Why Game Designers use Maslow - Extra Credits Gaming 

Get with a free bag of fresh coffee with any Trade subscription at www.drinktrade.com/extracredits Thanks for Watching!

Feels like someone could make a game built around Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a very literal sense. Climb a pyramid where the first floor is shelter, food, water; the second floor is security and safety; the third is love; etc

For me, I'd see another basic needs layer above the Intuitive UI: Actual Playability. To give an example, Candy Crush was/is easy to understand and has intuitive controls. But after a few hundred levels of playing, levels become unbeatably difficult so that I throw away the game no matter how addictive the basic concept was. This in contrast to another game I once had on my phone, which was a bouncy-ball-to-bricks game, that gave you 1 extra ball to beat the level every time you failed a level. Eg when level 250 for started with, say, 60 balls and you failed the level then the next time you tried level 250 you would start that level with 61 balls to shoot. And after another failure you could try the level with 62 balls and so on. And the at level 251 you'd start with 60 balls again. This ensured that there were no unpassable levels. Bonus: by adding this playability layer, the pyramid becomes a 3, 2, 1 pyramid which, to me at least, is aesthetically more satisfying than a 2, 2, 1 pyramid. Don't mind my autism please 🤦‍♂

It was around the point that I found myself putting down my Switch and spending the hours *in between* my Baba is You play sessions thinking about various puzzles in the game and how I might solve them that I realised I was playing something truly special. This hierarchy of needs illustrates why so well!

This episode really resonated with me, and it helped me understand Will’s process when playing for streams a little better. I don’t play many rogue-likes or Metroidvanias, so sometimes I can feel a little lost when he’s explaining things. But looking at it through this hierarchy of needs makes it more understandable, even if I don’t explicitly get the gameplay.

Intriguing idea! I really appreciate hearing this model articulated this way and it makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. It helps explain where there may have been a disconnect in the past when I wanted to share one of my favorite videogames (like Journey by thatgamecompany) with someone who wasn't experienced with or interested in video games as a medium. You can't rush someone up the hierarchy of needs, and if they're busy learning to play a 3D third-person platformer for the first time (basic elements of play) they won't be able to "hurry up and appreciate the beautiful symbolism, non-linguistic world-building, and allegorical narrative" (psychological benefits and self-fulfillment). It also makes me think of teaching math: it's hard for someone to "hurry up and appreciate the patterns" when they're still picking up basic mechanics like algebra.

I love Warframe, and this video is really making it obvious to me that I got into the game kind of backwards? When I started - and when most people start - it makes NO sense and you really have to talk to other players or consult the wiki to make sense of it and feel like you're playing it well. But I got into it because my roommates got me into it - as in the top of your pyramid: it affected my outside life profoundly by building stronger relationships with my friends through cooperating and learning and exchanging gameplay stories. Then eventually it became a satisfying visceral experience as I got the hang of the fast pace and the third-person-looter-shooter-ness of it, so I started playing it on my own, and then I got to THE BIG PLOT TWIST and was just like, "Oh my god???" Which was when I got into the core fantasy and became very devoted to the game. Which meant lots of time on the wiki, watching videos, watching streamers, asking questions, until the UI/UX made sense to me and I understood the basic elements of play so that I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. I didn't really realize how wild this was until fairly recently, when I started getting my friend into it. She has said multiple times that the game makes NO sense to her, but it's fun to play together, so she's rolling with it. And I just hope that she'll eventually have an epiphany like I did and fall in love with it. 😢 ... which is all to say, Warframe desperately needs to continue putting work into the new player experience, because it /suuuuuuucks/, lol!

