Call of Duty: Modern Warfare by Mikhail Shumilin

The Change of Multiplayer FPS Design PSY 101: Paper 2

Video games that focus on multiplayer have always tried new things to entice players to

keep coming back and playing more. Today, First-person Shooter (FPS) games are synonymous

with online multiplayer, and the success of the game often depends on how popular the

multiplayer is. This leaves the market with only two or three games to be considered popular

enough for players to keep playing and coming back to for long periods of time. The Call of

Duty: Modern Warfare series is considered widely successful for employing new techniques to

draw in players and keep them coming back for more. Modern Warfare changed the way FPS

games were experienced online, drew in new crowds, and set the standard which many games

try to emulate today.

Before Modern Warfare came along, FPS games online did what they were advertised to

do – offer the players fun in small bursts. Players would get into matches with others, play the

match, and be done. Doing well in matches would not influence that particular match, it would

only change a number on a leader board, nothing more. Statistics were kept passively in a

leader board behind the hood, like player wins and losses and while anyone could view them,

the problem is that the leader board is a passive form of gratification for players - it already

happened in the past. The only satisfaction would be from winning the game or getting a good

kill / death ratio, but that also happened in the past.

Unreal Tournament, released in 1999 is a PC FPS shooter, which focused solely on

competitive multiplayer. The game employed a system that added some gratification if the

player was doing well in a match. Players that would get “killstreaks”, or eliminate other enemy

players, without dying themselves would get positive reinforcement audio cues from an
announcer in-game. For example, if a player was to eliminate 3 enemies without dying, the

announcer would congratulate the player with a “Killing Spree” announcement, also making the

player name be known to everyone in the game to gratify them. As the player eliminated more

and more enemies, they were awarded with more titles such as “Dominating”, “Unstoppable”

and “Godlike”. While these did provide some positive reinforcement for the player, the audio

cues did not alter the game in any way, other than maybe stimulate the player with some

adrenaline, possibly helping him perform better. Then, that was it for the longest time. Some

new FPS games would try to emulate something similar, and add a couple minor things here

and there like allowing the player to change their character, or upgrade their gun, but the

gameplay still remained the same – shoot players with your weapon to win a match and be

done with it.

Then, in fall of 2007, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was released by Infinity Ward. The

game is widely credited for revolutionizing the FPS multiplayer genre. Modern Warfare proved

to be a tremendous success, selling over 13 million (vgchartz.com) units worldwide. So what did

Modern Warfare do differently from its competitors that allowed it to stand out? I believe that

it takes advantage of the player psyche, utilizing numerous short-term and long-term systems

to keep players engaged and coming back for more.

The biggest game changer that Modern Warfare (MW) introduced was something called

“killstreak bonuses”. When a player eliminates enemies on the opposite team, without dying

themselves, that player gains an advantage over others. Instead of audio cues congratulating

the player a la Unreal Tournament, the player actually gets rewarded with tools that they can

utilize to get future kills easier.

 The more kills in a row without dying the player obtains, the more powerful the

rewards, and the easier it is to eliminate enemies. At the start of the match, everyone has an

equal chance to get kill streak rewards, more or less. Players must rely on their skills with their

starting weapon to eliminate 3 enemy players without dying themselves. After obtaining 3 kills,

the player is allowed to call in a UAV, which shows enemy positions on a mini-map for a period

of time for the player and his team. Already, the player and his team have an advantage over

others – they can see where the enemy is, translating to more chances of them getting more

kills without dying themselves. After obtaining 2 more kills for a total of 5, the player can call in

an airstrike and bombard an area on the map, getting easy kills without having to actually be

there and shoot people with his gun. If it’s a skillful player, he knows the chokepoints of the

map, or areas which usually always have people fighting in it, and he will call the airstrike on

that specific area. In many cases, he can get the 2 needed kills right there and then for the next

reward, reaching a killstreak of 7. At this point in the game, the player can call in an AI

controlled helicopter which automatically flies around the map and shoots enemies, without

the player having to actually do anything. He can just hide in a building, and wait as his chopper

guns down enemies for him, without any player interaction.

Logically, it may not make a lot of sense at first. Why should the best player on a team

be granted abilities which allow him to kill other players even more easily? Shouldn’t the game

reward the least successful player to even up the playing field? The answer is motivation and

goals. The reason that this method is balanced is because a player is constantly motivated to

keep doing better by a “carrot on a string”, which always dangles in front of the player.

The killstreak rewards act as continuous positive reinforcers for players, and a goal to
strive for. Interestingly, if a player gets 7 kills in a row, many times, he will be shaped into being

more careful in obtaining his last kill because of a huge positive consequence it carries of a

helicopter and more free kills. It’s not unbalanced either because if a player calls in a helicopter,

it doesn’t automatically mean that he or his team will win the match. Many times, another

player on the opposite team can obtain the same rewards and balance out the game. The game

also offers players the choice to use the killstreak bonuses – they don’t have to if they don’t

want to (although they always do, because there is no positives in not using them).

