The Effectiveness of the Illusion of Choice
By: David Gerald Saunders
Supervisor: Myque Ouellette
Masters of Interactive Technology degree conferred May 15, 2010
Thesis / Project completed: August 9, 2010

As technology grows and game systems become more complex, the ability for players to meaningfully determine the direction of story and player progression becomes ever more sought after.  However, this freedom comes at a cost – every new player choice requires additional art assets, voice recordings, or other forms of expensive manpower.  The Illusion of Choice gives designers a way to create the impression of large, complex worlds, without the huge cost of doing so.

This project first looks at ways in which designers can use the Illusion of Choice to give players a meaningful experience.  Then it explores how effective these methods are at giving players the sense of agency they crave.  Twenty two testers played a level in the Fallout 3 (G.E.C.K.) game engine created specifically to test the Illusion of Choice.  The hypothesis for the project was that players could indeed be fooled by the Illusion of Choice.
Throughout the level, players encountered numerous dialogue and path choices.  Ultimately, regardless of any of the choices players made, the outcome of each choice was the same.  All the dialogue responses were the same, all the treasure choices gave the same rewards, and all the paths lead to the same place.

The study was successful in identifying a number of instances where using the Illusion of Choices was effective, though it also pointed out a number of instances where players easily saw through the Illusion of Choice.  When players receive positive rewards, they are much less likely to question whether or not they have been tricked.  Conversely, when players receive negative rewards, they are much more likely to question the outcome of their results.  Additionally, players are more often able to see through the Illusion of Choice in instances where it is used in a detectable pattern.

What the study did not hypothesize was the strength of the correlation between player type and the ability to be fooled by the Illusion of Choice.  Those players who tend to like games with multiple choices were much less likely to be fooled than those players who tend to play those types of games less frequently.  Those players who would rather run and gun than spend time worrying about the consequences of their choices were much more likely to be fooled by the Illusion of Choice.  These findings leave plenty of room for further investigation into this topic.

Download entire thesis (.pdf)