This was one of the GDC's 20 minute sessions (normal sessions are an hour), although there was a lot packed into it. Personally, I thought that this would have been better as a one-hour talk, although it was still very informative. A lot of the talk dealt with player psychology with regards to saving more than specific methods to stop players from abusing the save key, although Smith did give a few tips.
Smith discussed a few situations in which players often will reload their game, despite not having died:
When significant resources have been lost, such as health or ammo, and the player feels that they will be ill equipped to face upcoming dangers.
When the player feels as if he could have played the previous part much better
He then talked about two approaches for dealing with players feeling the urge to reload often (which is a problem, because it can kill suspense and make the game repetitive). One approach he referred to as the “math approach”, in which you make it so that from a cost-benefit standpoint, progressing in the game seems like the better option than reloading. However, he pointed out that even when it would be more beneficial to move forward rather than reload, players do not always act rationally. He also mentioned that, realistically, from a cost-benefit standpoint saving is almost always the best idea, so it’s somewhat of a losing battle.
The other approach he dubbed the “psyche approach”. Smith brought up a lot of interesting points with regard to how players think, such as:
Players tend to notice a change in resources more than how much resources they have in total. So, even if the player still has very high resource levels (ie, health and ammo or whatnot), if they’ve lost a large amount from what they had before they’re going to be tempted to reload the game from a previous point.
People tend to assume that good things follow bad; which is often the case in games. So if you throw a monster at a player, they’re going to expect a power-up soon after.
People prefer to pay a protection cost (think insurance) over taking an uncompensated loss (like damage), even if the uncompensated loss is actually smaller than the cost of insurance.
Finally, Smith had a few tips with regard to how to encourage players to save and reload less often:
Make it easy for players to reacquire lost resources after they’ve escaped from danger. Players shouldn’t have to put themselves into too much danger to repair themselves.
Make the reacquisition of resources as fun as possible
Make save points clearly telegraphed (so the player trusts you to warn them to save before they go into danger). This is somewhat dangerous though, as it can kill some of the suspense and fear the player might otherwise have.
Emphasize gains and downplay losses
Make a good first impression on the player. Most players determine how much they're going to need to save in the game rather quickly, so getting off on the right foot helps a lot.
Southwest Gaming Expo
