Games Designed To Be Addictive?

Another element that could be the case is that games themselves are being developed
to be addictive in nature.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html

This article uses the Skinner Box experiment to suggest that games, specifically MMO's use these techniques and apply them to their game design, effectivity making the game a science experiment to get people to continue to play and well keep the income coming in by the use of subscriptions.

A found a very unique article by a games researcher at Microsoft,he has a doctorate in behavioral and brain sciences, working for a games company.. disturbing to say the least!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131494/behavioral_game_design.php?page=1

It's interesting how through the article he doesn't use the words 'fun' or 'enjoyment' but instead, the pattern of activity the game developer wants.

Real Life Incidents of Addictions

There are many disturbing stories of overuse of video games which could be seen as a form of drug use which lead to dramatic and often sad stories appearing across the media.

Such as one 28-year-old man who collapsed and died while playing the game 'Starcraft'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4137782.stm

Or this account of how playing Everquest lead this person to lose their car and job.

http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction

or this..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/29/world-of-warcraft-video-game-addict

or this collection of stories

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430110/ns/technology_and_science-games/t/readers-share-their-gaming-addiction-stories/#.T6vGN8KF9CA

Stories like these are becoming more and more common, so either video games addiction is becoming more prevalent or it's starting to become more recognised as a proper illness.

Video Game Addiction Compared To Drug Addiction

Video game addiction has many of the same symptoms as those of 'traditional' addictions such as to drink or drugs, it mainly involves the huge amount of time the player spends with the game,not keeping up with professional or educational obligations and choosing to spend time within the games rather than to spend time with family and friends.

I created a chart from various sources of the different symptoms of video game addiction and drug addiction.Many of them share the same traits,mainly directly but others are slightly different for example the 'Possession of drug paraphernalia' could be seen the same as constantly buying parts and mircro transactions for your game. Feeding your addiction in little parts. 


As with other addictions , as they take a further hold , they begin to start lying about their habits,such as game time and other factors, soon they begin to start dropping out of hobbies and other activities.

Addiction In Video Games Introduction

For my brief for this unit we are required to show the potential games have to be a persuasive medium,beyond entertainment and focusing on the audience and if 'Digital Games can change the world' , focusing on educational,commercial and political games and their potential for wide scale influence in society.We are required to analyse the various strategies that games employ to persuade the player, to gain and retain an audience also how the ethics of game design, and ask whether if games have the power to persuade and what ethical implications there are for a games designer.

For my essay I will be focussing mainly on MMO's and how the underlying game design and elements, require a person to continue playing and also how a person can become addicted by the use of this elements.I will also take a look at how games have effected peoples real lives by spending so much time within a game fixing 'virtual problems' rather than fixing problems in the real world.