That little bit about Intuitive UI/UX hit different- I can think of _two_ massively-praised games I played this year that I struggled to enjoy (Signalis and CrossCode), and _both_ of them had subtle flaws in their menus that always put an aggravated huff up my nose: not a good vibe to then take into engaging with the actual gameplay! BOTH of them had their menus split up into like 3-4 different menus you access by pushing different buttons, and depending on which menu you were in, you had to push different specific buttons to then exit OUT of them or switch to ANOTHER menu, and every time I would spend 2-5 seconds trying to quit out by pushing the button that _made sense_ to me (usually B or Start) and the game just wouldn't respond at all. So annoying

Thanks for this useful information! Now this might explain why some players are obsessed with replaying some games ovr n over while some others mod their games to fit their needs.

This hierarchy feels like is missing a few layers at the bottom. I wish it could be assumed, but making sure the game runs adequately seems like something even more foundational. If you cannot play the game, nothing else matters. For video games it needs to not crash, and board games need to have all the pieces.

props to the artist who made the meta bored game where you compete to create the best flixl stix user-generated content

I've just completed an essay, soon to be video, about the concept of a Punishing game, where that very first thing is explicitly not done, on purpose, for a different kind of experience.

Here was an opportunity to put paradox on the other end for once.

And I agree with everything here, you've got pretty much every important part of games laid out here.

Started playing Outer Wilds with my partner and gosh does it deliver across the pyramid. We can't stop thinking and talking about it !

You're the first long-form video creator I've watched more than once in a long time

Love your videos made up my child hood and still watching today.

I picked up Eldon Ring just yesterday (very late to the party, I know), and if it wasn't for my wife wanting to see the game herself, I probably would have put it right back down, because I have a really high standard for understanding the basics of play. If you're going to show me stat numbers and offer me items, I want to be able to see detailed descriptions of what each does, otherwise I simply don't want to make a choice because I don't feel well enough informed. Of course I pushed past it and am having a great time, but character creation felt like a hurdle I had to jump over just because it was failing my initial vibe check.

You guys are awesome! Always learn from you! ❤❤❤❤❤

Funny that I found this video right before talking about Maslow in my community college class.

5:53 I was thinking the exact same game while watching this video! Hollow knight is really the perfect game for me. It was especially poignant given that I was playing a game about an epidemic in late 2020 while having COVID myself. The game struck me with a powerful sense of awe and also melancholy for what had been lost. God I can't wait for silksong. Also this hierarchy of needs will be very useful when looking at games in the future. I have a busy life and I don't want to waste time on a game that is just fulfilling the bottom tiers. Those kind of games are akin to the junk food of your media diet and often distract you from other, deeper experiences.

This episode is very much in the wheelhouse of what I have been trying to do for making my own first game and so I can appreciate the use of Maslow's Hierarchy for how intuitive it feels from a visual standpoint but I have found other useful models that I prefer. Instead of thinking of needs in this bottom up framework, we can imagine needs as if they can be met simultaneously and thus be treated with equal importance. This I think helps explain the challenges mentioned at the start of this video with making games for players of different levels of familiarity with games. A game could focus on meeting the need for some players to be eased into a new experience or it could focus on getting out of an experienced player's way and letting them get right into the main experience, or a game could try the harder option of catering to both kinds of needs at the same time. The problem of course is that they are playing the same game and thus it requires more effort and knowing of player expectations (through game design experience and thorough playtesting) in order to meet both needs without harming the ability to meet one or the other. And so with all that said each part of the game can then be considered by how many player needs it can meet at once and to look for places where it might be harming another need the player has. You can even use Maslow's Hierachy if it feels more intuitive for how to classify the types of player needs. You can look up Manfred Max-Neef or "Nonviolent Communication" to see more about what they have to say about what our needs might be and how we can better try and meet them.

Great content, as always. Thank you.

I'd cut that pyramid to remove the top two elements. Not replacing them with anything, just leaving a halfway-pyramid. I feel like people nowadays expect games to provide things games aren't meant to provide. A storyline is one such example. Sure, they CAN provide those things... but it changes virtually nothing. A game has to be fun. Everything else is a minor bonus.

