Something I learned from working at a large competitor at Zynga (where there was some employee cross-pollenation): A/B test the hell out of your ideas. Going from "making my app more social" to "Put vacant lots on users' farms to get them to add friends" means playing with lots of different ideas. What exactly clicks depends heavily and all the myriad details of your app and userbase.
I've had a chat with someone who used to work for Zynga, and he said it was a great place to work. He said they knew full well the psychology of what they were doing, and were quite proud of how well they do.
I would doubt it. Maybe the creators caught wind of it in a psych 101 class, but we learned about micro-achievements years ago just by being gamers, and they just happened to master it.
Super Mario Bros.
Think of the "levels" of achievement:
1) On the smallest level, you kill small enemies, get a "big" mushroom. You get points, and your environment changes.
2) On the next level, you collect coins. 100 means an extra life.
3) Then you beat the sub-levels, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3
4) Finally you beat a "boss" and go to the next "World" to 2-1, 2-1
5) Beat 8 "Worlds" and the "big boss" and you beat the game.
6) Advanced players will compete for the best times, try to create fireworks over the castles, find warp zones, or max out their points.
The key is in progressive achievements and always wanting more. You create a sense of urgency or need and you have someone in the palm of your hand.
Business is no different. I just upgraded my Basecamp account so I could add the "Time" module. I'm on World 2 now.
Who needs psychologists when you have game designers? Psychological literature doesn't have the level of interest or experience in the practical applications that expert game designers have.
And these games are just getting started. As they grow, these tricks will get worse. This is a MUCH bigger problem than people realize. If you could have prevented the introduction of Opium to China, would you have?
Having worked at Blizzard until recently, I think my response to this rhetorical question is predictable.
But help me understand a little better. I don't see designing more compelling gameplay as being a markedly different goal than more compelling musicianship, more compelling novel-writing or more compelling filmmaking. What's your perspective?
I was talking about this just yesterday with a game developer friend. I was trying to explain to him how I viewed your former employer as being too successful.
I said Blizzard was Too Successful in that WoW achieves profitability to the detriment of fiendish players, many of whom waste untold hours of what would otherwise be productive time. He, being an almost pure libertarian, disagreed with all too familiar logic: "it's not my fault they get addicted", etc.
I then asked him if he would sell drugs, and he responded that he already had. So, regardless of perspective, it is pretty easy to see where these arguments lead; that is, down the slippery slope and out to the extremes as one tries to justify their position.