Are MOBA Players Smarter Than You?
What link have researchers found between intelligence and how well you play MOBAs?
Apex Fish in a Small Pond
The “Squad Eliminated” screen in Apex Legends and the psychology of comparisons.
Getting Gamers: Now in Paperback
My book, “Getting Gamers: The Psychology of Video Games” is now available in paperback.
How Video Games Do Feedback Well (and Poorly)
How games provide feedback …and how they’re lacking.
You Screwed Up: The Value of Errors in Game Tutorials
Should game tutorials hold players’ hands or encourage them to fail?
Nudging Moral Choices in Games
How game developers might use a bit of psychology to better structure moral choices.
The Focusing Illusion and Overwatch
The same wrinkle in our thinking that explains the optimism of people paralyzed in car accidents explains why it’s so frustrating when people don’t play map objectives in video games.
Fortnite’s Success Is Due to Random Chance
Part of why Fortnite is so popular is the way it uses random rewards –and I don’t mean just loot drops.
Boosting the Credibility of Steam’s Discovery Queue …With Psychology!
We make new opinions more readily than we change existing ones. How can recommendation engines take advantage of this?
The Pleasure Paradox of Big Buffs
How obscuring players’ understanding of what’s going on might actually help them enjoy it more.
Tess Teaches Psychology and Destiny 2
Three lessons about the psychology of in-game purchases, illustrated by Destiny 2’s Tess Everis.
Using Psychology and Loot Boxes to Destroy Video Games: A Fun and Practical Guide
Today’s special guest contributor tells us how to use psychology to make loot boxes truly evil.
Using Psychology to Design Leveling Systems
In which we apply some lessons from the psychology behind combining losses and gains to leveling up in video games.
Don’t Do Your Best: Goal Setting and Horizon:Zero Dawn
Horizon: Zero Dawn’s hunting challenges make good use of goal setting psychology, but here’s how they could do a little better.
Synchronization and Unifying Players
How a few seconds with one trick from social psychology may help players get along better.
Why Do People Play Jobs?
Why do people play games that simulate jobs, even their own jobs that they spend hours doing every day?
Compared to Other Heroes of the Storm…
Here’s little psychological trick Heroes of the Storm uses to make us feel better about our performance after a match…
Why We Love to Hate Negative Reviews
How one bit of negative information in a game review or forum post can color our entire perception of a game.
Carrying the Responsibility Bias for the Team
A cognitive bias helps explain why some people insist that they carry the whole team in online competitive games.
Why Being a Better Gamer Can Help You Be a Better Person
How being good at games can make you more open to improving other parts of your self.
A Blizzard of Procedural Justice
What we can learn from Blizzard’s changes to Overwatch about creating a sense of procedural fairness.
The Consistency of Automatic Helping in Games
How one simple trick from the psychology of persuasion could lead to better gaming experiences.
Zeigarnik Effect and Quest Logs
How checklists and quest logs get us to keep playing.
Deliberate Practice and Getting Good
How a certain kind of deliberate practice might help gamers get good.
Overwatch Overjustification
How rewarding Overwatch players with bonus loot boxes may push them back towards Quick Play.
Do Non-Player Characters Count as an “Audience”?
Can the presence of NPCs affect our performance the same as having real people watching us?
The Overjustification Effect and Game Achievements
How achievements, trophies, and badges in games can lower player motivation under the wrong circumstances.
The Near Miss Effect and Game Rewards
How failure can feel like success and motivate you to keep playing under the right circumstances.
Twitching, Cheering, and Dirty Laundry
Twitch has added microtransactions as a way to support streamers. Cool. But what are some psychological quirks at play?
Why Do Achievements, Trophies, and Badges Work?
Do achievements, badges, and trophies in video games work? If so, why?
Dark Souls and Gitting into a Gud Mindset
How Dark Souls 3 taught me to be a better parent by encouraging me to embrace failure.
Kisses, Anticipation, and the Lost Art of Identifying
Wait. Don’t identify that loot yet. You’ll enjoy it more.
Kill Cam Kudos and Overwatch
Video: How a small tweak to Blizzard’s new game might nudge people towards sportsmanship.
Four More GDC Presentations About Psychology and Video Games
Four free talks from the Game’s Developer Conference about psychology and video games.
Learned Helplessness and Halo 5
Why some games and some experiences make us feel more helpless than others –and what designers can do about it.
Newtonian Engagement and Metal Gear Solid V
Why are some games better than others at getting us to just keep playing without taking a break?
The Steam Winter Sale is Too Much Sale
The 2015 Steam Winter Sale has ditched the daily and flash deals. Here’s why I think that may be a bad idea.
Reason Based Choice and the Golden Path
How a simple choice of words can bias your choices in video games, such as what NPC factions to support.
The Psychology of Horror Games
In celebration of Halloween, let’s look at some of the psychology behind why people like scary video games.
A Wii Little Fluency Effect
“Wii U” sounds silly, but Nintendo’s consoles might be benefiting a little from what’s known as the fluency effect.
The Kuleshov Effect: Is Batman Hungry?
An old technique from film making has psychological roots that reach into the world of video games.
Shenmue 3 Kickstarter and the Affect Heuristic
How do gaming Kickstarters that rely on nostalgia make use of our irrational decision-making?
When the Pay to Win Button Backfires
How do players react and what social comparisons do they make when others pay real money for in-game advantages?
Free Money, Grocery Bags, and Smarter Than You
How the irrational way we treat “free” as a price in games can lead us astray …or keep us on track.
Why Did the Mass Effect 3 Ending Ruin The Whole Series?
What do the ending of the Mass Effect series and a painful medical procedure have in common? They both illustrate how memory and evaluation of experiences interact.
Why We Hate (Some) Motion Controls
Some recent research suggests how to predict whether motion controls and other weird peripherals will lead to frustration or enjoyment.
Psychology and Video Game Kickstarters
3 psychological phenomena that can help determine the success (or failure) of a Kickstarter video game pitch.
Hand over $4.99 or Spider-Man Gets It
All it may take to get people to spend money in free to play games is one well placed countdown timer.
Red vs. Blue: Which Should You Choose?
Has anyone ever done research on whether playing on the red team or the blue gives one a mental edge in games? Yep.
Psychology of High Scores, Leaderboards, & Competition
How can information about players’ scores and other accomplishments be framed so as to motivate them to compete and try to do better than other players? Let’s explore 3 psychological phenomena that can help.