Thinking about the games I've recently played that have hit that top hierarchy for me. Journey, Celeste, Tunic, Super Metroid, Spark the Electric Jester 3. They do all seem to hit those boxes. There are some weird outliers though. The Beginner's Guide has some clunk here and there (even unintentionally), but I still came away loving it. Also not sure about Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, cuz a lot of the games are archaic as heck and don't play well with modern controllers (controllers need, like, a scroll wheel or something to make Pong fun again), but I still came away appreciating the package overall due to how it presents the history.

I think this video explains better than anything why I just couldn't get into Horizon Zero Dawn. The menuing was too convoluted and poorly explained, and I just never wanted to engage with any of the game's systems that involved the menu, which was basically all of them. It probably would have met a lot of things higher up the chain, but it just couldn't get past that UI/UX level.

Tfw the part about learning the game and the brief picture of the game journalist not getting Dark Souls is true for some people and they really can’t just learn as they go

Did you guys just turned 100k subs? Congrats!

I'd be willing to argue the UI / UX need should be the base underneath basic understanding of gameplay. To me, a lot of the time, a bad UI or bad organization of game options, sub-menus, and the like can make it hard to want to understand the basics of the game. There are SO many games I've just up and returned before I even scratched the tutorial because I tried taking in all the menus (with no basic understanding of what any one window or option truly was) and couldn't figure out exactly what the point of any of it was. I think the little inconveniences of bad UI can be a death-of-1000-cuts situation that makes any potentially playable game not worth the effort. Plus, if you go through a discovery queue on Steam, you can point out any number of BAD UI elements in a given trailer or preview image and just know whether or not you will have any patience to want to mess with it. Certain genres are more or less off limits because so many of the ones I've experienced have the UI's I cannot stand with just too much on the screen at once. Maybe it's just me, but bad UI is such a dealbreaker to me.

I remember I had a big frustration with fifa 23 about the ui/ux. I hadn't owned a football game since 2005, I had recently purchased it, and I was having a game party at my house. We wanted to make a local OFFLINE tournament, and OMG, we took like 15 minutes trying to find how to do that. We gave up and then decided to go with singular matches (which took us a couple of minutes to find) and organized the tournament in a board outside the game. To this day I consider that game's ui to be the worst I've known. Perhaps people that grow up playing many fifas throughout these years don't have that problem.

I never thought of it as a hierarchy need before but that's certainly interesting. I'll say the UI/UX is my number one pet peeve.

For me personally, the game that fulfills all those needs is Shovel Knight. In fact, Shovel Knight is the direct inspiration for Project Hop (I will not be elaborating).

For me, one game that met all of those listed needs was Garden Story. I didn’t expect it to stick with me as much as it did, but I really fell in love with that game. (Edit: fixed a spelling mistake)

Fun fact, this show inspired Mat Pat to create game theory.

Not gonna lie, the other more recent videos from extra credits felt more like entertainment with a dash of forgettable education but this video’s lesson stuck with me. Keep it up, and we’re back in the extra credits golden age. W extra credits studio

I played through most of outriders on my first play session because it was extremely engaging to me. It was absolutely wonderful.

Good UI makes SUCH an impact. I used to adore playing Mercy back in Overwatch 1, and it wasn't until Overwatch 2 took over that I realized how much of my love for playing that character was tied up in OW1's excellent UI design. Mercy in Overwatch 2 has the same abilities as end-of-life OW1 Mercy, but her gameplay _feels_ so much less intuitive - and not-insignificant part of that is because of the new UI. Overwatch 2 "updated" all of Overwatch 1's HUD icons and visual/sound effects with new versions, but most of them are direct _downgrades_ that actively make it harder to parse what's going on.

I feel the one game for me that fits the pyramid would have to be Baldurs Gate 3. It has a really good story and the strategy of this game is fun as well as entertaining.

Thank you for the video.

PANR has tuned in.

