I would have preferred that the donation stayed flat for the first 45 seconds. The people who win the award should be granted an opportunity to have some kind of acceptance speech. I don't think it's fair to them to be pressured to finish as quickly as possible.
I don't know if it would have totally 'solved' the issue, but I think it would have been better.
I wonder how much of the plan was pre-communicated to the winners. I certainly would've been upset if that was sprung on me at the last minute! But yeah, an interesting strategy gone awry. I wonder what would be a better incentive in that case... Also, I love the idea of viewing these sorts of things through the lens of game design. Great idea!
I thought you were going to go a different direction with this, actually. When I initially heard about it, I thought it was a clever little plan. And to address Ray's point, which I think is valid, Nate Bargatze mentioned that only taking away money would kind of feel bad. Although I initially agreed, now I'm not so sure.
Where I thought you were going with this was that it sort of set people up for a dual loss aversion crisis, a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. Essentially, if they ran long, they lost money for the charity, but if they went short, they lost time for their speech. No matter what choice they made, they lost something. Sure, you were helping the charity gain something, but that doesn't necessarily feel good if it's costing you your moment to celebrate.
This also plays into your point on incentivizing behavior versus player experience. I think for Bargatze and the people running the Emmys, they were probably thinking of the audience as the players. But the ity is that celebrities are the players, and the audience probably could see their frustration and discomfort. Few people enjoy watching people being miserable in a game.
Given this aspect of the structure, they *were* only taking away money:
"...he would increase the donation by $1,000 for every second the presenters were under 45 seconds."
What this means, in effect, is that the base donation amount is actually $145,000 and every second the winner takes for their speech is taking money away from the donation.
It's absolutely a no-win situation for the presenters. Either they have to give up their opportunity to have a moment to acknowledge a monumental professional achievement, or take money away from the charity and come off as selfish and egotistical (which most regular people are probably already inclined to believe).
I think as an incentive to keep speeches from going long, it could be okay. But it ended up as an incentive for there to be no speech at all, which I feel is unfair.
I'm thinking the penalty minutes turn into cash from the offender's wallet. That way the charity is never losing money, it's just a question of who's paying. Sounds like a few volunteered to pay up and buy extra minutes anyway. So it's more like a speech minutes exchange market. Then people could hedge their minutes and buy futures in next year's speech. Aaaand, I'm in a death spiral.
You make a great point about being flexible while playtesting. I've found that it's a crucial skill to observe when players are losing interest in the game and adapt to make the most of their (and your) time.
I would have preferred that the donation stayed flat for the first 45 seconds. The people who win the award should be granted an opportunity to have some kind of acceptance speech. I don't think it's fair to them to be pressured to finish as quickly as possible.
I don't know if it would have totally 'solved' the issue, but I think it would have been better.
I wonder how much of the plan was pre-communicated to the winners. I certainly would've been upset if that was sprung on me at the last minute! But yeah, an interesting strategy gone awry. I wonder what would be a better incentive in that case... Also, I love the idea of viewing these sorts of things through the lens of game design. Great idea!
I thought you were going to go a different direction with this, actually. When I initially heard about it, I thought it was a clever little plan. And to address Ray's point, which I think is valid, Nate Bargatze mentioned that only taking away money would kind of feel bad. Although I initially agreed, now I'm not so sure.
Where I thought you were going with this was that it sort of set people up for a dual loss aversion crisis, a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. Essentially, if they ran long, they lost money for the charity, but if they went short, they lost time for their speech. No matter what choice they made, they lost something. Sure, you were helping the charity gain something, but that doesn't necessarily feel good if it's costing you your moment to celebrate.
This also plays into your point on incentivizing behavior versus player experience. I think for Bargatze and the people running the Emmys, they were probably thinking of the audience as the players. But the ity is that celebrities are the players, and the audience probably could see their frustration and discomfort. Few people enjoy watching people being miserable in a game.
Given this aspect of the structure, they *were* only taking away money:
"...he would increase the donation by $1,000 for every second the presenters were under 45 seconds."
What this means, in effect, is that the base donation amount is actually $145,000 and every second the winner takes for their speech is taking money away from the donation.
It's absolutely a no-win situation for the presenters. Either they have to give up their opportunity to have a moment to acknowledge a monumental professional achievement, or take money away from the charity and come off as selfish and egotistical (which most regular people are probably already inclined to believe).
I think as an incentive to keep speeches from going long, it could be okay. But it ended up as an incentive for there to be no speech at all, which I feel is unfair.
I'm thinking the penalty minutes turn into cash from the offender's wallet. That way the charity is never losing money, it's just a question of who's paying. Sounds like a few volunteered to pay up and buy extra minutes anyway. So it's more like a speech minutes exchange market. Then people could hedge their minutes and buy futures in next year's speech. Aaaand, I'm in a death spiral.
You make a great point about being flexible while playtesting. I've found that it's a crucial skill to observe when players are losing interest in the game and adapt to make the most of their (and your) time.