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Videogame Developers Are Making It Harder To Stop Playing (wsj.com)
Videogames have gotten harder to turn off, mental-health experts and parents say, raising concerns about the impact of seemingly endless gaming sessions on players' lives. From a report: Game developers for years have tweaked the dials not only on how games look and sound but how they operate under the hood, and such changes have made videogames more pervasive and enthralling, industry observers say. The World Health Organization in June added "gaming disorder" to an updated version of its International Classification of Diseases, warning about a condition in which people give up interests and activities to overly indulge in gaming despite negative consequences. It is expected to be formally classified in January 2022.
Many games today are free, available on multiple devices, and double as social networks. Where once games were played and put away for a while, now game companies are routinely delivering new content aimed at keeping players constantly engaged. Some new content is available only for a limited time, a maneuver that tugs at people's fears of missing out, psychologists say. "Videogames are engineered specifically to keep people playing," said Douglas A. Gentile, a research scientist focused on the impact of media on children and adults. "They're designed to hit the pleasure centers of the brain in some of the same ways that gambling can."
Many games today are free, available on multiple devices, and double as social networks. Where once games were played and put away for a while, now game companies are routinely delivering new content aimed at keeping players constantly engaged. Some new content is available only for a limited time, a maneuver that tugs at people's fears of missing out, psychologists say. "Videogames are engineered specifically to keep people playing," said Douglas A. Gentile, a research scientist focused on the impact of media on children and adults. "They're designed to hit the pleasure centers of the brain in some of the same ways that gambling can."
I don't play free crap. I only get manipulated into buying dlc for the expensive stuff.
We could still be plugging quarters into the machine.
I'll get back to you later tonight after I harvest my crop in No Man's Sky.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It really took a scientist to work that out
If the game controls you, then perhaps you shouldn't be playing. Or breeding.
https://gamequitters.com/
I remember a tv series episode, where the last two remaining humans were playing an immersive videogame where they were battling each other with giant mechs.
Though I can't remember what the show was called...
anyone a clue?
It is in the interest of every business model to get more customers, and to get current customers to use the company's products more frequently.
It is in the interest of society to regulate business, through government interference, when it is determined the business promotion is to the detriment of the current societal belief set; but damn, everything's not a disease.
Gaming Disorder.?.? Just, wow. It's not your fault, you poor addict.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
When my kids were born, I stopped playing and never went back. I would play for hours and feel empty afterwards. That was before pay to play I could see where it was all heading. Instead I started to work on development side projects (when not spending time with my family), and now I have a resume a mile long.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
EA executive are way ahead of the curve in solving this problem:
Patrick Soderlund Calls Battlefield 5 Critics Uneducated, Doesn't Want Them To Buy Game
Battlefield V Pre-Orders Are Reportedly Very "Weak", According To Analysts
Games are actually the superset of all education, art, entertainment and sports.
The purpose of playing is actually, to have a safe, and a bit simplified on its essence, testing rig, for training for something in real life. So it is the ideal education.
And just like art, it is supposed to communicate deep insights
Aaand what the "games industry" produces, has absolutely nothing to do with that.
Just like with any other industry that grew, like a cancer, on top of forms of art or sports, it tries to form things into a "product", trying to "maximize profit"... thereby ruining the entire damn point of art or sports beyond all recognition.
That is the difference between an art industry, and the artist "industry" (which isn't really interested in being an industry). They are direct enemies.
IMHO the former is just a bunch of coke-headed leeches, trying to suck as much money out of artists and their fans as physically possible, wile doing as little value-adding work as physically possible! And IMHO, prison is the correct reaction, that should follow something like that in a sane world.
But no surprise that they'd try to turn into drug dealers too. They probably haven't seen a day without cocaine in the last 100 years. And maybe LSD.
It is society that is making it hard for game players to stop playing. As a long time player let me explain why.
