Placebo effect works in video games too | Hacker News Reader

Placebo effect works in video games too

newscientist.com

13 pointsourmandave11 comments

I don't see how their conclusion follows.

The way I see it:

- They gave people two randomly generated maps - They told the people that the second map was AI generated - There were differences between the maps (because, well, random) - People noticed these ("no one found it equally challenging") - People attributed the differences to the AI, because that's what they were told

This would be a valid conclusion to make if the players had been told that the AI did something specific and there were consistent claims that said specific thing happened. This, on the other hand, is just a study of how randomness works.

The second experimental design attempted.to address this, but the article unfortunately doesn't go into detail, just that it "confirmed the effect."

"Some thought the game was harder with AI, others found it easier – but no one found it equally challenging."

So maybe it's just random? As in maybe some players randomly got an easier level in their first play than the second, and vice versa. I've played Don't Starve a little and each new game is very different.

Other points the article makes are more interesting, for example about players rating the AI version as more. It would be nice to see some confidence intervals, but I couldn't find the original research.

Agreed. Nothing in the article indicates that the results were due to a placebo effect and not due to randomness.

Yep, they would need a lot more play time.

Like first two weeks of play in the "non-AI" version and then tell the player "AI" was added and ask after another two weeks if they find the new version more enjoyable in general

Seems like this study set people up to believe a system was trying to help them so instead of seeing a random set of events unfolding they were looking for a pattern and then trying to attribute that pattern to the system they believed was helping them.

This doesn't seem like the placebo effect, it seems like an example of the human mind trying to find patterns that don't exist. Just like when someone tells you a cloud looks like something and then you can't stop seeing that thing in the clouds until it goes away. Tell people there's an AI and they can't stop seeing it, even if it's not there.

Some interesting anecdotes on the placebo effect in games from the developers of League of Legends: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/36gop4/rio...

This is a fun study but I really have to question the legitimacy of the experiment. They said the second run was always the 'placebo', this should have been evenly distributed first and second runs.

Don't Starve is a really great game focused on discovery and knowledge and going into your first run knowing completely nothing is going to be fun but you are going to spend your day checking everything out and learning how to survive 1 day. You are so excited to play the second run, you think to yourself "now I know what I want to do on my first day", you are almost guaranteed to live longer and discover more of the game. I would love to see a follow up of this where there is no 'placebo' and people are given the same experiment and asked which one was more fun, I think almost 100% would say the second.

This is not a placebo effect, this is manipulation of expectations and is a well in other areas, such as marking the same wine with two different price tags.

Theological question? If you substitute AI with God, and ask people not to starve, don't people react in a similar way IRL?

Url changed from http://gizmodo.com/the-placebo-effect-can-make-you-enjoy-the..., which points to this.

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