I think in general, when we’re engaging in an activity, it’s easy to identify what engages us and what doesn’t, but are we equally aware of how do those desires form exactly? What types of motivations are there? How can we leverage them? And what are the implications of each of them?

In an attempt to try and apply these concepts into the work I do as a F2P game designer, and with the goal of clarifying them for myself, I observed how it works on a popular game as Candy Crush, and did a thought and design exercise at the end as a bit of a twist.

But first, a bit of theory.

Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation

According to this paper from the University of Rochester, intrinsic motivation is defined as:

“the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfactions rather than for some separable consequence”

In order for a motivation to be considered intrinsic, it needs to offer the qualities of competence (self-efficacy), autonomy (the perception that there’s agency), and relatedness (g a sense of belongingness and connectedness to the persons, group, or culture disseminating a goal).

According to the same paper, “Intrinsic motivation can be long-lasting, self-sustaining, and satisfying.”

Some examples of factors that typically involve intrinsic motivation are: curiosity, challenge, or fantasy.

On the other side, extrinsic motivations are generated from factors outside the ones offered by engaging in the task itself. Extrinsic motivators are usually used “to attain outcomes that a person wouldn’t get from intrinsic motivation.” These external factors can also be present in forms of punishment.

Candy Crush Soda Saga and player’s motivations

Keeping this into mind, I tried to reconstruct what the player motivational journey in a session in Candy Crush Soda Saga would be, trying to describe with certain objectivity how I feel each type of motivation would intervene at each point.

1. Game start

Extrinsic motivator: The first thing I encounter in my session is a Daily Bonus popup, where I’m awarded with an item reward for login into the game.

The UI also clearly points out that I’ll get another reward the next day if I show up again. Offering an item as a reward in exchange of an action is a clear example of extrinsic motivator.

Extrinsic motivator: What continues next is a few popups with some information about my participation in events, like “Mr. Toffee’s Fair”.

Unfortunately I didn’t succeed this time, and because of that, the game delivers a punishing message: a reminder that I didn’t achieve the expectations.

Extrinsic motivator: The next popup shows me yet another event where I didn’t complete the goals successfully. The bat ran away with the key, that’s my punishment.

Extrinsic motivator: “The Noble Path” (the game’s seasonal pass) is presenting me with a list of booster rewards I can get if I complete the goal. In this case there’s yet another extrinsic motivator present, which is a time limit. Timers and time limits are extrinsic motivators because they drive action by themselves. If you prioritize a task or take some action after seeing a timer, you’re changing your behaviour because of this external factor

If I get into the details of the event, the goal-setting and the way the rewards are presented, all make emphasis on the extrinsic motivators. Limiting factors like time pressure are highlighted. Also, I’m rewarded with a first free reward, consisting in one of those booster rewards.

Extrinsic motivator: Next up, a popup about the “Move Rush Challenge”. In the line of the previous ones, the message here emphasizes the rewards I would win, but also the time limit. The popup literally states: “don’t miss”, or you’ll loose the opportunity.

Intrinsic motivator: The last popup of this popup chain is the “send lives” popup, a message that, from my point of view, doesn’t poke any extrinsic motivation in particular. Gifting things to friends or players could be regarded as a mean to a final goal (get another reward in exchange for example), but that’s not what the mechanic suggests in this case. It rather depends on the use the player makes of it.

Features that give players the opportunity to engage socially are generally good placements for intrinsic motivation, unless they feed into competitive systems competitions or reward with goals.

As a recap of my start of the session, I’ve been prompted with a series of reminders and messages that almost exclusively addressed and nurtured extrinsic motivators. Most of the times, the communication didn’t even cover or focused other points that for me, as a player, are important, like what the mechanics or the stories behind each event are.

2. Main screen

Let’s take a look at the main screen of the game and at which, if any, are the motivations suggested by the visual communication, or even by the arrangement of the elements itself.

Intrinsic motivator. The first things that catches my eye here is the set of visual elements and animations that populate the background of the screen. The scene feels alive, and since it’s winter themed, and it’s winter where I am living right now, I feel instantly curious and connected to the messages. When I tap on the little character to know more about it, I get this written flavourful messages that cheers me up.

I am more curious and would like to discover more about these characters and world (curiosity is a typical intrinsic motivator), but after a short exploration of the screen, I discover that there’s nothing else to it.

Extrinsic motivators. At the left of the screen I find some entry points for events, including some of the ones I mentioned before, and all of them include timers or notifications that are dragging my attention to it. I feel like I would tap on them and see what is going on by myself, just because I’m playing this game and am willing to engage.

But the timers and badge notifications are pulling my attention there, increasing the motivators to make sure that I interact via implied negative reinforcement like “this will be gone soon”, or “you need to check this out”:

Extrinsic motivators. The first feature I’m inspecting from those entry points has a UI structure and emphasis of visual elements that are very clearly pushing me towards a final goal: “remove the crown from the current winner”. This feature is trying to prompt players that are motivated by competition with extrinsic goals, like prestige.

Other important elements, like what is actually interesting about the level design of these levels, or what role I play in this monster world, are not even mentioned.

