https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc This is the RSA Animate of Dan Pink's lecture on motivation. He suggest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc This is the RSA Animate of Dan Pink's lecture on motivation. He suggests there is a division between physical and mental tasks. This was tested with several experiments involving different reward schemes. As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected. The higher the pay, the better the performance. [...] Once the task called for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance. edit: The idea that penalties trump rewards probably explains why I've always liked roguelike games (and Touhou-style shooters). I've been playing way too much Nuclear Throne recently (and Risk Of Rain). As a roguelite, it strongly embraces the idea of "permadeath". Robotron/SmashTV style extra-fast action, that where you can never make a mistake (a single hit can end the game). Also, Nuclear Throne demonstrates an important implementation detail in something that uses such a strong punishment-based motivator: never put anything in the way of the player restarting after their mistakes. In NT, once the death animation has played (only a few frames, at most 200-300ms), you can hit "R" to restart the game at the first level. No delay whatsoever. Sure, the penalty is harsh, but you can try to overcome that failure immediately.