Human Agent Motivation

Human Agent Motivation is why a person plays: the drives, needs and expectations from which they engage in a Ludic Process - mastering something difficult, discovering, being together with others, creating something, switching off, winning, or a purpose beyond the game: an obligation, an aim to develop oneself. It is a profile, not a single cause: every person brings a mix, weighted differently.

It is separate from what the person can do (Human Agent Capacitas), how they tend to play (Human Agent Habitus) and what they experience (Ludic Experience). It comprises intrinsic drives that come from playing itself and extrinsic ones brought in from outside - the obligation in class, the expectation of the group, the profession. LUNA does not presuppose voluntariness: whether someone plays voluntarily is a question of motivation, not of the definition of play or agent. And it is changeable - situational, dependent on context and mood: whoever plays out of obligation on Monday may play out of curiosity on Thursday, and in the middle of a match obligation can tip into interest.

In everyday language

• “goal” (related): why someone plays (“my goal is to relax”). Does not distinguish the task the game sets, the intention of the designers and the drive of the players.

Place and design access

Place on the axis: AGENT - what the person brings; it precedes the process and can shift within it.

Design access: addressable - agents are addressable, not controllable; what can be regulated is their action space, not what they want. A game can address motivations, not produce them: tricky puzzles address curiosity and challenge, team tasks togetherness, leaderboards competition. Whether it takes hold is decided with the players.

Relations on the axis:

• CORPUS: Ludic Activity, Ludic Objective and Ludic Argumentum address it. Following Leontiev it stands at the level of the activity: the argumentum is the offered why, motivation one’s own.
• AGENT–CORPUS: the Ludic Frame addresses it too - a contest frame competition, a farm frame relaxation.
• AGENT: it is delimited against Human Agent Capacitas; with Human Agent Habitus it often correlates, but not necessarily.
• AGENT–PROCESS: it contributes to the Ludic Experience - whoever seeks challenge is more likely to find challenge, but not necessarily. From the Ludic Effectus it receives feedback: whoever succeeded in the compulsory quiz may come back out of interest. The Ludic Agent Situation modulates it - the evening after the shift, the compulsory lesson, the birthday.
• INTENT: the addressed agents are described also by their expected motivations; the Ludic Desiderata hold for them.

Delimitations

Delimitation from Human Agent Capacitas

Against Human Agent Capacitas: will and ability. Capacitas says what a person can do, motivation why they play. Someone who understands all the rules of a strategy game does not therefore want to play it; someone who absolutely wants to join in cannot therefore do everything the game demands.

Delimitation from Human Agent Habitus

Against Human Agent Habitus: why and how. Habitus says how someone plays, motivation why. The two often correspond - whoever seeks competition often plays riskily and competitively -, but not necessarily: whoever seeks the same challenge can approach it alone, cautiously and optimisingly.

Delimitation from Ludic Argumentum

Against Ludic Argumentum: one’s own and the offered why. The argumentum is the reason the game offers: the village must be saved. Motivation is the reason a person brings: they want to master something, to belong, to discover. The argumentum addresses motivation; whether it takes hold is decided with the players.

Delimitation from Ludic Objective

Against Ludic Objective: drive and task. The objective is the task - determined, with a condition of fulfilment, whether or not an agent takes it on. Motivation is the drive from which an agent engages; the agent brings it along. One player can leave the main goal aside and still play with joy, another follows it exactly. Whoever sets themselves a task invents not a motivation but an objective.

Examples

One table, three reasons. In a round of Catan one player wants to win and counts every victory point card; another is there because the family plays together; the youngest sits in because it is expected of him - until he realises he can trade sheep. The same game, three drives, and each demands something different of the game.

Further games, each with the drive they above all address:

• Dark Souls: managing something difficult and feeling oneself improve - challenge.
• Outer Wilds: wanting to know how the world works - curiosity as the only drive.
• Pandemic: together against the game - sociality.
• Minecraft in creative mode: building something of one’s own - expression.
• Stardew Valley: clearing one’s head, retreat to the countryside - relaxation.
• Kahoot! in class: the compulsory quiz - instrumental, from outside; whether obligation tips into interest, design helps to decide.
• Ring Fit Adventure: getting fitter - instrumental, a purpose of one’s own beyond the game.

