ROTSHARP, mirror-ape ogre

Freud's "death drive", rather than being a force in every human's mind, is an overgeneralisation of the Germanic memetic hazard of wanting to immanentise Ragnarök such that one's own shitty little culturally Protestant children may be the Líf and Lífþrasir who repopulate Earth.

this is the only password i remember partially because cohost doesnt do all the awful shit i hate about password requirements

We posted a really lovely deep dive yesterday from Xu He, a senior game designer at Ustwo Games—on designing games (multiplayer games, specifically) that encourage empathy and altruistic behavior. It's partially an analysis of two games (Popcannibal's 2019 anonymous letter writing game Kind Words and Thatgamecompany's 2019 open-world social title Sky: Children of the Light), and partially a look at social psychology research on altruism.

A couple of key points!

If altruistic behavior can lead to some rewarding feedback, it is more likely to happen. In Kind Words, the reward is a thank-you sticker from the player you helped and a decoration for your in-game room. In Sky, the reward is sometimes a candle from those you help or the benefit of having more friends.

However, be aware that too much extrinsic motivation damages intrinsic motivation. The reward should be a side consequence rather than the main reason players help others.

This was also very cool to see:

As a bonus, other than making a more compassionate world, altruism can also benefit your game’s long-term retention. Research from Kang A.R. et al. (2014) found that having experience of being helped or helping others in the game can significantly increase players’ 90-day retention for the game.

In short, encouraging altruism in online multiplayer games can create a positive social experience for the players, which will keep the players staying longer in the games and bring a profound positive impact to the world beyond the games. I hope this article encourages more developers to consider altruism in their games.