Why do we play?

Tobold has a series about why do we play. I didn't really like his conclusions but I couldn't disprove him until now, when he wrote about playing for rewards, claiming "rewards are one of the strongest reasons of why we play".

This is 100% wrong. No one plays for (ingame) rewards. It sounds weird, considering the unquestionable truth in "Give out epics for PvP, and suddenly a lot of people who never liked PvP before will start to do it."

To see what's wrong we must separate two things:

• "Why do we play?", meaning why do we buy and play WoW instead of watching a movie or meeting with real life friends or reading a book, or climbing mountains.
• "Why do we play that way?" meaning why do we go to Isle of Conquest instead of Shadow Labyrinth?

If we consider this, it becomes obvious that in the first sense no one plays for ingame rewards or "character progression". We can even visualize its absurdity if we imagine a Blizzard marketeer approaching a non-player:
- Sir/Madam/Hi, would you try out Blizzard's best seller game World of Warcraft?
- What could this game offer me?
- Lot of epics. All you have to do is grinding some random wolves for about 100 hours and after that you can get epics easily by AoE-ing 5-man dungeons.
- So if I buy your game, I have to repetitively kill easy monsters for about 100 hours?
- Well, we have "invite a friend" program to skip that. You can get to max level in 40 hours!
- So I'm there at max level in like 40 hours and there I get?
- As I've said lot of epics.
- Epics?
- Items of epic quality.
- What are they good for?
- They give your character lot of stats. At max level that's the only way to progress your character. You can even reach 40000 HP with proper epics!
- Which is good because?
- Because you can be a good raid tank.
- Which is good because?
- You can defeat harder content, getting even better epics!

It sounds like a Monthy Python sketch to me, rather than successful marketing. Ingame rewards, by being "ingame" are useless to anyone "out of the game", so no one can decide to play/continue to play the game to get these (non-existent) things. People can decide to start/keep playing for out of game reasons (unless they are insane believing that the game world is real).

I do not question the fact that developers can trick people into playing "wrong way", repeating the same content again and again, paying a lot to the company for the same content. However the reason of playing is always out of the game.

I separate the reasons into two groups, real and social. The real ones:

• Challenge. The player wants to do something hard and overcome it. Only by doing challenging task can a person reach the state of flow. Tobold is absolutely right that the developers can create a game that is not challenging, still looks as one. This is very good trick to keep unskilled and unmotivated people in the game. However they are still motivated by challenge! The fact that grinding wolves for 100 hours is boring for us does not mean that it doesn't prove challenge to the average gamer.
• Learning. The player considers the game a simulation and believes that he learns something real in the game. Chess is considered by almost all to be a game that improves logical skills. The opinions about WoW is not so good, but it doesn't matter. As long as the player believes (even if completely wrongfully) that he learns something useful ingame, he is motivated to play. Developers can create content that teach people useful skills, or they can trick the player to believe he learns something useful.
  
• Wasting time. Sad, but true. Many people simply plays because they have nothing better to do. Their alternatives are watching the wall, or even worse: afternoon TV talk-shows. Developers only has to create content, no regardless quality. Even a simple browser-flash whack-a-mole will do.
• Escapism. The player want to be immersed to something that is not his real life. The developer have to create content that let player completely focus.
  

Now let's see the social reasons. Be advised, that since they depend on other people, developers cannot create them. However they can trick people believing that they are getting it.

• Playing with friends. The player is motivated to do something that his real life friends do. If they play WoW, he plays too. The game itself is a necessary evil. Developers can support these players by creating content that does not need immersion, attention or skill.
  
• Playing with "friends". The player is motivated to do something together with strangers who accept or at least don't reject him, making him believe they are his friends. Developers can trick such people by creating content that enforces group play. While the truth is that Johnny is only tolerated in the guild because without him they couldn't do Naxx, he believes that the guildmates are his friends. Without a content that requires 25 people, he would no longer be there, but of course no one tells it to Johnny.
  
• Being respected by people. The player is motivated to achieve a "high status" in the player community. The player plays the game to get items and achievements that he believes to draw other people's respect. The developers can trick the player to believe that certain items and achievements are rare status symbols, therefore having them draws respect. Obviously these items cannot be rare, or they couldn't satisfy all players. Actually the circumstances make the impression in the player that he owns something special, although everyone who cared to log in owns it (or something similar) too. This false status symbols are the "ingame rewards", and Tobold is absolutely right that these socials can be easily made to do lot of pointless and boring things to get them.
• Observed as "good", likeable person. The player wants to help others to make others grateful to him. Developers can trick this person to "boost noobs" by creating the illusion that the other player (especially a newbie) is in need of help, while it's obviously not true (if the new player would really need help, the game would be very hard and unwelcoming to new players)
  
• Pwnage! The player wants to pwn other people, displaying and feeling superiority. Note that fair competition is not his aim, as he would lose or win only by little. He wants to feel God, usually because he is a loser in life. Developers can trick this person to play by creating content where they can attack players who can't fight back. Of course they have to be careful as ganking would turn other players away. The trick is low or 0 PvP death penalty, so the ganking victim is just lightly annoyed, while the ganker feels satisfaction.

So the player plays the game for his own motivation, either real or social. The developer cannot change that. However the developer can make the player believe that he can reach his goal in the game, even if it's factually not true, or theoretically impossible. The developer can largely change the ingame player behavior by creating an illusion that a certain piece of content gives the player what he wants.

It's true that developers can make lot of players do terribly boring chores just by offering rewards. However these players still dont play for rewards. They play for social respect (which they believe they will get if they have ingame rewards). The developer always have to keep in mind that while he must give these rewards to all the players, he also must create the false illusion that these rewards are somehow special.

Why is it important? Because it gives us a way to fight for better games. But that's another post.