I hate games that use RNG as a difficulty crutch (some rouge likes), gambler logic (loot boxes), and Feed and Starve (candy crush/pay for lives/continues) to hook me. Why ? because it makes me angry when playing their games because I know what gambling is and how it works on the mind, but more importantly, because I am looking for MORE from my game than simple risk/reward gimmicks.
It would be interesting in a study to see if people with more developed intellectual capacity fall for these game types than people who have not cared to develop their intellectual capacities. I admit that I believe that some people are hooked on these games because they either do not care or are shallow enough to allow their time to be used in this way.
That said, I think the distinction in such a study needs to be on people that actually have some form of addiction. It does not need to be major, but enough of one where it is clear that their gaming habits are at least noticeably affecting their work/friend/love/life balances.
People who play these games just to pass the time as they move from moment to moment in life should not be considered, regardless of the types of games they play. They are clearly immune or are able to see these gimmicks for what they are.
As a gamer myself, I hate most MMO's as a never ending grindfest, mobs stand around like cattle, bosses never really die, the environments are not really changeable by the players actions, though so mmo's try to emulate this with updates. I mean nothing says it more than... go kill 10 slimes and return here. Or running the same stage over and over and over ad nauseum where one mistake can lead to disaster and angry people because game balance in MMO's always mean as a single unit you are never strong or capable. Sure teamwork is nice but if those monsters are really that strong how can the popoulations the players represent live in those worlds? O right, I forgot, bosses are immortal, over sized and never have to leave their lairs and just happen to have mobs of defender acolytes for what reason again?
I liked terraria for the exploration, world modification, and creative boss fights, though I do not think the boss fights are really balanced.
I liked factorio for its complex crafting and logic gameplay, but mobs on even the hardest configurations are pie cake to deal with and at best annoyance.
I very much appreciate games that provide at least semi plausible reasons for things going on, not just being used as plot devices or macguffins.
it is my opinion that because society is more about giving people knowledge without actually attempting to teach them "why" that knowledge if valuable, they waste it or misunderstand it leading them to become easily suckered by so many things... least of which is a game with mechanics so simple that only a simple mind can enjoy them! Or in short, shallow risk reward mechanics! People who require "deeper" and "more meaningful" experiences are busy doing something else because these games are just too shallow to hold their attention.
So can you really blame game developers for figuring out how the simple minded tick? Nope! Just give them their money, they earned it! Or rather, they earned tricking it out of their pockets!
Sorry no time to comment, I have some daily quests to do.
The biggest time-sink of a game I've ever played, no contest. One article on Kotaku said that "no game was more disrespectful of its players' time." It took hours to perform even mundane tasks, including traveling from one city to another on the massive world map. Quest-givers are not identified with any in-game marking, meaning you have to talk to every NPC around--numbering in the hundreds in any given city--to pick them up. Most monsters in the game could not be killed in one-on-one battles, forcing you to recruit other players to help you perform quests and explore dungeons, another task that could take hours, depending on the makeup of your party. If you win a battle, you gain a relatively meager amount of experience, making for horrendous level-grinding; if you die, you lose experience, and can actually level down.
It lost a lot of its players over the years to more casual MMOs that didn't require you to devote entire days to playing the damn thing, although it has since made changes to alleviate some of the time-wasting, like a fast-travel system and alterations to the battle system to allow for easier solo play. But to this day, more than 15 years after its release, it still requires a monthly subscription fee and hasn't gone free-to-play.
We used to pay 60 bux and ride that shit into the ground. Now wtf is it... a money grab that's right.
Where once games were played and put away for a while, now game companies are routinely delivering new content aimed at keeping players constantly engaged.
Games were played and put away for a while, while players played some other games. Now players are playing the same game for longer. But is there any evidence that they're spending more time playing games, and if so, does it actually have anything to do with games trying to be more addictive or does it have to do with some other factor, like lack of other opportunities?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Game devs just give people what they want.
There are also many games geared toward playing for 10-20 minutes.
Calling it a disorder is a joke or more likely, a way for those in power to gain more money.
