These games don't make you happy, they addict you to short term dopamine dumps. The games are engineered to reward spending money.
After quitting WoW, I realized it was a waste of time. During my addiction, I would have used this argument.
After quitting WoW, I realized it was a waste of time. During my addiction, I would have used this argument.
Mind, this was about 10 years ago, during Burning Crusade. If I had to start over, I'd do it all again -- had great fun.
To be honest, as ridiculous as it sounds, I really needed that to boost my self esteem. It has a lot of the same social constructs the real world has from which you can learn. That experience definitely helped me grow from being a socially awkward person to being more sociable and approachable, and having more belief in my own ability (.. even though it was just a game!).
I don't think school would've ever been able to do that.
I agree with what you're trying to say, but not with this statement in particular. I think it is possible to create a lovely game that unfortunately ropes in an addict as a side effect, but that isn't what the industry is about right now.
Game development conferences have been strewn full of talks specifically aimed at exploiting human psychology to generate additional profit - triple A games are designed around addictive loops constructed to provide maximum addiction and resource extraction for a minimum of game assets. I recall one slide in particular that measured the amount of profit per MAU and listed different game mechanics (PvP adds 10 cents per MAU, adding a fake rate-limit to your game adds 15 cents per MAU, cosmetics adds 7 cents per MAU, applying negative effects to your friends for your non-participation adds 13 cents per MAU, etc.) within a year, almost every large mobile game offering contained ALL of the mechanics on the list - and now their prevalence has leaked into other markets as well.
Accordingly, I'd say it isn't justifiable to build intentionally exploitative addictive systems just because some people can moderate their designed negative effects.
I don't think you're actually disagreeing. Taking advantage, as I put it, implies intent. To incidentally benefit from the consequences of an unfortunate side effect is not equivalent to taking advantage of the effect.
> Accordingly, I'd say it isn't justifiable to build intentionally exploitative addictive systems just because some people can moderate their designed negative effects.
This is the same statement in different words. "Exploit" is probably a more direct word to characterize the sentiment.
People like to ban and stigmatize these types of things, but I'm curious if it's possible to bake some protections into it. Kind of like how bars stop giving you drinks if you look drunk.
For example: stop a user with "you're spending money too rapidly (maybe some small sub-text/link about gaming addiction)" with a temporary 1-2hr block to force them to break out of their impulsive loop and question their actions, but are free to continue after that time.
It might make financial sense as it may keep the user spending money for a longer time period, without destroying their finances or making it become such a problem they have to stop altogether.
I'd be cautious here; video games are designed, artificial worlds where difficulty level is carefully controlled by the maker. They are designed to give you sense of accomplishment and empowerment, so they cannot be too difficult, whereas real world accomplishments can be brutally difficult to achieve.