I've been doing some research on reward systems and I found these two articles pretty interesting:
A particularly terrifying quote from the first article:
Good game mechanics can aid a game by eliminating rough edges and inconsistencies, and some players are actively drawn to elegant game mechanics - but it is the delivery of rewards, and not the quality of the game mechanics, which maintains a player's interest.
I honestly not sure if I can believe that. Or at least, goddammit, I hope that isn't totally true. It would mean that designers should spend more time designing the reward system then the game itself... shurg... Though I guess this is probably why I played WOW for hundreds of hours, solo, even though I was barely doing anything more than grinding and walking around.
