Seven Psychological Sins of SimCity Social

I have recently been hearing a lot about SimCity Social, the “Farmville with a candy coating of SimCity” game from Bigfish and EA. Mostly I’ve heard about how the game pulls all kinds of tricks to get players to spam each other, trade items, recruit new players, and spend real money. All of these things…

The Psychology of Diablo III Loot Part 2 Availability Heuristic and Loot Drops

In part 1 of this three part series, I suggested that Blizzard could move more money through its auction house economy if it sorted prices from high to low by default, thanks to the anchoring effect. All of those items still had to be found from drops, though, and that involves a lot of tedious…

The Psychology of Video Games

Examining the intersection of psychology and video games

Tag Archives: Availability

The Psychology of Diablo III Loot Part 2 Availability Heuristic and Loot Drops