Gaming is for kids, or pathologically immature adults. The problem is there seems to be more and more of those (the latter, not the former) with each new generation. That's why gaming is such a big industry. No wonder political speech writers compose their texts on the premise that the average voter has the mental age of an eleven year old.
Further proof of this will be all the backlash that this post will get from rabid gamers, most of which will be in the form of very aggressive, childish and immature replies.
We control our actions, not them. If we are talking about kids, then parents, get some freaking spine and intervene in your children's lives. All this report tells me is that people are too pathetic and self-absorbed to put down their phones for any extended period of time. No one can manipulate you without at least a little bit of your consent - stop giving it.
Mmmmm
Part of it is parenting and poor self control. Most games these days actually seem LESS additive, too easy and of poor content quality.
There are a number of games that are difficult enough to require hours of play to master and rewards for playing....but those are few and far between
https://www.penny-arcade.com/c...
#DeleteFacebook
Especially if its an MMO. What gets worse than MMO? If it's MMO + free + cash shop (Fortnite). Basically, if the game is free, you can bet your ass it has some kind of cash sink. You think they'd sell the game for a normal base price of $60? Nah, why would they do that when they can make more money off the 12 year old who stole his mom's credit card to buy the newest skin?
For me anyways. Games today are like superhero, action, and even drama movies-it's the same concept rehashed over and over again. I've little enthusiasm to start playing something I've seen 30 times already, let alone finish it.
Boring, poorly directed cut-scenes with mediocre CGI and bad voice acting over and over again.
Ooooh, let's also make the longer cutscenes unskippable.
Games that almost play themselves because your character can fight by themselves without any interaction from the gamer.
Now they are changing history in games to appease the insane SJW crowd, most who aren't gamers, by adding gender fluid male lesbian shiny-blue-haired Generals to 'historically accurate' games.
... and stupidity of society. I don't mean it to say gaming is bad, gaming is just the latest scapegoat.
Many men checked out because well, men have been mistreated and abandoned. When men are seen as tools and to be used as cheap labour for the rest of society. Why wouldn't they check out? Videogames is the latest scapegoat for a society so up its ass in predatory business practices and corporate lawlessness. Our entire society is just one giant highschool of stupid human predatory bullshit. I don't blame the poor and downtrodden for checking out. Especially after the big bank bailouts of 2008, and our corporate masters trying to scrub the internet of their plutonomy memo's...
https://politicalgates.blogspo...
I hate games that use [...] Feed and Starve (candy crush/pay for lives/continues) to hook me.
Then you'd hate a jukebox, as it uses pay for songs. You'd hate arcade games, as all of them use pay for lives, with a few exceptions that use pay for time (such as PlayChoice and Mega Tech).
Given the rate at which businesses are able to capitalize on even the slightest human weakness to maximize short-term gains for them, it will be interesting to see what percentage of mankind survives to reproduce? 1%? 0.1%?
- Have even a hint of gambling addicition? Our latest game will keep you glued to your phone until you starve!
- Partial to salt and sugar? One bite of our new product, and you'll never eat anything else again!
- Want interaction, but real people keep having ideas of their own? Our robotic companions will *never* disagree with you. No need to interact with a troublesome human ever again!
Business exists to give customers what they want. But what if what we want will kill us, and the only reason humanity has survived so far was that, until now, businesses were bad at their job?
I assume you've replaced games with some other form of entertainment. Could be TV or movies, or going to concerts, or playing ball with your kids, or gambling, or reading and responding on slashdot. Or if you're one of a lucky few, it could be your side projects if you find doing those things relaxing. (Only a small percentage of people fit into this last category, as the vast majority of relaxing activities are productivity-consuming rather than productivity-generating. So it serves no purpose for these lucky people to lecture everyone else on how they should spend their free time, since the things they find relaxing, other people just find to be stressful work. One of my millionaire friends is that rich because he finds it relaxing to read and learn about better ways to run a company, and applying what he reads to his company. His wife has to constantly pull laptops, tablets, and phones out of his hands when they go on vacation, because he finds reading that stuff more fun and relaxing than vacation.)
