User:Jsutton1254/sandbox

= Rewards in Games = In video games the player can be rewarded in a multitude of ways whether it be through currency, an in-game item, points or an achievement for a visual rather than functional representation of their achieved goals. These rewards are comprised of both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards which give the player additional goals to work towards whilst playing through the game.

Intrinsic rewards
Intrinsic rewards are benefits which the player seeks out in a game for their own enjoyment, or to enhance gameplay by earning experience points to level up and acquiring new items such as weapons or armour for their in-game character. These are given to the player after completing quests/missions as an incentive to continue through the game, knowing they'll be rewarded for their time which will generate more engagement from the user.

Experience
Experience, often referred to as experience points (xp) is a method of measuring the progress between the levels of an entity in a video game, whether it be a level of a character and their perks or the level of a specific item. These experience points are delivered to the player after completing challenges or quests in a video game, as a way to reward the player by giving them the resources to progress through the act of levelling up.

This is seen in the now-defunct multiplayer video game ' Faunasphere' through the tasks the player completes by caring for their "fauna" pets. When one of these tasks are completed the player receives an amount of experience points which will eventually amount to the fauna progressing to the next level. Once a fauna progresses to the next level they will lay an egg which will hatch to spawn a new fauna for the player to take care of. Through this system, the player is rewarded for their dedication to acting as a caretaker for their fauna by gaining a new fauna to take care of through the xp earned which amounts to a fauna laying an egg.

Items
Items as rewards in games can refer to various gear given to the player to make their character stronger, make them look more aesthetically pleasing to the player through cosmetic items, or essential items which are used to progress through the story. These are often given to the player after they completed a task of varying degrees of difficulty such as a puzzle, quest or challenge as another method of rewarding the player for the time they have dedicated to this task.

Character gear can be seen used in a multitude of game genres, particularly Role-Playing Games (RPG) such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by Bethesda Game Studios or games that have elements akin to an RPG such as Destiny by Bungie. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , the player grows their character's strength through the weapons, armour and magic they use. These items are generally found scattered across various chests and containers which have randomised gear inside, though if the player is progressing through a questline they can be eventually rewarded with a unique item towards the end. The unique items are separate to the standard gear found randomly in the game world as they often have unique effects or uses which the standard items cannot have. This is a method used by the developers to keep players incentivised to complete these questlines not only from a narrative standpoint but a character building one too.

Extrinsic rewards
Extrinsic rewards in games are rewards which are located outside of the game world though are still earned through playing the game. These rewards come in the form of the achievements system used by the Steam digital game platform, and the "Gamerscore" system used by Xbox consoles.

Gamerscore
Gamerscore is a points system introduced for the Xbox 360 console as a method of tracking the level of different achievements earned by the player. Achievements are indicators to show the certain tasks that players have or have not done in games. The amount of points given for the achievements earned depend on the importance of said achievements. For instance, high amounts of points (around 35 - 50 Gamerscore) would be awarded for actions such as completing the main story of a game whereas low amounts of points (around 5 - 15 Gamerscore) would be given for smaller notable actions like "You defeated (x) amount of enemies in (x) seconds". This Gamerscore earned from achievements amounts to an overall Gamerscore, this is displayed on the user's profile as an incentive for them to earn as much as they can to flaunt it to their friends.

This system gave the rise to multiple player types based around earning these achievements. According to Mikeal Jakobson's description, "Achievement Casuals" are gamers which only relate to achievements in a "casual manner where the achievement system adds value by providing mental scaffolding utilized in the process of shaping the gaming experience". This "scaffolding" comes in the form of providing a reason to continue playing a game after its finished, as players feel as though "further engagement with the game is reasonable and worthwhile" since achievements provide a direction as to what to do next after the game is finished.

Steam achievements
Achievements for the PC platform of Steam, unlike the achievements on Xbox systems aren't tracked by a points system like Gamerscore. Although, they are still as engaging with particular games such as Team Fortress 2 which, as mentioned by Christopher Moore they "translate the chaos of action and intensity of affect into constrained and regulated activity through the entertaining but technical elements of gameplay". This can be seen in achievements such as the "Rasputin" achievement which requires the player get shot, burnt, bludgeoned and receive explosion damage in a single life. This shows the chaotic side of gameplay through it being possible for the player to survive this damage. yet the technical side is shown through how many damage types there is present in the game.