The radar which reveals enemy players on the field after a successful 3rd kill is coupled

with something called the Hot Hand Fallacy (prominent in gambling), which is the player

thinking that he’s on a “roll” and will continue to perform well, having better chances at

obtaining more kills after his 3rd consecutive kill. It’s true that the hot hand fallacy does not

actually help the player do better (after all, it’s all in his head) – but mentally, it’s a strong force,

giving the player positive, confident thoughts. (Psychology of Games)

Modern Warfare also offers numerous passive goals to the player. As players are playing

the game, they earn experience points (XP) and move up ranks from 0 to 55. MW offers the

players many challenges that they can do to gain XP. The challenges range from easy to hard,

and the frequencies from short-term completion time to long-term completion time. An

example of a short-term challenge is eliminating 10 players with a certain weapon, and a long-

term challenge would be running 25 miles in game, which players will eventually get just from

playing the game, no matter how good they are at it. Interestingly, MW employs a clever

system which turns short-term goals into long-term ones – for example bumping the number of

players to eliminate with a certain gun from 10 (part 1 of challenge), to 100 (part 2), to 500
(final part), with each part giving the player significantly more XP than the previous. These

challenges can be done in any match, and are usually available to the player in large groups. As

players complete challenges, they earn XP, which level up their character rank, and in turn

unlock more challenges for more XP. All these things come together and classically condition

the player to keep playing to earn XP, move up ranks, unlocking new weapons and upgrades.

Much like a drug craving, offering pleasure to drug abusers, players get pleasure from unlocking

new weapons and seeing their rank number increase, matching it directly against their friends

and other players. Killstreak bonuses are also a good example of operant conditioning, giving

players a positive goal to strive for again and again. “These behaviors that produce rewarding

effects are strengthened that is, they become likely to occur again.” (Psychology: Concepts and

Applications) Killstreaks also act on a fixed-ration schedule, providing players with positive

reinforcement after a set number of kills, while XP for winning a game is on an fixed-interval

schedule.

XP and a rank number builds on a player’s ego, but how important is it? After reaching

the final rank of 55, MW does not award the player with any more XP, therefore cutting off a

vital source of positive reinforcement. After playing the game for hours, and watching XP build

up, suddenly it just stops. In response to this, MW gives the player an option to go into

“Prestige” mode, which resets all their rank, rewards, and challenges back to 0, but puts a

special icon next to the player’s name in lobbies. It’s a question of player choice and motivation

– is the player desensitized enough because he’s not seeing XP accrue? Is the player getting

bored of not earning anything? In my experience, most players enter “Prestige” mode. The

players can also “Prestige” 10 times, earning a different icon every time. This makes the game
highly addictive, and effectively prolongs the game time by 10 (!) times if a player wants to earn

all the best icon and be considered the best by his peers.

The sequel, Modern Warfare 2, released in fall of 2009, gives the player even more

options and builds on an already addictive system of reinforcement. Instead of set rewards

from 3, 5, and 7 consecutive kills, players can customize their reward for consecutive killstreaks

ranging from 3 – 11 – 15 to the coveted nuclear missile which is awarded if the player obtains

25 kills without dying and automatically ends the game in favor of the player (it’s insane, but it

happens!). The rewards are mostly balanced out in a way that players are not allowed to have a

reward at 3 kills, but have a powerful one at 5. This brings gambling and skill to the table – is

the player good enough to earn 5 kills without the help of a radar?

With all these positive reinforcers, does the game offer any negative ones? The answer

is mostly no. Positive psychology (The New York Times) is at play here. Yes, a player has to wait

a couple seconds to respawn if they die, but that’s it. XP is never lost, only gained. MW decides

to flood a player with so much positive reinforcement, that no matter what you do in the game,

you feel accomplished and end up walking away pleased. With punishment, you don’t learn

new behaviors, punishment can leave undesirable consequences, and it may become abusive,

driving the player to stop playing the game. (Psychology: Concepts and Applications) This brings

another question to the table – is it possible to be positively reinforced so much that the player

eventually gets desensitized by that same positive reinforcement and stops caring about

playing the game? Should designers try to utilize subtractive design to subtract elements

instead of filling the game to the brink with positive reinforcers? Surprisingly at least according
to the sales numbers, and the thousands of people playing Modern Warfare online up to this

day, no.
WORK CITED:
VG CHARTZ. 2005-2010. http://www.vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=modern+warfare

Psychology of Games. Madigan, Jamie. Hot Hand Fallacy and Kill Streaks in Modern Warfare 2.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2009/12/26/hot-hand-fallacy-and-kill-streaks-in-modern-
warfare-2/#comments

Nevid, Jeffrey. Psychology: Concepts and Applications (3rd Edition). Wadsworth Publishing. Pgs.
188, 197.

D.T. Max. The New York Times. Happiness 101. January 7th, 2007.

Sirlin, David. Game Developer Magazine. March 2009. Balancing multiplayer competitive
games. Pgs. 188, 197.