https://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&feed=atom&action=historyAchievements Considered Harmful? - Revision history2024-03-29T09:32:23ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.36.1https://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2406&oldid=prevChecker at 22:34, 6 March 20112011-03-06T22:34:25Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>I waded into the debate on game achievements with my lecture at the 2010 [[Game Developers Conference]] <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">entitled </del>'''''Achievements Considered Harmful?''''', with a strong emphasis on the "'''''?'''''". Since the game industry seems to be careening head first into a future of larding points and medals and cute titles on players for just starting up a video game, I wanted to raise awareness of the large body of research studying the impact on motivation from various types of rewards. Trying to be "fair and balanced", I delved into what the data show and what they don't show.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>I waded into the debate on game achievements with my lecture at the 2010 [[Game Developers Conference]] <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">titled </ins>'''''Achievements Considered Harmful?''''', with a strong emphasis on the "'''''?'''''". Since the game industry seems to be careening head first into a future of larding points and medals and cute titles on players for just starting up a video game, I wanted to raise awareness of the large body of research studying the impact on motivation from various types of rewards. Trying to be "fair and balanced", I delved into what the data show and what they don't show.</div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2357&oldid=prevChecker at 05:55, 9 August 20102010-08-09T05:55:25Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>I define all these terms in the slides below, and I'll fill out this page more as time goes on.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>I define all these terms in the slides below, and I'll fill out this page more as time goes on.</div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The first is the scary one, since it seems to have a lot in common with the ways games reward players with achievements and the like. I reiterated many times that there are no studies that I'm aware of on achievements for games, but if they really could be <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">are </del>sapping intrinsic motivation to play games&mdash;and I can't see how you can argue with the ''possibility'' this is true after looking at the mountain of available data&mdash;then I think somebody should start funding research into this. I think [http://research.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Research] would be the perfect people to do this work, since they have both Xbox Live (meaning a great source of data, and a vested interest in figuring out the truth for the longevity of the platform) and a bunch of smart psychologists on staff. Hopefully they'll heed my call.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The first is the scary one, since it seems to have a lot in common with the ways games reward players with achievements and the like. I reiterated many times that there are no studies that I'm aware of on achievements for games, but if they really could be sapping intrinsic motivation to play games&mdash;and I can't see how you can argue with the ''possibility'' this is true after looking at the mountain of available data&mdash;then I think somebody should start funding research into this. I think [http://research.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Research] would be the perfect people to do this work, since they have both Xbox Live (meaning a great source of data, and a vested interest in figuring out the truth for the longevity of the platform) and a bunch of smart psychologists on staff. Hopefully they'll heed my call.</div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>After talking about the results for "interesting tasks", I ask the following question when I pondered covering the results for "dull tasks":</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>After talking about the results for "interesting tasks", I ask the following question when I pondered covering the results for "dull tasks":</div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2356&oldid=prevChecker at 00:51, 6 August 20102010-08-06T00:51:44Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">I</del>'<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">ll definitely put </del>the <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">raw ppt and mp3 up for download soon as well</del>, <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">but in the meantime I </del>want to <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">see how well this works</del>. <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"> If it works out, I might convert all my other talks to this format as well</del>.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">If you</ins>'<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">re on a phone that won't play Flash, or want to listen to my dulcet tones on your Walkman/iPod/whatever-</ins>the<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">-kids-are-using-these-days</ins>, <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">or you just </ins>want to <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">study my poorly constructed PowerPoint deck, here you go:</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">* [http://chrishecker</ins>.<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">com/html/gdc10-AchievementsConsideredHarmful.mp3 The mp3 audio]</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">* [[Media:gdc10-AchievementsConsideredHarmful</ins>.<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">ppt|The ppt slides]]</ins></div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2351&oldid=prevChecker at 19:00, 5 August 20102010-08-05T19:00:38Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* There are more, but I haven't had time to go through them yet...</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* There are more, but I haven't had time to go through them yet...