My teacher just taught us this today and you guys used maslov's hierarchy in gaming. Now I understand it more effectively thank you.❤❤❤

I just tried my first game of Wheels in the game Sea of Stars. I skipped the tutorial and went about my game. When I tried to play Wheels in the second town, I was totally lost. When I tied at the end, I felt good for figuring it out, though I do wonder what I missed in the tutorial.

Side Discussion: What games have actually hit the top of the pyramid? Self Fulfillment. Spirit Fairer? That Dragon Cancer? Brothers? And what DID that game deliver for you?

I really should play more of Hollow Knight. Only played a bit of it. Also, the bit about the music and gameplay not matching at all is part of what makes the Dynasty Warriors series so good most of the time. Wario Land 3 is my top game of all time, which I think checks all of the things on this pyramid. Pokemon Gold lost me when it said I had to trade to get some creatures.

These days I'm just happy if a game is released in a finished state. Baldur's gate 3 & Warhammer 40k rogue trader are two examples of games that drop significantly in quality after the second act & totally killed all enjoyment for me. Sadly, I don't see companies stop doing this because the games get good score and reviews anyway.

Crusader King problem is no joke. There's a tutorial as. Count of Munster, but the game missed so many basic controls and features in it's features. Had to see so many tutorials, tips & tricks and playthrough alongside playing to understand the game loop.

As I watched this video I began to ponder what elements were missing or didn't connect with me in games I tried to get into but failed to enjoy, especially MMOs. It made me appriciate the few I actually do enjoy even more. Something like PSO2NGS does a lot more to engage me in it's systems and narrative than the majority of MMOs. In my experience many MMOs feel lacking in a viseral moment to moment gameplay experience which combined with much of the most exciting content being locked to endgame can make the core fantasy feel unachiveable or simply lacking. Poor controls, optimization, and ui on console ports can make it even worse. MMOs and MMOlites that can get past these issues are typically the ones I stick with and the ones that ultimately reach those higher levels of this scale where I am actively thinking positively about the game and it's universe beyond what my actual playtime states.

Flixl-stix mention! \o/

When I play a game I look for either a plot reason to play or a gameplay goal to get me interested like either get to this point the story because you’re interested in the story or play this much of the game to unlock some new content and if a game doesn’t have a good story or reward system then I’m not interested

The cake is not a lie!!!

One game that I played that really suffered from a "missing" bottom tier was The Sims Castaways for the Wii. I owned Castaways for both the PC and the Wii. The game play on the Wii was much more fun in my opinion, less pointlessly linear, but the controls were obviously designed for a standard game cube controller. The Wii controller was horrible for this game. Worst of all, there was no option of using a regular controller even though you could plug one in. It made an otherwise fun game into a truly unpleasant experience.

Wait a sec, did Matt just use the ad read to come out?

I KNEW IT WAS CAKE!

I'm glad you mentioned Hollow Knight, it quickly became my favorite game of all time, it's the perfect cute, with the haunting feeling of loss that souls games have fostered. It's so amazing.

2:28 Gaming news for breakfast fans unite for a game of flixil sticks!!

I don't particularly think any of those things in the pyramid apply to me. Sometimes for me, I only want to play a game because I know how famous it is, or how much of a credibility it has among critics and developers who cite it as an influence, or if it appears in all those top 10 and top 100 lists. And the other big reason is the story. Sometimes I've been able to withstand truly unacommodating games just because of the creative fascination and development history that they had hiding behind the veil.

I've heard that The Darkness game by 2K games maybe getting a remake or remaster soon!

3:09 Pay attention RS3

3:58 Rasputin Aquato Cameo

I'm watching this video trying to figure out why I bounced so hard of Baulder's Gate 3, ad a game on paper that I should have loved. The only thing I can think having watched the breakdown is that it got up to "Experience of the Core Fantasy" and was just incongruous with why I play D&D. BG3 Feels like it contains the trappings of D&D but it doesn't provide the same feeling I get from playing D&D and so well... it doesn't work for me.

