The Psychology of Video Games

I’ve gotten sucked back in to Team Fortress 2 (TF2) lately and taking notes of the changes that have happened since I last played. In the course of poking around the Mann Co Shop I’ve been reminded that they have some pretty smart cookies over there at Valve and I for one welcome our new cookie overlords. Specifically, I’ve noticed two things in the store that capitalize on concepts I’ve written about here before.

For those of you who don’t remember, Team Fortress 2 is a class-based shooter that has gone free-to-play and supports itself through purchases in the Mann Co Store. You can buy different weapons and cosmetic items there, for prices ranging from just a few cents to …well, I’ll get to that in a second.

The first thing I noticed is that the store is now making an interesting use out of something called “the endowment effect.” I’ve written about it before, and the quick version is that once we feel we own something, we value it more. The classic experimental example was when researcher Richard Thaler gave subjects a coffee cup, then shortly afterwords asked how much they would be willing to sell it for. Relative to those who were not given a cup but instead asked how much they would pay for it to own it, those who already owned it placed a higher dollar value on the thing.

Now it's YOUR Backburner. Is it worth two bits to you NOW?

TF2 gets you to endow certain items from its store by letting you try them out, in game, for free. After seven days, the item goes away, but you’re given a chance to buy it. According to the endowment effect, people might value their new Backburner (level 10 flame thrower) more than they did before, and be willing to pay more for it. But Valve is nice enough and/or smart enough to know that they could probably really drive the bargain home by giving you a 25% discount on the newly tested item. So double whammy. You’re likely to value the item more, plus you don’t want to lose your chance at a discount.

Unfortunately Valve seems to only be doing this test drive system for items that are already pretty cheap –in the 50-cent range. I think they could get more use out of it if they let you try it with a few more expensive items. Maybe even put some kind of one-per-week limit on it to prevent doing too crazy, or reduce the test drive period for newer items.¹ They could even capitalize on envious reactions from other players who see you using the new item.

And on the topic of “more expensive items,” we have our next psychology lesson from TF2. Here, look at this:

I know, right? Right?

Yeah, you’re reading that right. You can now buy a virtual diamond ring in Team Fortress 2 that you can rename and then gift to another player. For $100. ONE. HUNDRED. REAL. DOLLARS. This boggled my mind when I first saw it, but then I realized that they besides cashing in on a few big spenders, the developers may be aiming to capitalize on an age-old sales trick: the contrast effect. Again, this was one of the first topics I wrote about for this blog, but the quickie version is that our perceptions of price (or more to the point, value) can be changed if we see a super high price² off the bat. Retail sales people use this trick all the time by showing you a more expensive suit first, which makes the cheaper items two racks over seem a lot more affordable, let alone accessories like socks or belts. Ever poked your nose into an upscale clothing store and seen some absurd, $2,000 handbag on display up front? Who would pay that? Well, that’s not the point. The point is that it’s there to make the $200 handbags on the table next to it seem a heck of a lot more affordable –more so than if the super expensive item weren’t there.

Some people are witty AND rich! Too bad they're apparently already engaged...

This is what I think Valve is doing with the diamond ring item. Sure, letting you rename the item, give it to someone, and then broadcast that transaction to the entire Team Fortress 2 community –the whole community that’s online at the time, not just people on your server– will lead some people with more money than sense to have some fun like in the screenshot above.³ But I think the real benefit is that next to a $100 ring, that $13 hat for your Demoman looks a lot more affordable.

1. Or you know what? I’ve got pallates full of these ManCo Supply Crates that I’m never going to use because I’m not gonna pay $2 to play a TF2 lottery. I’d trade them for a test run of a new item. [↩]
2. Or a very cheap price, for that matter. [↩]
3. That’s a real screenshot I captured myself during a match, by the way. [↩]

I recently found out, via this article on Mindhacks.com, about an interesting paper by researcher Jeremy Bailenson in The Psychologist.¹ In it, he reviews recent research on how viewing online representations of ourselves –like our avatars on the Xbox 360 or our Miis on the Nintendo Wii– can affect our behavior. He talks some about modeling healthy behavior and implanting false memories, but to me the most interesting and possibly the most grim part of the article was where he discussed how to advertise products through avatars and by doing so affecting consumer behavior. Even if we know perfectly well that it’s happening.