</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* As I say in the talk, [http://www.alfiekohn.org Alfie Kohn]'s book [http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm Punished By Rewards, The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes] was the introduction to this topic for me. I read the book because I have a child&mdash;Kohn is a respected name in education circles&mdash;and most of his books are about education oriented topics. I think it's an important book, and you should read it, but it comes across as pretty biased, and like most of these popular psychology books, it could be ⅕ the length. In a similar vein, more recently but with less detail, [http://www.danpink.com/ Daniel Pink] wrote [http://www.danpink.com/drive Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]. It covers some of the same research as Kohn, with a few more recent studies, but then also spends a lot of time on a kind of self-help motivation take on the results, which might annoy you if you're looking for rigor. Pink also gave [http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html a talk at TED] about the book. After reading some of the back and forth between the anti-rewards people and the behaviorists I was introduced to the term [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tendentious tendentious], which definitely applies here.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* As I say in the talk, [http://www.alfiekohn.org Alfie Kohn]'s book [http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm Punished By Rewards, The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes] was the introduction to this topic for me. I read the book because I have a child&mdash;Kohn is a respected name in education circles&mdash;and most of his books are about education oriented topics. I think it's an important book, and you should read it, but it comes across as pretty biased, and like most of these popular psychology books, it could be ⅕ the length. In a similar vein, more recently but with less detail, [http://www.danpink.com/ Daniel Pink] wrote [http://www.danpink.com/drive Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]. It covers some of the same research as Kohn, with a few more recent studies, but then also spends a lot of time on a kind of self-help motivation take on the results, which might annoy you if you're looking for rigor. Pink also gave [http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html a talk at TED] about the book. After reading some of the back and forth between the anti-rewards people and the behaviorists I was introduced to the term [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tendentious tendentious], which definitely applies here.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* As an example of the softness of all this research, you can start with the Wikipedia entry on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It.21 Pizza Hut's Book-It! program]<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, which </del>is often mocked for rewarding kids with pizzas for reading books. As Kohn joked, we should really reward kids with books for eating pizzas, since we want them to eat less pizza and read more books. The Wikipedia entry cites a paper, [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3538/is_1_49/ai_n28729335/ Effects of extrinsic reinforcement for reading during childhood on reported reading habits of college students, Flora & Flora] that says there was no impact on reading. However, looking closer, the Flora paper heavily quotes the Cameron meta-analysis, which has been discredited by Deci, which was questioned by Cameron, which was responded to by Deci, and on and on. As I discuss in the slides, it's really hard to know who or what to believe. This is why I use the [[#Highlights|'''two conclusions above''']], because they are the only points on which Cameron and Deci seem to agree.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* As an example of the softness of all this research, you can start with the Wikipedia entry on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It.21 Pizza Hut's Book-It! program]<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">. Book-It! </ins>is often mocked for rewarding kids with pizzas for reading books. As Kohn joked, we should really reward kids with books for eating pizzas, since we want them to eat less pizza and read more books. The Wikipedia entry cites a paper, [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3538/is_1_49/ai_n28729335/ Effects of extrinsic reinforcement for reading during childhood on reported reading habits of college students, Flora & Flora] that says there was no impact on reading. However, looking closer, the Flora paper heavily quotes the Cameron meta-analysis, which has been discredited by Deci, which was questioned by Cameron, which was responded to by Deci, and on and on. As I discuss in the slides, it's really hard to know who or what to believe. This is why I use the [[#Highlights|'''two conclusions above''']], because they are the only points on which Cameron and Deci seem to agree.</div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2350&oldid=prevChecker at 18:56, 5 August 20102010-08-05T18:56:45Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* Alex Meer at Rock, Paper, Shotgun on TF2 Achievement Servers, [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/06/21/achieving-nothing/ Pyro Maniacs: Achieving Nothing in TF2]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* Alex Meer at Rock, Paper, Shotgun on TF2 Achievement Servers, [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/06/21/achieving-nothing/ Pyro Maniacs: Achieving Nothing in TF2]</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* There are more, but I haven't had time to go through them yet...</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>* There are more, but I haven't had time to go through them yet...</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">* As I say in the talk, [http://www.alfiekohn.org Alfie Kohn]'s book [http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm Punished By Rewards, The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes] was the introduction to this topic for me. I read the book because I have a child&mdash;Kohn is a respected name in education circles&mdash;and most of his books are about education oriented topics. I think it's an important book, and you should read it, but it comes across as pretty biased, and like most of these popular psychology books, it could be ⅕ the length. In a similar vein, more recently but with less detail, [http://www.danpink.com/ Daniel Pink] wrote [http://www.danpink.com/drive Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]. It covers some of the same research as Kohn, with a few more recent studies, but then also spends a lot of time on a kind of self-help motivation take on the results, which might annoy you if you're looking for rigor. Pink also gave [http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html a talk at TED] about the book. After reading some of the back and forth between the anti-rewards people and the behaviorists I was introduced to the term [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tendentious tendentious], which definitely applies here.