Skinner box
Also said as Operant chamber, Reinforcement schedule
A sealed cage with a lever and a food dispenser that Skinner used to study how the timing of rewards changes behaviour. He preferred the name "operant chamber". In games, "Skinner box" is an insult for a game that is mostly a schedule.
The chamber's lesson is the schedule: when rewards come shapes behaviour as much as how big they are. Ferster and Skinner recorded these patterns in 1957, mainly with pigeons, so apply them to people with care. John Hopson brought the ideas to game makers in a 2001 article.
Say it
“Pull the daily reward chest out of the schedule. Right now people log in, press a button and leave. Tie the reward to a match played, so it rewards doing something.”
Where you’ve seen it
Cow Clicker, which Ian Bogost made in 2010, was a joke at this design's expense: you click a cow, then you wait six hours to click it again. People played it in earnest anyway.
Not to be confused with compulsion loop
A Skinner box is about the schedule of rewards. A compulsion loop is about the cycle of activities around them. Calling a game a Skinner box is a judgment; calling something a loop need not be.