Intrinsic/extrinsic motivators. Next we have Teams, which is the hub for the social features in the game. At the top I have a section where I can see the progress I’ve made in baking the cake. To my surprise, for once, the rewards are not highlighted, but only the progress. A measure of my progress towards certain goal by itself sounds like a nice visualization of an intrinsic motivation (sense of mastery). However, when I get into the details, I am impacted with some more negative messaging about the time limit I didn’t meet and the goals I didn’t achieve.

Intrinsic/extrinsic motivators: However, it seems like there are more events and more chances following up. Now I’m checking out the “soda squad”, where I can collect points with other team members to win prices. In the social hub I can even chat with my team members to organize about how I can achieve that. Social interaction and organization in collaborative mechanics is a strong ground for allowing intrinsic motivations to develop. And to some extend, it feels like that can play an important role in this feature, even though, there’s still a final booster reward offered to the player.

As I go out to the main screen again, I encounter more features based on the same formula that’s repeatedly used in the game for leveraging motivations (restrictions/pressure conditions – possible reward – negative result), although they do it with different formulas. This event, for example, doesn’t emphasize on punitive messages.

Extrinsic motivators: At the right of the game’s main screen there’s a leaderboard (although it’s not clear what event or feature it’s making reference to). Again, a competitive mechanic where the motivation is driven by getting a position in relation to the other, relies on extrinsic motivators.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Then at the bottom of the screen we have the previously known as “saga map”, where I can see my progress and my achievements in the main level progression of the game. I always thought that this sort of UI visualization, that’s gives the player a sense of progression, highlighting the achievements the player has made, is a nice way to encourage intrinsic motivation.

It could be said though that the visual language that categorizes the achievements from each level could be perceived as a sort of prize, as it suggests the flavour of a physical medal.

Also, the view of the future levels that the player hasn’t tackled yet does focus on highlighting extrinsic motivations. Check detail here:

As a summary of this section, we’ve seen that in the main screen of the game (including HUD elements and features that are accessed through them) there’s a disproportionated presence of attention towards extrinsic motivators. The potential for exposing intrinsic motivators doesn’t seem to be prioritized by the designers. Why not making more emphasis, for example, in the fun players can get out of the level design in each event? Or in how juicy social interaction can be? Later on I’ll explore some ideas that could be integrated in that direction.

3. Core gameplay

After being bombarded with all the rewards I will miss and all the status I will not achieve if I don’t perform well enough, when I start my gameplay session I feel like the expectations set upon me leave little attention to the gameplay and enjoyment of the pastime itself. But anyways! Let’s see how it goes!

I hit play and I come across this screen where I see my goal of the level, the boosters I own, the leaderscore, and some meta progression (based on an event which information wasn’t showed to me, and that I can not prompt in this screen). Some extra time pressure is shown at a granular level in the time-limi on the boosters.

Intrinsic motivators. Hit play again, and the fun character explains a gameplay mechanic. I think this has been literally the first time so far where I’ve been prompted with a screen that doesn’t include any of the recurrent elements all the other flows have been looping me into so far (restrictions/pressure conditions – possible reward – negative result).

I like puzzle games, and this screen is showing me a mechanic that sounds like fun, that I can integrate in my puzzle-solving routine, and strategize with. This is good!

Extrinsic motivation. More extrinsic motivation sneaking into my gameplay routine, and promising me more rewards:

Extrinsic motivation. if we focus on the interactions that are part of solving the puzzle, whenever I match some candy and get a score assigned to the move, I’m getting extrinsic valuation and rewards. And it scales proportionally to the impact of the move, which is partially defined by my skill, but also by how lucky I am.

What about the Candy Crush characteristic barks that manifest with floating animations and voice acting whenever I make a remarkable move?

Whenever I’m getting someone else’s recognition or acceptance, that comes from extrinsic motivation sources.

Intrinsic motivator. I would also like to mention a factor that’s not as easy to see as a popup, but that is definitely there, and that defines the experience hugely. The level design. A good and challenging level design that makes a gameplay varied and gives the player space to strategize is a source of intrinsic motivation. It makes me feel active, challenged and engaged. If we remember the terms I defined at the beginning of the article, the components of competence and autonomy that are needed when we’re talking about intrinsic motivation are both present here.

Extrinsic motivator. At the end of a gameplay, I get a series of popups and messages that indicate progress and success. The rewards (extrinsic motivators) at play are almost invariably present in all the placements:

Very little space or emphasis that lets me flavour what I liked about playing the game itself.

Going back to the main screen, I get reminded at random of some of the events where I’m not meeting the expectations, and where I’m not getting a reward:

As a summary of the motivations encouraged or exposed in gameplay in the game, I would say that the level design is the sort of content that players would enjoy engaging with for the sake of it, but it’s however tightly enveloped into messages that constantly drive attention and motivation towards extrinsic elements.

A fully intrinsic motivation driven Candy Crush Soda Saga

And here’s my thought/design experiment where I imagine how that motivational journey and player experience flow would be if there were only intrinsic motivations in place.