</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">* As an example of the softness of all this research, you can start with the Wikipedia entry on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It.21 Pizza Hut's Book-It! program], which is often mocked for rewarding kids with pizzas for reading books. As Kohn joked, we should really reward kids with books for eating pizzas, since we want them to eat less pizza and read more books. The Wikipedia entry cites a paper, [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3538/is_1_49/ai_n28729335/ Effects of extrinsic reinforcement for reading during childhood on reported reading habits of college students, Flora & Flora] that says there was no impact on reading. However, looking closer, the Flora paper heavily quotes the Cameron meta-analysis, which has been discredited by Deci, which was questioned by Cameron, which was responded to by Deci, and on and on. As I discuss in the slides, it's really hard to know who or what to believe. This is why I use the [[#Highlights|'''two conclusions above''']], because they are the only points on which Cameron and Deci seem to agree.</ins></div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2349&oldid=prevChecker at 06:16, 4 August 20102010-08-04T06:16:00Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Metrics Fetishism===</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Metrics Fetishism===</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>I had a section here about the trend I have started calling ''metrics fetishism, but it was long enough that I moved it to [[Metrics Fetishism|its own page]].</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>I had a section here about the trend I have started calling ''metrics fetishism<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</ins>, but it was long enough that I moved it to [[Metrics Fetishism|its own page]].</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Materials===</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Materials===</div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2348&oldid=prevChecker at 05:55, 4 August 20102010-08-04T05:55:43Z<p></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 05:55, 4 August 2010</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Again, the data shows even following this advice reduces intrinsic motivation, but it's at least something you can do. I talk about this in more detail in the slides below.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Again, the data shows even following this advice reduces intrinsic motivation, but it's at least something you can do. I talk about this in more detail in the slides below.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">===Metrics Fetishism===</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">I had a section here about the trend I have started calling ''metrics fetishism, but it was long enough that I moved it to [[Metrics Fetishism|its own page]].</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Materials===</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Materials===</div></td></tr>
</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2342&oldid=prevChecker at 05:27, 4 August 20102010-08-04T05:27:02Z<p></p>
<table style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122;" data-mw="interface">
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 05:27, 4 August 2010</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># use extrinsic motivators to make your game better</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># use extrinsic motivators to make your game better</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># destroy intrinsic motivation to play your game</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># destroy intrinsic motivation to play your game</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># ''metrics fetishism'' pushes you towards designs where extrinsic motivation works</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[Metrics Fetishism|</ins>''metrics fetishism''<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">]] </ins>pushes you towards designs where extrinsic motivation works</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># BONUS: women lose even more intrinsic motivation than men do given extrinsic motivation!</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div># BONUS: women lose even more intrinsic motivation than men do given extrinsic motivation!</div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Again, the data shows even following this advice reduces intrinsic motivation, but it's at least something you can do. I talk about this in more detail in the slides below.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Again, the data shows even following this advice reduces intrinsic motivation, but it's at least something you can do. I talk about this in more detail in the slides below.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">===Metrics Fetishism===</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">I'm going to put up a page about this concept at some point, but in the meantime, I want to rant briefly about what I call ''metrics fetishism'', and how's it's taking over game design and how we should be careful.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">In the old days, people designed games by their instinct and '''intuition'''. Notice I didn't say the "good old days", it was just how things were done. If you wanted feedback, you'd playtest the game, and watch the players struggle with the controls, or waltz through some section you thought was hard, or whatever. Then you'd iterate.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Lately, as computers got networked and more powerful, we started recording '''metrics''' about how players played our games, and feeding that back into the design process. We dump a lot of information to a database, and then we mine that information for clues about how to optimize certain aspects of our games, whether it's "fun" or "ARPU" or whatever. This happens during development, and now that a lot of games are online, it happens after we ship, with the design being constantly iterated based on metrics gathered live after launch.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Now, metrics and closed feedback loops are great in the abstract, but like any tool, they can be misused. Just as it's usually a bad idea to design a game based totally on your intuition without grounding that intuition in the cold hard reality of another human being touching the controls, it's also bad to blindly gather and follow metrics data.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">In the old days, we erred too far on the intuition side of the equation, but now I fear we're erring too far on the metrics side of the equation. This is what I call ''metrics fetishism''.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">The problem is not that the data is wrong<ref>Assuming there aren't bugs in the metrics code instrumentating the game code, of course, which is probably not a great assumption, but anyway...