Intrinsic rewards and grinding in video games

In one of my earliest blog posts, I talked about my model for intrinsic rewards in video games. The basic idea is that many games create a loop, such when you follow the loop the reward for an action is being able to do that action more, and in a more challenging way. Do something to do that thing more is an intrinsic reward: do something to get something else is an extrinsic reward. Seems simple, but gets really messy when applied to different game genres, and my recent experience with Fallout Shelter made me realize this needs a deeper look. This blog post will talk through how intrinsic rewards play out in different games, in particular how they are related to the issue of grinding and meaningful gameplay.