I don't play games, but my roommate does for several hours every day. I asked him about it and he said he loves being immersed in it, and finds it much more engaging than other forms of entertainment, such as watching a movie. I wouldn't call him "addicted" though. We hang out all the time, and I never see the sort of desperation that the author describes.
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Are there specific genre's of games that have the sorts of traps the author describes? A giant achievement screen sounds like it could be in any game, but I'd be curious to hear of any patterns recognized by others.
>Are there specific genre's of games that have the sorts of traps the author describes?
Free-to-play games are the obvious example. MMORPGs are another, though I would say they are somewhat less sinister as — while they use many psychological tricks to keep players coming back — they are at the core generally an attempt to produce an interesting or enjoyable game world, which is generally not the primary goal in F2P games.
I feel one of the worst (or at least most interesting) offenders for gambling is Valve, through Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike. In those games people can buy "keys" to open randomly dropped "chests" which may or may not contain valuable items (valuable in the sense that they can be traded to other players for sometimes hundreds of dollars in Steambux). They are essentially running a lottery. I will concede that it's quite similar to Magic: The Gathering's business model (small chance to find something valuable!), but something about the exact implementation (perhaps the ease of trading and valuation of items, or the heavy use of Steambux which can only be redeemed in a Valve store?) Valve uses feels a bit more skeevy.
As a former MtG player, I remember the gambler's high I'd get opening every booster pack. But while my cards are sitting in a dusty box somewhere, it sounds like there's a lot of recirculation that happens within the Valve community.
There also a big difference between Magic cards and the Valve items -- Valve items are only cosmetic, while Magic cards derive their high value because they can make your deck stronger.
MMOs/FPS/MOBAs are repetitive and addictive because of the fact that each gaming session could be unique.
Blizzard completely stopped making single player games (until Diablo 3) because of WoW's unprecedented success (quite a few other games were cancelled to keep this machine running).
LoL and DotA 2 are similarly addictive since each game nets you drops, some seasonal exclusive cosmetic items, couriers, etc. They also have challenges to keep you coming back.
They're explicitly designed to draw the player back and get better, a fallacy since a player is only as good as his (current) team. So these games usually have a bunch of people who hate the game (Griefers) yet keep playing to grief others with relatively better success.
I'm of the opinion that games without intellectual value must be avoided. And I was a semi-professional gamer (COD & DotA) for a while. One of the best games I had played that were short yet memorable would be the Age Of Empires series, Braid, Hotline Miami.
There is a difference between most games and "whale hunting" games, generally a game will be an interactive experience with a slightly addictive edge to it, but these games are generally between 15$ and 80$ and are a one time buy.
Whale hunters are often free to play games that have an ingame shop where you can buy either cosmetic or game boosts. Examples: Mobas are on the small scale here, they profit from whales but could do without them while facebook games, mmo's or phone games are generally a little more shameless about it.
But nowadays, the line is thinning due to expensive games starting to offer more and more minor downloadable content, which isnt priced high, but can quickly accumulate.
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Are there specific genre's of games that have the sorts of traps the author describes? A giant achievement screen sounds like it could be in any game, but I'd be curious to hear of any patterns recognized by others.