</ref>, the problem is that we tend to gather the data that is convenient to gather, '''we worship that data because it is at least some concrete port in the storm of game design and player behavior''', and then we assume we can take a reasonable derivative from that data and hill-climb to a better place in design-space. </del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">But, as anybody who knows any math can tell you, hill-climbing is not a very good algorithm for optimizing complex functions, and game design is a very complex function indeed. The problem with hill-climbing is it can only see ''local maxima'', it doesn't have any visibility into where the ''global maxima'' lie in the space. If you blindly hill-climb, you will end up at the top of the nearest hill, terrified to move because all derivatives point down, while the giant mountain of game design awesomeness is sitting right over there.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">'''We really want a mix of intuition and metrics.''' The intuition gets you out of local maxima, and yes, it sometimes makes things worse for a bit, but it's our only hope for finding higher hills. In a globally optimizing algorithm like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing simulated annealing], the intuition is the equivalent of turning up the temperature so you jump around in state space. The metrics allow you to polish those new points to perfection, but metrics alone won't find points worth polishing...you need to trust your intuition for that. The metrics are the craft, and the intuition is the art.</del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;"><center>[[Image:foothills.jpg]]</center></del></div></td><td colspan="2"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Materials===</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>===Materials===</div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>[[Category:Design]]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>[[Category:Design]]</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[Category:Opinions]]</ins></div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2340&oldid=prevChecker at 05:22, 4 August 20102010-08-04T05:22:41Z<p></p>
<table style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122;" data-mw="interface">
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 05:22, 4 August 2010</td>
</tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno" id="mw-diff-left-l82">Line 82:</td>
<td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno">Line 82:</td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>But, as anybody who knows any math can tell you, hill-climbing is not a very good algorithm for optimizing complex functions, and game design is a very complex function indeed. The problem with hill-climbing is it can only see ''local maxima'', it doesn't have any visibility into where the ''global maxima'' lie in the space. If you blindly hill-climb, you will end up at the top of the nearest hill, terrified to move because all derivatives point down, while the giant mountain of game design awesomeness is sitting right over there.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>But, as anybody who knows any math can tell you, hill-climbing is not a very good algorithm for optimizing complex functions, and game design is a very complex function indeed. The problem with hill-climbing is it can only see ''local maxima'', it doesn't have any visibility into where the ''global maxima'' lie in the space. If you blindly hill-climb, you will end up at the top of the nearest hill, terrified to move because all derivatives point down, while the giant mountain of game design awesomeness is sitting right over there.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>'''We really want a mix of intuition and metrics.''' The intuition gets you out of local maxima, and yes, it sometimes makes things worse for a bit, but it's our only hope for finding higher hills. In a globally optimizing algorithm like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing simulated annealing], the intuition is the equivalent of turning up the temperature so you jump around in state space. The metrics allow you to polish those new points to perfection.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>'''We really want a mix of intuition and metrics.''' The intuition gets you out of local maxima, and yes, it sometimes makes things worse for a bit, but it's our only hope for finding higher hills. In a globally optimizing algorithm like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing simulated annealing], the intuition is the equivalent of turning up the temperature so you jump around in state space. The metrics allow you to polish those new points to perfection<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">, but metrics alone won't find points worth polishing...you need to trust your intuition for that. The metrics are the craft, and the intuition is the art</ins>.</div></td></tr>
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</table>Checkerhttps://www.chrishecker.com/index.php?title=Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F&diff=2339&oldid=prevChecker at 22:25, 3 August 20102010-08-03T22:25:04Z<p></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 22:25, 3 August 2010</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>[[Image:schoolyardbrawl.jpg|200px|right]]</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>[[Image:schoolyardbrawl.jpg|200px|right]]</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Sadly, there is a contentious debate amongst psychologists about how rewards affect motivation, and I spend a bunch of time in the talk discussing this debate. Psychology is at the soft end of science, to put it mildly, and so it's easy for people&mdash;including academics&mdash;to have an agenda or opinion and <del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</del>interpret<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">'' </del>the data in a way that backs up that agenda or opinion. This is human nature, of course, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias confirmation bias] is everywhere in life, but reading some of the papers reminds me more of a schoolyard yelling contest than of peer reviewed research.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Sadly, there is a contentious debate amongst psychologists about how rewards affect motivation, and I spend a bunch of time in the talk discussing this debate. Psychology is at the soft end of science, to put it mildly, and so it's easy for people&mdash;including academics&mdash;to have an agenda or opinion and <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">"</ins>interpret<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">" </ins>the data in a way that backs up that agenda or opinion. This is human nature, of course, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias confirmation bias] is everywhere in life, but reading some of the papers reminds me more of a schoolyard yelling contest than of peer reviewed research.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
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</table>Checker