Danc over at LostGarden has written an interesting article on how competitive games reward or punish different groups of players.
Quote from: http://lostgarden.com/2009/11/testosterone-and-competitive-play.html
Lately I've been digging into research on testosterone. Over the past decade, scientists have been placing players in competitive situations and then measuring how their testosterone fluctuations predict future behavior. What you find from looking at the studies is that both winners and losers will leave your game if they are placed in a set of predictable situations involving dominance, luck, and friendship.
There are four points that have experimental support:
- How playing with friends affects the testosterone in winning and losing players
- How playing with strangers affects the testosterone in winning in losing players
- How perception of the role of luck or skill in the outcome affects the testosterone of players.
- How players differ by pro-social or pro-dominance inclination.