Non-Fiction Project Check In : Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

I am pursuing the topic of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation. When turning this topic into a question, I need to keep in mind that I need to show what both types of motivation are, how they are used, and how they tie into video games. So a overall question like "How do extrinsic and intrinsic motivation affect people?" or "How can extrinsic and intrinsic motivation be used in gaming?" would fit the bill.

Using editing software (like windows movie maker), I will be creating a video on my topic and explaining a thing called Gamification. Gamification is the use of extrinsic or intrinsic rewards to help drive an individual or groups actions. This method can be used in businesses, schools, and families and is a very powerful use of rewards.

I plan on having this project be the kickstarter video to my youtube channel, HowDisWorks.
Link to channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb4HWc7MxiIDQp66UjlSUOg

So the final project (I'm hoping) will be professional and interesting. On HowDisWorks, I will be explaining topics from science to movies to books. So this channel will be a hobby and will hopefully become popular.

Now reading about my topic, it is very surprising how much it is actually used. Gamification is a method that is very common in today's world, and I'm excited to do more research on it as well as experiment with it. For an experiment, I would like to see how effective Gamification is in gaming and how it affects people subjected to it. It would be cool to take battle block theater and have two groups play it, while one group might have extra motivation (Like a prize or leader board), the other group might just play the game normally. After the game, both groups would answer questions on how they felt playing it and rating certain emotions or feelings they felt.

This weekend, I plan on contacting the Behemoth and some other gaming companies to see how they put extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in their games. I also plan on typing up more of my written script, as I will be making a video and the script is a key part of the whole.

Also, here is some of the sources I have found on my topic.
https://docs.google.com/a/bhmschools.org/file/d/0Bz1zbeZHBC9KanlKaHhCTUdVRU0/edit
https://docs.google.com/a/bhmschools.org/file/d/0Bz1zbeZHBC9KX3JXZzhWeExmajg/edit

Claim, Evidence, Warrant; Sold Through Steam!

Brief Introduction

Steam. It is created by water and heat. But these days, those of you who are nerds in your basement might have a completely different type of Steam in your head. Steam, as in the gaming company. These days, Steam has continued to gain growth in today's world. The company is privately owned, and its financial information is private. However, in a recent video released on February 11th, 2014, Steam released the daily earnings of community bought items in video games such as Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2. The amount that was made the first week of January, 2014 is 1.2 million dollars. Multiplying that by 52 weeks is equal to $64,400,000 made in one year. And this is only from the sale of in game items, not even their main sales, a.k.a. video games!

Sold Through Steam

Steam is one of the many middle man companies that sell video games in today's economy. It has 7.6 million users at this point in time, and is becoming increasingly popular. More games these days should be sold through Steam because the games will be easily accessible.

Those of you who are one of the many millions of Steam users have experienced the companies brilliance in that it is so easily accessible. With the access to Steam being mainly through computers and now phones, the accessibility of Steam is one of the many things that makes Steam brilliant. Steam provides many easily accessible options that helps gamers to connect with each other and do what they love. In order to not only buy and play games while being able to chat and compare statistics with friends while doing so, all you need is a computer and a Steam account. 

But not only are the players helped by Steam, but the developers of games are. Steam is the chance for game developers to hit the big time. With every new game that is just starting to sell through Steam being advertised through the main screen, a chance for new and upcoming games to be bought by the millions of Steam users is created. 

But what about old games? What about games that were originally sold on console? What about games that have already been played a billion times over and have been recorded for YouTube? *Cough Cough* Minecraft *Cough Cough*  Well the best part about all of these questions is that Steam is able combat all of these bad things. Let me introduce you to a thing called Steam Sales! As a gamer myself, I no longer look forward to holidays being a time for friends and family, but instead look forward to the huge sales on tons of games. Besides, you have time for friends and family always, but Steam sales only happen every once in while. On holidays such as; Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, Steam takes a ton of the best games from that time and sells them at rates of 5-90% off! 

You see that sixty dollar game you've been wanting? Well instead of putting on your footy pajamas and driving a couple of miles to the nearest game stop for horrible service and wasting money on gas, you can instead buy it from the comfort of your own chair for half the price! And yes, the satisfaction of having a hard copy of the game may be rewarding, and yes the anticipation of driving home waiting to play the game you have already watched YouTube videos of and read cheat guides for may be immensely satisfying. Not only does Steam help to cut the space needed to store your video games to a small box connected to the cloud, but it also gives you the worlds most satisfying feeling of looking at the list of games that you spent hours playing, and your favorite companies spent hours making.

"So why does all of this matter?" you say, "Video games are dumb anyway!" (Tee hee that rhymed)

The video game market is the largest entertainment variable in today's entertainment industry, topping DVD sales, cinema sales, and music sales in today's world. But not only do they top all three individually, but they top all three combined.

Gaming is becoming popular across the world. So when you say that video game sales don't matter, you are wrong in your thinking. With releases of widely anticipated video games like Halo or Call of Duty, the economy receives a huge boost in profit due to the millions of gamers all buying that video game on the same release date. All I'm asking is for these games to be sold through one easily accessible source. That is why Steam matters, that is why you have read this blog, because I have peaked your interest. Steam matters in not only today's economy, but in today's culture. Since video games are becoming more important, they need to be; easily accessible, reliable, and fitted to the public. Steam provides all that and more.

Oh... and did I mention that Steam is working on perfecting its own video game console? But that's a topic for another blog.

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHC-uGDbu7s
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/35221584729653199/
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2009/sep/27/videogames-hollywood