Explanation

Why does someone sit down at a games table? One wants to win, another to be with friends, a third to discover something new - and some play because they must: in class, in therapy, at team building. That is Human Agent Motivation: not what someone can do and not how someone plays, but why.

Rarely is it one reason alone. Every person brings a mix, and the mix changes: whoever plays out of obligation today may play out of curiosity tomorrow.

Motivation cannot be produced, only addressed - tricky puzzles address curiosity, team tasks togetherness, leaderboards competition. So ask first why your players play, and then build a game that answers it. Obligation, too, is a motivation, and good design can turn obligation into interest.

Usage context

Dimension	Classification
Phase	Ideation (primary: why do your players play? - in the agent persona, before habitus); development (do activities, objectives, argumentum and frame address the expected motivations?); evaluation (expected versus actual motivations in the playtest)
Tool type	generative - eight cards (MOT-01 to MOT-08) and a blank card (MOT-BL) in the stack stacks/agent/human/motivation/; reference: tabulae/worksheet/agent-persona-worksheet.md (motivation field)

Theoretical foundation

• Deci and Ryan, self-determination theory (1985; extended 2000): three basic needs - autonomy, competence, relatedness - and the continuum of internalisation: extrinsic motivation is not deficient per se; it can be imposed or made one’s own. Hence the division of instrumental motivation in §10; the cards carry their mapping to the basic needs (sdt_mapping).
• Leontiev, Activity, Consciousness, and Personality: activity is led by a motive. LUNA assigns motivation to the level of the Ludic Activity; with the argumentum the game offers a why, the person brings their own.
• Yee (2006); Quantic Foundry (Yee and Ducheneaut, Gamer Motivation Model): empirical models of play motivation on which the clusters are oriented. LUNA deviates: media-neutral - analogue, digital, performative - and supplemented with instrumental motivation.
• Huizinga, Homo Ludens (1938); Caillois, Man, Play and Games (1958): voluntariness as a feature of play. LUNA deliberately deviates: voluntariness is a question of motivation, not of the definition of play.
• Hoffmann, Design and Instantiation of an Interactive Multidimensional Ontology for Game Design Elements (dissertation, 2022): 234 play motivations from 39 publications, matched against 92 human needs. The motives group much like the clusters; the literature on player types hardly knows instrumental motives - the two instrumental cards close this gap. LUNA deviates: Hoffmann takes play motivations as qualities of a game’s elements; LUNA separates the offer in the corpus from the person’s drive.

Subdimensions

Cluster	Card	how it sounds
Challenge (competence)	MOT-01 Challenge	”I want to manage something difficult and feel that I am getting better.”
Curiosity (curiosity)	MOT-02 Curiosity	”I want to know what lies around the next corner and understand how the system works.”
Sociality (sociality)	MOT-03 Togetherness	”I want to spend time with others and experience something together.”
Expression (expression)	MOT-04 Creation	”I want to create something of my own and show who I am.”
Relaxation (relaxation)	MOT-05 Escape	”I want to clear my head and immerse myself in another world.”
Competition (competition)	MOT-06 Rivalry	”I want to win and be better than the others - and have my victory recognised.”
Instrumental, from outside (instrumental)	MOT-07 Duty	”I have to do this - I don’t really feel like it, but the others expect it.”
Instrumental, own purpose (instrumental)	MOT-08 Growth	”I want to learn something new or develop myself through the game.”

Seven clusters, eight cards: instrumental motivation is divided - imposed from outside (Duty) or self-set (Growth). No closed taxonomy: a person brings a profile, a mix with different weighting; in the workshop at most two main motivations are chosen. Autonomy is not a card of its own but a quality of every motivation.

What does not belong here the stack has sorted out: Sensation and Thrill are qualities of experience (Ludic Experience), Leadership an inclination (Human Agent Habitus), Continuation an effect (Ludic Effectus). Likewise aesthetic pleasure is not a cluster of its own: pleasure in beauty is a quality of experience (sensation), taste an inclination (the aesthetic orientation of habitus); as a drive it falls under curiosity or relaxation.