Examining the Psychology of Loot in Games

Ever wonder why you get a rush every time you find some new loot in a game, be it a new gun, better armor or a rare drop. A gamer with a PhD in Psychology has attempted to briefly explain the phenomenon, using his own experience as a springboard.

Using his experience in World of Warcraft, but touching on other games such as Torchlight and Borderlands, Jamie Madigan looks at the scientific reasons why our brain goes loopy over loot on his site, The Psychology of Video Games. 

According to the article, the culprit is something called dopamine neurons, which are trying to learn and predict the loot drop rules:

But this is only part of what makes loot-based games work so well. The real key is that while dopamine neurons fire once your brain has figured out how to predict an event, they really go nuts when an unexpected, unpredicted gush of dopamine shows up, giving you an even bigger rush. It’s like DUDE! UNEXPECTED HOT POCKET! Again, I’m guessing that this is an evolutionary advantage that causes us to obsess over unexpected pleasures and try to predict them so that we can get more of them.

But we can’t predict the inherently unpredictable. This is how slot machines get you. Your dopamine neurons are trying really hard to learn what precedes a jackpot in terms of what bells, you hear, pictures you see, or even which cocktail waitress last walked by. But in reality, it’s utterly random and by definition can’t be predicted. More rational parts of your brain may understand this, but not the dopamine neurons. They’re stymied, but that doesn’t stop them from flaring up and saying “HEY! THERE’S SOMETHING HERE! KEEP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN AGAIN!” So you keep playing.

An interesting look at the science that makes gamers compulsive about breaking crates or killing mobs.