Follow Up to John Seely Brown Post

I am so excited that John Seely Brown took the time to reply to my post on HIS Big Think piece: How World of Warcraft Could Save Your Business and The Economy. In his comment, he clarified his point on the WoW "bonus structure" saying:

I agree about the bonus issue.. i was actually thinking more about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and in formal rewards that are in fact most often negotiated in situ, so to speak.

I had to look up intrinsic/extrinsic and "in situ" just to make sure I knew what he meant. But I see his point now. Intrinsic motivation comes from simply performing a task or from completing it. Extrinsic motivation comes from the a promised reward that comes from completing a task, no matter how much you dislike the task. Ah ha! The question is: where do you get your dopamine dump from? :) In CoD, the dopamine dump is the 10 minutes in a match of running around blowing stuff up. In WoW, the dopamine dump requires more of a time investment. 

In WoW and in Call of Duty, two different games that I play regularly and that provide two different gaming experiences (WoW is a MMORPG, massively mutliplayer online role playing game and CoD is a first person shooter, FPS), I experience BOTH intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. In both games you "grind" - level up various skills. In WoW you level your character to gain better or more powerful abilities. In CoD you level your weapon to get better attachments and you level 3 "Perks". In both games, grinding usually requires a singular focus on the skill you are trying to increase. Often sacrificing yourself and/or your team for personal gain. 

You need to be much more extrinsically motivated in WoW. There is a lot of "farming" in WoW. This can also be a grind. But you run around the game trying to find items that you NEED to craft that Turbo Charged Flying Mount. :)

You also grind/farm Honor by competing in different types of player vs. player battles. More honor lets you buy better gear. The gear is the reward. The flying mount is the reward. And then you are in the loop. Better gear allows you to try harder content which rewards even better gear. And so on. Slamming that release handle to get another pellet. :)

So, there are choices to make in both games. And both games reward you in different ways. Very interesting. I am off to go to the JSB site and read his stuff on "Talent Management and the Gaming Disposition".