“Extrinsically motivated” games I like: I’ll play it once, beat it, play a bit of post game, drop it.

“Intrinsically motivated” games I like: make my own stupid-ass goal, spend dozens and dozens of hours on it, finally do the stupid thing, progressed 1% further through the game, get bored, drop it, but then I pick it up again thinking about doing another stupid-ass thing.

I’m think i’m the same as you. I don’t mind if a game is open world, sometimes i come back and do more in that open world, but i like the game to guide me throught that world with a maybe exiting story or clearly build level paths that are linear, that are designed to be done in a exiting way. I don’t want to be creative in games.

I feel you on the destination. Don’t get me wrong, I want all the side quests, but open world games don’t tickle my fancy. Give me arcade games, karting, platformers, metroidvanias, old Zelda games any day of the week.

Somewhere in between, I like having something to work towards but I also enjoy making my own fun along the way.

It also depends on my mood, sometimes I want to min max something, sometimes I just want to cruise around in GTA and check places out.

I actually enjoy a bit of both! There’s definitely pros and cons to both types, and which I feel like playing varies according to my mood, energy levels, and what else I’ve played recently. Sometimes I want to be moving towards a destination and reward, other times I just want to wander around and do whatever.

I’m not a “make my own fun” gamer, and now when I think about it, because all of my “make my own fun” is done outside of gaming, e.g. playing music, coding, 3d printing, drawing, etc.

I lean toward the “here’s a goal, good fucking luck getting there” types of games, but I sometimes play more open-ended games like Cataclysm: DDA and Dwarf Fortress. Currently I’ve been binging Vechs’ Super Hostile Minecraft maps, which I guess offer a fusion of both?

I’m extrinsically motivated, but my definition of “extrinsic” is pretty loose. I’ll do things that aren’t necessary to beat the game (I don’t even need the game to be “beatable”). As long as I’m finishing something and getting a reward for it, I’m content.

I’m having a great time doing side content in Tears of the Kingdom: completing as many shrines and side quests as I can, hoarding materials for armor upgrades, etc. Those are optional objectives that you can truly complete. However, I don’t spend much time experimenting with Ultrahand.

Similarly in Minecraft, I liked accumulating resources in survival mode, but I bounced off of creative mode.

EDIT: apparently my Lemmy app went haywire and posted this about 8 times. Very sorry.

Time played: 400 hours. Completion percentage: 15%

extremely intrinsically motivated. give me a world with stuff in it, not goals

I don’t think I fit either side of this dichotomy (though if forced to pick would choose extrinsically), as I love a good story but am very much about the journey and not just the destination.

If I had to guess, the limits of development scope and the resulting limits on worlds being believably reactive means a lot of people are going to see themselves as extrinsically motivated, with the big exception being people that just love building things in sandboxes. Intrinsic motivators would be much easier to come across if more avenues of interaction felt fleshed out but for some rare exceptions.

For most games, I’m like you - It’s been a gradual shift for me, as I used to play very sandboxy type games before (although I could never get into Minecraft), but have been heavily focused on story-heavy / experience-based games for the last 3+ years.
I will say that I really liked BotW though, and am looking forward to playing TotK eventually (in the next 2/3 years or so) and Starfield has got me really intrigued, so we’ll see.

Then there’s the “intrinsic me”, I guess, I don’t mind playing some games for the sake of it, with no goals in mind - Forza Horizon just going from one end of the map to the other, or the same loop of various arcade games whenever I don’t feel like doing anything else - sure there’s some sort of objective, but ultimately when you’ve seen and done it that many times, it’s not far off from it not being there at all imo, and I still enjoy it just as much.

I kind of feel bad for people who are only motivated by things like trophies, or feeling the need to 100% a game. If I’m not enjoying a game, I’m not going to force myself to play it longer because of some strange need inside me to 100% complete every game I start. If I don’t like playing a game, I will just stop playing it.

Definitely extrinsically. In a lot of those super open games, I get just completely overwhelmed by choice, don’t know where to go or what to do, and give up. I’ve tried twice to play Breath of the Wild and I just can’t. Give me a linear experience any time.

I feel that the line is not nearly as sharp. I play a lot of freeform games for extrinsic reasons. Building a cool castle in Minecraft is probably an extrinsic motivation, for example.

When I played Minecraft a whole ton, It was because I was on a server, and I was motivated by impressing my friends, a clear extrinsic motivation.

In WoW, I’m largely motivated to master the game so that I can keep up with my boyfriend, running 20+ dungeons and Heroic (soon Mythic) raids. Another extrinsic motivation.

Etterna, a rhythm game is probably my most intrinsically motivated game. I play it mostly because I enjoy the feeling of mastering a new skill. But even that is extrinsic to some degree, because what most clearly shows my skill? The game praising me with AAs and big streaks. I wouldn’t enjoy Etterna without those things, so I wouldn’t play a gradeless version.

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