In very broad terms two types of motivations are often distinguished: external or internal aka extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. They are the things you do because of some outside compelling reason like rewards or threats versus things you start doing all by yourself. We have based most of our society around the extrinsic motivator of money.
But how do intrinsic motivations work? Are they the same for everybody?
One very famous body of research that has delved into the workings of intrinsic motivation is Self Determination Theory by Deci and Ryan. This theory states that although the particulars of our intrinsic motivators might be different between individuals, the needs that we are trying to fulfill with our actions are innate and universal. We all have a need to feel competent, to feel autonomous in our actions and to feel related to others.
So we want to feel that we are capable of doing whatever it is we want to do, we want to feel like our choices are ours to make and we want to feel that what we do somehow matters or connects us to others. I think games are fantastic at fulfilling these needs.
Autonomy and games
Games or rather play and autonomy have a connection that is very powerful and provides a lot of friction. We cannot be forced to be at play. Play involves emotions and cognitive capabilities that you apply willingly. You have to mean it or it doesn’t exist. But you can be forced to play a game in an educational setting or when there is some other serious intent (extrinsic motivator). When you do not choose to be in play whilst going through the actions of playing a game, you are performing a task and many of the benefits that games are trying to tap into vanish. The autonomy is baked in because playfulness cannot be forced.
It can be facilitated.
Competence and games
Games continuously feed you information on how you are doing, track your progress, give you stars and level-ups and many other versions of positive reinforcement telling you that You are doing great! Rarely does the world outside of games provide with you with as much feedback and such positive information about your performance. It greatly encourages a sense of competence.
Relatedness and games
Rarely do you play a game by yourself. In most cases there are other human players that you are directly interacting with. In the same physical or virtual space. This interaction is a great part of the attraction of games. Videogames also have many characters that may not be controlled by actual humans but they behave as such and we perceive them as social entities when we interact with them. An interactive form of the para-social relationships that we also feel with characters in movies or tv-series.
Even the space around playing a game often has a social aspect. Think of the conversations we have with people outside of the game about our experiences, progress or artistic opinions of the game. Games give us an opportunity to relate to each other.
