I’ve been doing some research on reward systems in games for work. I found this article a long time ago, but it’s one I always keep coming back to, so I figured I’d post it here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3085/behavioral_game_design.php
The article is called “Behavioral Game Design.” The author breaks down rewards into various categories and shows how (just like a Vegas Slot Machine) games can use rewards to encourage desired behavior and discourage undesired behavior.
It’s an interesting read, either way, and I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of it.