What's In The Box? The Science of Loot

Why, as gamers, are we obsessed with in-game loot? You may be ready to shut down the game and go to sleep but you’re still on the lookout for that rare weapon. Maybe it’s in this crate. Or maybe in this box. And before you know it–BAM!–it’s 6 in the morning.

Psychology PhD and gamer Jamie Madigan explains on his blog why loot gets us addicted to the games. It has something to do with the neurotransmitter dopamine. We get a rush of these when we encounter something pleasurable, a cupcake in real life or a rare gun in a game. The dopamine can also occur when we run into something that predicts something pleasurable. So if I heard a car horn every time I ate a cupcake, some dopamine would hit my brain when I heard the car horn in the future, regardless if I get a cupcake after.

Madigan believes “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.” How does this work with games?

Basically, the loot drops in games like World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Borderlands are unpredictable. There are no signs we can use to predict when something good will drop. But we are addicted to that dopamine rush that occurs when we do get awesome loot, we are forever looking for the next awesome weapon or armour–and, thus, our next hit of dopamine.

[Psychology of Games via GamePolitics]