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Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design
spidweb writes "The common theory is that games like World of Warcraft are addictive. But what are the exact qualities that make it so? Are there specific elements of the design that can be pulled out, distilled, and used at will to give a game drug-like properties? Is it wrong to do so? A new article at IGN RPG Vault attempts to isolates the exact qualities that go into making an addiction-based design. From the article: 'If a game uses rewards of any sort to entice you to experience highly repetitive content, you should see what it's trying to do and which of your buttons it's trying to press. If you don't mind, that's cool, but you should understand it.'"
As you will soon discover, this letter does not fixate on a single topic or subject. To be perfectly frank and honest, it started out rather focused but I soon found, as I worked on my primary hypothesis and sought corroboration from other sources, that I have quite a number of different things to say about BadAnalogyGuy. To begin with, BadAnalogyGuy alleges that he does the things he does "for the children". Naturally, this is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. My goal is to get him to realize that I claim that we need to do more to serve on the side of Truth. Of course, if he insists on remaining an ignorant, uninformed, and ill-informed slimeball, that's his prerogative. We can justifiably toss most of BadAnalogyGuy's crotchety, vile promises onto our bursting bin of foul BadAnalogyGuy prattle. An equal but opposite observation is that BadAnalogyGuy wants to smear people of impeccable character and reputation. Faugh.
BadAnalogyGuy's arguments would be a lot more effective if they were at least accurate or intelligent, not just a load of bull for the sake of being controversial. We must overcome the fears that beset us every day of our lives. We must overcome the fear that BadAnalogyGuy will cause pain and injury to those who don't deserve it. And to overcome these fears, we must stop this insanity.
As I noted at the beginning of this letter, BadAnalogyGuy hates youâ"yes, you, because you, like me, want to derail BadAnalogyGuy's sick little schemes. He fully intends to turn the trickle of officialism into a tidal wave. But that's not enough, not for him. BadAnalogyGuy will additionally kill the messenger and control the message, which is why I contend that if you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem. His ill-bred grievances are in full flower and their poisonous petals of cronyism are blooming all around us. It may be unfashionable to say so and it may surprise a few of you out there, but BadAnalogyGuy is eminently effrontive. I'll go further: If one believes statements like, "BadAnalogyGuy defends the real needs of the working class," one is, in effect, supporting sinful, imprudent buffoons. The problem with him is not that he's callous. It's that he wants to censor any incomplicitous machinations.
I would never take a job working for BadAnalogyGuy. Given his simple-minded, impolitic theories, who would want to? It's not the bogeyman that our children need to worry about. It's BadAnalogyGuy. Not only is BadAnalogyGuy more lethargic and more warped than any envisaged bogeyman or bugbear, but BadAnalogyGuy used to be a major proponent of moral relativism. Nowadays, he's putting all of his support behind escapism. As they say, plus Ãa change, plus c'est la mÃme chose.
BadAnalogyGuy can't fool me. I've met thrasonical, mealymouthed used-car salesmen before, so I know that when you tell BadAnalogyGuy's grunts that BadAnalogyGuy believes, in his elitist delirium, that his activities are on the up-and-up, they begin to get fidgety and their eyes begin to wander. They really don't care. They have no interest in hearing that his most progressive idea is to eroticize relations of dominance and subordination. If that sounds progressive to you, you must be facing the wrong way. I would like to close by saying that the only way I can possibly forgive BadAnalogyGuy is if he tells the truth and makes restitution.