Should you always have a backup? One vs. two goals in games

Goal setting theory has been studied and adopted in a wide variety of domains including game design. While goals can help people regulate and change behavior, they are less motivating when people no longer believe they can meet their goals. Previous literature suggests that having two goals-a primary goal and a backup goal-might help people continue striving even when the primary goal becomes unattainable. We evaluated this hypothesis and found no direct relationship between two goals and performance. However, people having two goals had higher self-appraisals of their performance than those with one goal. People in the two-goal condition also played more rounds or spent more time in games. However, a high percentage of people stopped playing after achieving their backup goal. These results have the potential to enhance game experiences and may extend to other domains, such as health behavior change.