Heuristics & Naratives

Biases in our reasoning also include heuristics as a process by which we use mental short-cuts to arrive at decisions while searching our memories. For example, this way when we make judgments on a particular topic, idea, or theory, the closest experience comes to mind (more often than not). As mental power - and our capacity to make good judgment calls - is limited during the day, without heuristics, we’d be slowed and boggled by decisions that may not even lead to good outcomes, as we would be in constant back and forth with ourselves.

Narratives can be just as unreasonable, as we tend to emotionally connect to stories much easier than to facts or “some random outsider’s“ point of view. Plus, we like success stories (that don’t apply) about best practices, better-than-predicted KPIs, and exceptional marketing campaigns, much better than stories about failures.

”Each of us is the unreliable narrator of our own lives, and we are more suggestible than we imagine (Good Thinking, David Grimes)”. If you can’t replace an existing story in a person’s mind with a better one, it’s going to be an uphill battle to change the ways they a different development process, marketing approach, player promise, etc.

So following the same framework from the previous post, let’s dive into our biases and mental shortcuts when dealing with game development/publishing.

Availability Heuristics

Game publisher meeting on marketing materials: A mobile game recently released, and performed badly. The past , coupled with prospect theory (we tend to remember bad things more vividly and want to avoid them, the next time a deconstruction or “learning session takes place” . There’s frameworks that focus on the past - they are less efficient than present focus recently finished setting-up a succeffull event that lead to fenomenal engagement and this example naturally comes first when discussing new initiatives. It’s utility is only for reference, but in no way these stories should generate unwanted weight when choosing a way forward. We need to move from a world of myths to one one consideration of completixty

Anchoring

Have you ever been awestruck by a first impression - trailer, entry-level, a character - that immediately it just got stuck with you? Well, if developing a game is like navigating uncertain waters, then heavily anchoring on impressions is what can make this ship (team) unmovable. It can be a process, performance target, or benchmark.

When working on games it’s a good practice to generate learnings and study competitors. Anchoring decisions or judgements on past performances of projects, days of glory and competitors is not. Units sold, viewers on Twitch, and number of downloads can provide a false sense of confidence when applied to judgments. Players change, developers and publishers are different, and data can be noisy. Stop and take a step back when you feel there’s too much reliance on one particular argument.

Anchoring judgments coupled with daily repetition - this is the price point, this is the feature, this first marketing strategy - can go down all the way to release. Thought experiments - why don't we do the opposite - can help us see our impressions from an outside perspective. What if it’s just our desire to be right? I’ve anchored my judgment in Hearthstone battlegrounds that the wrath weaver was always a pick. Until I repeatedly bought the unit every time he appeared in Bob’s tavern only to lose games where poison murlocks were present. I really like to defend my choice of character though. Anchors become stories that impact judgments and eventual outcomes. Benchmark with a grain of salt.

Google Effect (aka Digital Amnesia)

Sometimes an article or video just hits that “Aha” in the moment. I caught myself thinking, that if only I’d remembered this design practice that I saw a while back or used the article’s know-how it can surely have future use. Until it’s forgotten. Youtube, Twitter and GDC Vault, have tons of good knowledge that can have an impact on your development and publishing practice. With an overabundance of information, we can easily forget what we saw and where. If it doesn’t immediately come to mind, don’t rush to find what you’re looking for. I’ve bookmarked a hundred links, most I’ll never use, but one is enough if applied. Be vigilant of “it’s easy to look-up online, but difficult to describe realtime”. Game-changing opportunities don’t wait while Google and ChatGbt find the answers for you.

Dunning Kruger

If someone is trying to hijack a conversation and appears (too) knowledgeable of the latest design features or management practices by quoting other games and studios, take a moment to about it. People are anxious when on the path to proving themselves and the knowledge they possess. Error correction will eventually help novices to become grandmaster’s and especially thought that think they achieved mastery of a field should always be humble in their knowledge and be open to the plurality of opinions. The less we know the more confident in our opinion (looking at things through the lens of “degrees of confidence in an opinion”).

Confirmation Bias

Especially in large studios, this can be a bias that impacts the way people analyze a genre, due to the fact that it’s easy to find confirmations of why something has worked or underperform heavily in the past. So if you really really want some evidence to be true - project “x“ or feature “ÿ“ is bad - it’s fairly simple to confirm it. What requires effort is finding conflicting evidence or argument that challenge established beliefs or opinions. Don’t plunge head first in confirmations that everything about games is “sales numbers, hooking players or creating deep immersive experiences”. Don’t confirm without first trying to falsify (see an opposing view).

Belief Bias

Accepting something as true without empirical knowledge or diligent verification, especially with groupthink cases where your closest peops believe the same, that’s when this bias kicks in. Beliefs are necessary for the fabric of humans, but sticking to beliefs in an egomaniacal fashion is harmful. I believe that games should be made like so, or marketed like this, simply doesn’t cut it without (some) facts. Hume mentioned well that impressions generate ideas in our heads and organize beliefs, and we are impressionable people. We create new worlds and experiences, and it’s natural we hold beliefs about our craft as well. What are some you hold to be true? Just because a key decision maker has the belief a particular genre works well, and they have the biggest weight in a decision doesn’t make it true. It can take years for such blind beliefs to be proven wrong, that’s why having trusted sources that can challenge beliefs, and update old ones helps. Remember the belief that console gaming is dead? Or how the earth is the center of the universe?

Naive Realism

Objective reality is a matter of gravity and corroborated facts, things that are true independent of our desire for them to be true. I’ve mentioned above how Copernicus turned the world on its head. We can easily confuse real things. Our models of viewing the complexities and systems of the real world are incomplete. Experts and opinion makers, take much of our headspace, especially when they are successful, but by what metric? The game industry craft requires patience and errors to correct its course. I won’t be so naive, to spew nonsense that - “I can already see that hypercasual gaming is going to disappear!”, just because one article provides data that it’s on the downtrend.

Naive cynicism

Let’s say a partnership or collaboration ended without the desired good outcome. It happened quite often in my experience. It would be easy to fall in the “o this industry is *insert curse word“. A meeting ended badly and the taste of defeat comes crawling in. It’s easy to fall in the trap of cynicism. Game creation and publishing (like wealth) is not a zero-sum game. Many developers don’t make it as big as expected, publishers fail their player base filling the comment section with dread. And then we rise again. This one is for the gamers: to succumb to cynicism is easy in this industry. I have... didn’t learn anything of value from it. From a practical standpoint, not all discounts and offers on display are tricks to monetize. Just as well, game prices increase due to inflation and the rising costs of development, not because teams simply choose a price tag. For developers: an unsuccessful launch, that didn’t match the forecast doesn’t mean it’s a full stop (unless chosen). It’s easy to be cynical, but there’s no truth in that.

That was a drop in the ocean concerning biases, narratives, and heuristics. In the final part, we’ll be facing them head-on.

Credits: Artwork by Tanya Timosina; Image source: 50 Cognitive Biases;