Nice

I think about my third favorite game Rain World on the daily, I have plushies, my RU-vid channel is built on it, my first large solo project I’m currently working on is a video on the game, and if I ever get a tattoo it will be from Rain World. The same for Outer Wilds and Hollowknight to a lesser extent (despite them being my #1 and #2 favorite games respectively), nice to see you play Hollowknight, if you haven’t played Outer Wilds or Rain World I highly recommend them, the only two games I truly consider to be high art

the only rough part of this Model is that the higher up the list you go. the more subjective it gets.... and honestly you can reasonably stop at 3. not everyone is going to find your game a brain teaser or an inspiration... also these elements aren't always equal Person 5 differently Fails Step 1. but it excels everywhere else... UI is very snappy and Stylized. Dungeons are very engaging. (the Social Sim maybe a little Rail Roady compared to P4 but meh) Persona fusing is a long term engagement. and the whole Human Cognition and Living Cognition thing is something that has stuck with me. i point excitedly whenever i see another piece of fiction use that style of fiction. can't see Yellow Eyes the same way

Basics of play and UI/UX *are* hugely important. I bounced off one game because the tutorial, while present, didn't teach basic things like ..dodging. Same game, the controls were a muddled mess of combination buttons because it was feature-creeped to heck and back. And that dodge command? HOLD a button. Awful for a game of split-second timing.

I know a game that is amazing but fails on the first level, TABG (totally accurate battle grounds) I’ve gotten many story out of that game I think about it all the time and the sound is amazing in game and visuals responsive but the game has no tutorial I’ve met knew player that didn’t know you could go prone or know how to change spectating POV it’s so fun but hard to get into

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs? *Starving artist has entered the chat*

Wow

Maslow's actual hierarchy is sort of nonsense, though. In many countries where a large share of the population is malnourished, people will still spend large sums on organising celebrations (e.g. relatively lavish weddings) rather than using it to buy more food. Basic needs like food do not need to be met before people will start pursuing social needs.

😂 I haven't seen Maslow cited since the 1970s.

I just typed yesterday=the best games are 1s you play/watch.

I personally believe that the psychological needs need to be met first before the mechanics and gameplay. I'd rather play a flawed game mechanically if it has a good story, art style, or aesthetic that make it worth grinding through versus a mechanically good game that has a boring, ugly, or uninteresting style to it. Though some games can be so mechanically broken that no matter what style art you put into it won't be playable but that is an extreme case. An example for me is Terra Nil. Mechanically the game is a pretty shallow puzzle game and is extremely short but the style and art of the game makes it very enjoyable to play. This is why I like Monster Hunter 3 over Dark Souls 1 when they have very similar mechanics (big boss monsters that can kill you in 1 or 2 hits). One makes you feel like a bad ass while the other makes you feel pathetic. I could name several other "flawed but fun" games add to this.

Welcome to the Hollow Knight fandom, enjoy your complimentary Silksong-shaped inner void. ;)

I never speacted for a pdx game to ve mention here, huh. They always seemed too niche for them to be covered in extra credits.

I like the idea of this episode, but the way it was presented makes all layers feel equal, if not that the higher layers are more important. The whole point of the pyramid analogy is that the foundational levels are the most important - that without them, the upper "enrichment" layers don't actually mean anything and crumble under their own weight. I think this episode could have used a bit more reiteration that "without the strong foundation of intuitive gameplay and solid UI/UX, great visuals or other artistry don't actually mean anything because there will be no players getting far enough to actually experience it. But if you do have that strong foundation, the artistry elevates it from a 'functional game' to a 'good game'." and then "without strong foundational gameplay, UI/UX, and artistry, the emotional heart of the game doesn't mean anything because nobody is paying attention. But once you have that foundation in place, the emotional heart elevates the experience from a 'good game' to a 'meaningful game'."

Care to explain how people in Bethesda Fallout games care little for shelter? There's tons of buildings made of stone available, but they remain boarded up, while sheet metal huts are used. Food also doesn't seem to be something needed, with the exception of New Vegas, were farms and water pumps exist. Seems for world-building, Maslow is pretty much being ignored

Are you guys back to normal now?