Entertainment helps to relieve stress, making your work hours more productive than if you did nothing but work, eat, and sleep. So the time and money spent on entertainment can be worth it. Entertainment only becomes a problem when you become so obsessed with it, it begins to detract from your ability to be productive at work.
So games can be beneficial if they function as stress-relieving entertainment, but only if they're played in moderation. I figured this out when I decided I was playing too many games and quit cold turkey. A month later I evaluated my progress, and found that the time I used to spend playing games, I was now spending on other "time-wasting" activities. I needed to relieve my work-related stress some other way if it wasn't via gaming.
Since I enjoyed gaming more than the other replacement activities, I went back to gaming. But I kept a mindful eye on how much I was enjoying the game. Most of the MMORPGs I played got dropped, because they typically required dozens or hundreds of hours of boring grinding, just so your character could be capable of participating in a few hours of excitement (raiding, or dungeon delving). They got replaced with RPGs which focused on campaigns, since those are tuned so your progress through the campaign levels your character appropriately without you having to waste time grinding. So the games I play now aren't black holes designed to suck up as much of my time as possible in exchange for as little progress as possible. They're like interactive movies, which if paced well with a good plot are enormously entertaining without sucking up more of my time than needed to tell the story.
We could still be plugging quarters into the machine.
Maybe, but getting to this article is worse than that. If you can't find the article somewhere else then please link to a cached version or spam it somewhere and put a link to that or even rewrite it on your blog with all the important bits summarised, small amounts copied (but staying within fair use) and some original comment of your own. Please just don't give the paywall pushers links to their contents. Do not push the WSJ in particular otherwise we'll all get Merde-ock-vision and that's a litle bit of shit for everyone.
Since casino and slot machine developers have been doing this for decades it's obvious it would happen to regular games too.
Not only is it expected; once pay to play entered the arena it was completely unavoidable that someone with complete knowledge of all relevant gaming metrics would not figure this out.
They are getting better at doing their job?
Cool story, bro.
...none of the games I play are online games. I find online games toxic and pushing you into spending more and more time in game in order to compete for scores with teenagers who do not have any real-life obligations. Eventually, instead of enjoying the game, you either get frustrated or start spending additional money to catch up.
That's why I mostly get games from gog.com. Games which I can enjoy on my own accord. Games which I know won't change and which I can master. Lastly, games which I can complete within the next week or in 10 years because I own them.
What are video game developers supposed to do, makes games that sucks? There are hundreds of thousands of games like that no one likes playing, and guess what, no one plays them!?!
As intelligent article would have asked why learning isn't as fun as games. BTW, why don't we try harder to make learning fun?
As long as people can target shoot whenever they want. Lets focus on keeping the hobby alive. That's what is important. Hobbyists.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So like television was constantly producing new content, couldn't make it fast enough. than came 24hour news. Endless Content. So like Books, constantly new books are being published, than cam fanfic and e-books. This is an old problem, as in "get off my lawn" problem. It all started with Hoop-and-Stick.
.... because it's getting so dumb.
Games back in the day were way better, more fun, and more addictive.
kewl story bra.
save game, alt-f4 and you're done. With mobile games you don't even need to save. Just put down the phone.
It's more easier to put down a game than say 30 years ago when there was no saving just maybe checkpoints. OMg these millennials....
Games are actually the superset of all education, art, entertainment and sports.
The purpose of playing is actually, to have a safe, and a bit simplified on its essence, testing rig, for training for something in real life. So it is the ideal education.
What you have in mind are simulations, not games.
"the only way to win is not to play the game.." - WOPR
Organization? You must be joking..
That's what got cigarette manufacturers successfully sued by people who CHOSE to smoke :-)
Never put Minecraft pocket edition on a kidâ(TM)s tablet and let them play unsupervised. Theyâ(TM)ll play until it makes them sick. Itâ(TM)s a sandbox game that has some achievements and bosses to appeal to casual users. But the hardcore users will continue building on multiplayer servers for years and years. I love the game. But as an adult with a job and family, I have to strictly limit my time.