There is a concept of weak guidance in game design. Compared with the strong guidance of long texts and step-by-step teaching, weak guidance is a more imperceptible guidance. Well-known examples of weak guidance include 《Super Mario Bros.》, 《The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild》, 《Mirror’s Edge》, etc. Players can still understand the game operations or easily find the target without reading the instructions.
Since unique designs can be used to manipulate players in games, can the public be guided to make certain choices in reality? The answer is yes. The Nudge Theory explains a kind of weak guidance in reality. The principle is to put the options that need to be promoted in the default position.
For example, some subscription-based services will automatically check the automatic renewal option, or automatically check the option to agree to receive marketing emails. These can play a boosting role, so that the company behind it can get more benefits. This even happened with organ donation. In 2019 , the UK passed a law that unless the person or family members indicate otherwise, they will automatically agree to donate organs after death.
However, nudge theory usually cannot remove options, so the guidance effect is still limited. But if the designer removes some unpopular options or makes them invisible, then the guidance effect should be stronger. For example, rogue software such as 360 Security Guard is difficult to uninstall cleanly, and you may even not find the uninstall button……
Or the GFW, a network censorship firewall, is default and invisible. Although it can be inferred from the news that there is a world outside the wall, in the domestic public online community, VPNs and Proxies cannot be discussed to bypass the censorship, so the visibility of the option to bypass the censorship is low. And it takes effort to learn and use to bypass the censorship, so GFW is a very effective guide, it makes fewer people choose the option of “circumventing the wall.” (For another direction of research, please refer to A Jian’s 《Censorship Reduces People’s Demand for Censored Information》)
The goal expected by the designer’s nudge is Libertarian Paternalism. Although there is a Paternalistic Conservatism that looks like an antonym, it has now disappeared along with the 19th-century history of noblesse oblige and the Industrial Revolution. Maybe there is a leader’s idea of social Darwinism, or it should be called totalitarianism. (Laugh)