The Scientification of Games: A complementary approach to improving behavioural science through games

In a recent Nature Comment, Long et al. (2023) argued for the gamification of behavioural sciences, where the intrinsic motivations and reward structures associated with games are implemented to improve the quality and quantity of human data. A complementary approach is also available, where commercially available games are studied for their hidden scientific content. Here the goal is not the ‘gamification of science’ but rather the ‘scientification of games.’ This approach asks whether naturalistic data related to the cognitive architecture of human behaviour can be found within games designed for commercial rather than scientific use, and considers if the ground truth of behaviour and cognition may be better revealed by treating individuals not as ‘study participants’ but rather ‘game players.’