Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over ‘Video Game Addiction’, Because That’s Easier Than Parenting::Video game addiction. Sigh. Big sigh, even. Like, the biggest of sighs. We’ve talked about claims that video game addiction is a documentable affliction in the past, as well as the pushback that claim has received from addiction experts, who have pointed out that much of this is being done to allow doctors to get…
I agree with all your major points, well said. I will only add that back in the late 90s, MMOs started to become more popular among PC gamers, and that those were definitely designed for mild addiction (to keep players paying a monthly fee).
After WoW took MMOs mainstream (by around 2010-2012 when its playerbase peaked), I feel that lines up perfectly with your observation that developers began incorporating more and more positive feedback loops into games. I only bring this up since I wonder if there’s an actual correlation there (along with the other elements you pointed out regarding accessibility, etc.) or if it’s just coincidental timing.
Has everyone forgotten coin-ops? Or maybe I’m just old.
This started a long, long time ago, pretty much at the birth of popular casual gaming. It’s not part of the evolution, it was part of the blueprint.
The thing with coin-ops, and arcades in general, is that you still had to physically go somewhere, and have the coins to keep playing. If you walked away, someone would take the machine. Worst case scenario, the machine stopped working when it ran out of coin/token space.
I’m not denying that there are similarities, and that ultimately every game ever has been built on a fundamental mechanic of risk/reward, but it was rudimentary and broadly speaking deterministic and visible to the user (you knew how to get a free ball in most pinball games, for example).
The combination of easy payments, of very high amounts, and online competitive play where the high rollers can be multi-millionaires from anywhere in the world, and a pay-to-win mechanic makes certain modern games not just addictive, but financially crippling, if played by someone susceptible to addiction.
I agree, but I was responding specifically to the claim that the use of psychology to tweak the design of a game in favour of profitability happened in 2010 / 1990 / etc.
The fact that it’s now orders of magnitude worse is, of course, true, but it didn’t start there by any definition.