The Lizard and the Ape

The Lizard and the Ape: churn and long term engagement in competitive multiplayer games

If you’re reading this, odds are you’re familiar with the lizard brain and primate brain framework popularized by Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow”. If not, here’s the short version: our brain has two modes of working. The lizard brain or fast brain makes incredibly quick but not very sophisticated choices. It’s your brain on autopilot. It’s very efficient as far as energy usage goes and almost automatic. Your primate brain or slow brain actually does something we’d recognize as thinking. It generally comes to better conclusions, but does so at the cost of more processing time and more energy used.

In video games, we apply these concepts to *how* you’re engaging with the game in front of you. In competitive multiplayer games particularly, there are two engagement modes: one, corresponding to the lizard brain, is reacting as quickly and precisely as possible to stimuli as they arise, click the man’s head or dodge the Thresh hook. These problems don’t require complex analysis; there’s an obvious correct thing to do, and if you do it faster and more precisely than the other player, you win.

The primate brain of video games is where things like theorycrafting come in. When should I use which resource? How should I build my character in League, or what weapon should I pick up in Apex? Should I rotate early with the ring and grab a free building or should I hug the ring’s edge and move carefully? Should I split push top or be with my team as they set up for a dragon?

Here’s the first insight: lizard brain problems are more satisfying and fun in the moment, and the brain rewards that which is immediately satisfying. It makes you crave more. Often the primate brain problems suffer from serious consequence lag: whether or not the call to split push instead of staying with your team was correct becomes obvious much later, if at all. Lizard brain activities drive adrenaline and excitement, and even if you lose an engagement, it tends to be over quickly and then you go again. (League’s big slow death problem notwithstanding; objective bounties helped somewhat, but the game where you know you’ve lost 15 minutes in but have to play another 15 minutes is still one of League’s bigger problems.)

Here’s the second insight: games that index too highly on lizard brain problems burn bright, but like a flash in the pan they’re gone in a very short time. The history of competitive multiplayer games is littered with their corpses: every Call of Duty multiplayer (as opposed to Warzone) mode, the Titanfalls, Battlerite, and so on. The DAU curve for these games is a sudden spike that drops off as suddenly; from an individual player’s perspective, the story often goes like this:

Oh wow, this game is fun and intense! I love it! I want to play nothing else! I’m getting all my friends to play. *two weeks later* Huh weird I haven’t launched that game in a while and I really don’t feel like it. What’s up with that?

The reason is a combination of burnout and lack of novelty. Being 100% engaged and on every second is really fun while you’re in it, but it’s draining in the long run. An individual choice may be easier to make in lizard brain mode, but you’re typically also fielding a hundred times as many choices, and your concentration has to be fully engaged for the entire time.

The other half of the reason is that games that are just about reacting more quickly and more precisely than the other side start feeling very similar very quickly. Even games like Battlerite, where you have an astounding number of potential combinations of characters on your team and the enemy team, you still do more or less the same thing each time.

There seem to be two exceptions to this rule; well, perhaps they aren’t exceptions. I don’t play these genres enough to be at all knowledgeable, so this part of the essay becomes a call for experts from these genres: Fighting Games and … Rocket League.

But before I can cogently ask you a question about these two types of games, I think I need to define my terms a little better, or at least make an attempt to distinguish lizard problems from primate problems.

Lizard brain type problems tend to be limited to a very short timeframe: they ask what do I do right now, and other than the usual depletion of resources like health, ammo, or the building of resources like super bar or stacks of conqueror they have few long lasting effects. Primate brain problems can be theorycrafted beforehand: I can plan out an item build once I load into the game and see what champions are on my team and the enemy team; I can find an early Devotion and decide to look for a magazine and a turbocharger for it.

So, here’s my question: in fighting games or in Rocket League, how many primate brain type decisions do you make and can you list some examples of them?

My theory is that there’s a way to make games that are mostly about lizard brain problems work, but it’s half-assed because I don’t personally play any games that are mostly lizard brain and have shown long term success (I’m going to count Rocket League amongst successes, seeing how old it is and what a respectable player base it still commands; the FGC is clearly massive and maybe the better thing to break down).

I’ve been thinking about this subject recently while watching people play Omega Strikers, a game made by a new studio that includes a lot of former colleagues of mine. The craft and care is clearly on display, and people seem to be loving the game, but I can’t see how it wouldn’t fall pray to the lizard brain problem. It seems to be all in the moment reaction and decision making with very little downtime to think about the longer game and affect your chance to win by making smart calls. I might be wrong! I haven’t had a chance to play the game yet, so please do tell me if there’s something I’m overlooking.

Also, tell me if I’m being dumb in general here.