Citing research presented at a professional conference,² Balenson describes how he and a colleague blatantly Photoshopped subjects’ heads onto the bodies of actors in advertisements. One participant in the study, for example, might have viewed an image of himself holding up a particular brand of soda and smiling like a idiot as if to endorse it. After the study, subjects tended not only to remember the (fictitious) brands better, but actually indicated greater preference to them relative to other options. This despite the fact that they were pretty sure they had never drank “Blorf brand soda” or sat in a professional photography studio and posed for the advertisements in question.³

Okay, I fixed the eyebrows. NOW how much would you pay for this stupid bird?

And this sort of thing may be thanks to what some psychologists call “self-perception theory.” In a nutshell, this theory refers to how we tend to look at our own actions to infer our own attitudes and beliefs. It’s kind of a “I’m doing X, so I must be the kind of person who likes X.” In one study⁴ researchers dressed subjects in either black or white uniforms. Those in the black uniforms were observed to act with more aggression and toughness, keeping in line with their stereotypically villainous wardrobe. The researchers also argued (and showed with data) that this is why referees in professional sports are biased against teams that wear dark colors and are more likely to call penalties against them. Think of your avatar as a kind of uniform you wear (a notion supported by research, by the way), and you see the connection.

So, given all this I’m going to once again give out some evil ideas to those people in marketing. This kind of marketing-via-avatar thing could so easily be incorporated into video game avatars like those used by the Xbox. It’s not unusual for games to give out “avatar awards” for completing in-game actions. My little dude has a Locust mask from Gears 3, a sombrero from Red Dead Redemption, and a little Guilty Spark toy from Halo 3. Fun! But what if instead of watching my avatar play with a miniature RC Warthog I saw him chugging a can of Mountain Dew? Or perusing the latest issue of Wired magazine? Or gobbling fries from Burger King? According to the research described above, I’d be more likely to remember or even favor those brands over traditional advertising because there’s something psychologically important about seeing a representation of me interacting with them. Another study reported in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior⁵ found that “advergames” designed to advertise junk like Pop Tarts and Fruit-By-The-Foot snacks to children were rated as more enjoyable when they let the player customize his or her avatar.

Heck, we don’t even have to bury this kind of thing in the Xbox dashboard. I imagine games could easily pull our likeness in the form of our avatar⁶ and display them to us holding up boxes of Stay-Free feminine hygiene products or Kibbles ‘n Bits dog food while we wait for levels to load or matchmaking to happen.

Well, maybe those are extreme examples. But you’d think that game companies would at least start using this kind of thing to cross-promote games. If I were EA, I wouldn’t include a snowboard with a SSX logo as an avatar reward in that game. I mean, the customer has already bought that game, right? I’d include a N7 jumper from Mass Effect 3. That’s what you want your customers envisioning themselves playing at that point and that’s what you want them associating with themselves when that game hits the shelves. Or you can show them holding up a box of dog food. Your choice.

1. Balenson, J. (2012). Doppelgangers — A New Form of Self? The Psychologist, 25, 36-38. [↩]
2. Ahn, S. and Balenson, J. (2011). Embodied Experiences in Imersive Virtual Environments. Paper presented at the 97th Annual Conference of the National Communication Association, New Orleans, LA. [↩]
3. Interestingly, social/professional networking site LinkedIn is apparently taking this concept to heart and running an ad campaign where they insert users’ profile pictures directly into representations of a client companies’ recruitment literature in an attempt at getting people to apply for jobs there. [↩]
4. Frank, M., & Gilovich, T. (1988). The Dark Side of Self and Social Perception: Black Uniforms and Agression in Professional Sports. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 74-85. [↩]
5. Bailey, R. Wise, K., and Bolls, P. (2009). How Avatar Customizability Affects Children’s Arousal and Subjective Presence During Junk Food-Sponsored Online Video Games. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 12(3), 277-283). [↩]
6. Assuming, of course, you’re not one of those people who make ridiculous looking avatars that look nothing like you. [↩]