Early for once!

You mean seed soup.

But the cake is a lie!

The cake is a lie The cake is a lie The cake is a lie....

Is the podcast era finally over and you're back to these great scripted videos only?

I think intuitive UI/UX should be rephrased, because I have a two word counter argument to the idea you need that to get more out of a game - Dwarf Fortress. Nobody would tell you that UI is anything but horrendous, but lots of people get deep fulfillment out of it regardless. I think that stage is more accurately described as a version of the previous one - after you understand the basic elements of play, you need to be able to smoothly and easily execute those elements. UI is the main part of that, but even if your UI is a crime against graphic design, there's going to be some people who can still get through it and become able to smoothly execute the basic ideas regardless.

But... dwarf fortress?

So i liked all of it, up until the top of the pyramid, I don't need a game to effect my real life, I have real life that effects my real life. Time to grow up kids, the real world's waiting. Most video games are toys, with a little art, the high art/meaningful games are rare and in a different league, to expect that all of them can fulfill the last part of this hierarchy is unrealistic and even a tad manipulative.

Maslow's "key insight" that needs are in a hierarchy is not universally accepted by modern psychology. In fact, the only people that really buy into it are in more applied fields. It's taken as common sense in teaching, for example, but that concept is far from true, and too much adherence to it can lead to problems too.

Different players definitely have different levels of tolerance for it, but HAVING to leave the game, literally turn it off, and go to the internet in order to learn the basics of how to play it is bad design, right? Note, not necessarily the optimum strategies, just ways to kill bosses not die, and not get stuck for hours /days / weeks / oops too late I quit at hours. I would say Cuphead does this well, whereas Dark Souls 1 through 3 (and other FromSoft games too) do this absolutely terribly. You can ruin the entire game before you even start playing by making an unviable build at character creation. What things do and how to use them is intentionally obfuscated. The easiest way to add an easy mode to any of these games is to copy and paste a 10 minute "how to" from RU-vid on the actual options of play, some advice for good character choices for new players, and such. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, maybe gamers like it when games don't fulfill this need so they can feel better about themselves for summiting it, but I don't like it.

I think it's probably very wrong in actuality, look at all the AAA games coming out with horrific UI, UX, bad tutorials, and still be successful just due to the so called top of the pyramid

Personally, one of my biggest draws to a game is a good character creator, I've found that I have little to no interest in a game that throws a character at me. Like, I know hollow knight for example is a good game, but I've never been able to enjoy it much. Meanwhile Sims 4, which is a sad little failure of a buggy mess, has gained 1000+ hours on steam alone, mostly creating sims to live in a world, lol.

What do orcs look like?

cat

No offense but the ad read transition at the end was absolutely profoundly discomforting experience. eating sounds and drinking sounds not even seconds after hitting the satisfying end note *shudder* what a whiplash

Havent watched this channel in like, 4 years. Is this still a woke channel or did they decide to like not alienating 90% of the planet? Hope someone here can help me out as a reply, if they are I wont watch this video and ill leave forever, if they arent ill slowly start watching videos from this channel again

"learnt" → tell whatever UK or Ausie writer you have that they have to write American words for their American narrator. Also, you (Matt) really should just change their "learnt" to "learned" when you read it. Unless you sound like some kind of non-American, saying "learnt" is going to sound out of place, even if it's not technically "wrong."

I would argue that there's another way to analyze the Maslow hierarchy, which is from the position of theory of mind. Humans require social interaction and affirmation, so when we engage when fiction, there is a part of us that requires affirmation. I experienced the opposite during the Last Jedi, as someone who wanted to get into the Star Wars franchise, but felt like the director was talking over me to the established audience, making me feel unwelcome. We see something similar in PVP, where new players are made to feel insecure by established players who have a very different theory of mind for other players.