DOTA 2, and Among Us
“Just one more turn” is a common refrain for strategy game players. Developing a plan and implementing it is the fun, so walking away before seeing a plan has come to a conclusion can be difficult. This effect is compounded by the basic structure of the games – players are often implementing several plans at once, so the only way the plans all end at the same time is when the game is over.
Creative
Sandbox games give the users tools to create their own universe within the game. Creating structures, puzzles, competitive maps, and experimenting with physics are some of the many things players can do in sandbox games.
Examples: Minecraft, Roblox, Kerbal Space Program, and Grand Theft Auto
“Just one more” strikes again! Similar to strategy games, a creative project often includes several elements to complete. Creating artificial stopping points (without getting distracted!) can help pause and come back later.
Simulation
Recreate elements of real life and allow players to manage them in a controlled environment. Simulations cover any topic, including everyday life, sports, business management, construction, and operating vehicles.
Examples: Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Madden, and Farm Simulator
The most captivating components of these games are how they imitate elements of real life and usually have clear goals for how players can advance in the game. A restaurant management simulator offers the feedback loop of first making a profit and then investing that profit to expand or enhance the restaurant to generate future profits. The game sometimes will reveal larger, far-off rewards to motivate players to stay for…just one more turn!
Social Play
Games themselves often include both singleplayer and multiplayer options. Multiplayer games cover all of the genres above and have similar feedback loops.
Social play differs from solo play by adding the additional feedback loop of the other players in the game, whose reactions span the spectrum of human emotion from appreciation to rivalry.
Competitive
Competitive gaming exists in the form of multiplayer games and match their skills against one another. eSports is the professional circuit of competition and tournaments continue to grow in popularity in the gaming community. Even if you aren’t skilled enough to play professional basketball it is still fun to play a social game against friends or as a way to meet people who are also fans. The thrill of competition is where the dopamine gets triggered.
Collaborative
Cooperative gaming involves players working together towards common goals within a game. This mode emphasizes teamwork, coordination, and shared objectives. The feedback loop in the game is tied directly to the ability of the players to communicate and achieve goals together. The social reward of success is a deeper relationship between collaborators.
Parallel Play
Rather than collaboratively, players play independently but in close proximity to one another. Often this is an early form of a virtual relationship being formed and players will occasionally interact with one another, assessing how the other person responds. When met with positive feedback these engagements will happen more frequently and deepen the relationship.
Spectator Play
Unlike all other forms of social play, spectator play only has one player in charge of the controls. Any number of others can watch as one person navigates the game. The observer(s) can act as coaches, support in solving challenges, passively enjoy the entertainment, or deepen connection through shared experience.
Ultimately, whether solo or social, the motivation for gamers to enjoy games comes down to their particular play style and motivations. Whether the behavior is “healthy” is based on context. Understanding your own motivations as a player as well as the dopamine feedback loops games provide is one of the essential steps to understanding your own motivations and being in control when it’s time to put the controller down or invite a friend over to build memories together.
To learn more about player motivations check out this article How do Video Games Resonate With Players?
About the Author
Kerry Järvi, LCPC is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) and therapist at Montgomery County Counseling Center in Rockville, MD. Kerry earned his Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Antioch University in Seattle, Washington in 2020 and holds a Play Therapy Certificate from the Antioch Center for Play Therapy.
His therapeutic approach integrates play therapy, mindfulness practices, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and art-based therapy techniques. Kerry excels in working with children and adolescents, focusing on specialized treatment for ADHD and ASD.
