The Psychology of Early Rewards in Live Service Video Games

Live service video games rely on high player retention to achieve success and their developers will deploy a number of methods to achieve this. One of the most common techniques is to provide you with plenty of early rewards, which could include earning in-game currency, cosmetics, new characters, or loot boxes with random rewards.

In many cases, rewards are easier to earn during the first few hours and become more difficult to earn over time. Yet, this approach often works in keeping players engaged with a game for the long term. Here, we explore the psychology behind early rewards in live service video games and explain why this approach is so vital for game developers.

Increasing Engagement

Live service games have to make a positive first impression, especially in today’s competitive landscape. To do this, they need you, the player, to keep playing for long enough to experience what the game actually has to offer.

One of the most simple ways early rewards help with player retention is by making the player feel more engaged from the start. Much like free bets with a bookmaker, or Bitcoin casino bonuses, early rewards on a live service game keep you playing in those crucial early stages, where you will start to form your opinions about the gameplay experience.

Early generosity helps you to feel like your time is going to be well-spent playing the game. There is also a clear incentive to keep playing if you receive rewards. After all, you are naturally going to want to try out the new outfit you have acquired, or the new weapons you have unlocked. Further gameplay could then lead to further unlocks.

By creating this kind of early gameplay loop, the developers are able to get you to spend more time with the game. Along the way, you will also be building familiarity with its mechanics and getting better at the game. This, in turn, can help you to feel even more engaged with it, as the feeling of improvement is satisfying in its own right.

Positive Reinforcement

According to a study published in Trends in Neurosciences, unexpected rewards activate dopamine neurons, which exhibit bursts of activity in response. Dopamine is a brain chemical associated with pleasure and motivation and if you experience unexpected rewards in video games, you may receive this same dopamine hit.

In general, the bigger the reward, the bigger the dopamine hit, which is why many games will share big rewards early on to take you by surprise. Essentially, this helps to create an association in your mind: by playing the game, you receive something positive and experience a feeling of pleasure that you then want to receive again.

This is especially important for live service games operating on a free-to-play model, with in-game purchases. This model relies not only on keeping players coming back, but encouraging them to spend money on optional purchases.

By establishing the existence of positive outcomes early on, developers can more easily sell you in-game currency to spend on loot boxes with randomized rewards. Over time, the average quality of these rewards is likely to drop, but you already have the evidence of positive outcomes. Plus, unlocking rare items provides a real sense of achievement.

Chasing the Early Highs

From a game development point of view, one of the keys to long-term engagement after offering early rewards is to keep players chasing the feelings associated with those early highs. This usually means offering rewards continuously, even if the frequency or value of those rewards decreases over time.

It is important to stress that this use of psychology is not necessarily negative for the player either. The dopamine hit associated with rewards is very real and many games do offer generous in-game rewards that genuinely enhance the experience. With ultra rare items, players who unlock these rewards can gain a sense of prestige too.

However, it also benefits developers, who can use this psychology to more effectively monetize their game.

Increasingly, a way developers may achieve this is by introducing a sense of urgency into the game. This is often seen with time-limited battle passes, where you only have a certain amount of time to earn a reward. Here, not only are you chasing the high you experienced early on, you face a time pressure to do so, which keeps you playing.

Conclusion

The live service model for video games, especially when offered on a free-to-play basis, relies on psychology to keep players engaged, so the game can be effectively monetized. For developers, the goal is generally to encourage optional in-game purchases and offering early rewards helps to demonstrate the kind of prizes on offer.

However, this can also benefit players, providing an immediate dopamine hit that feels pleasurable and creating a reward system within the game, where you genuinely feel a sense of achievement when you unlock a rare prize.