Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over ‘Video Game Addiction’, Because That’s Easier Than Parenting::Video game addiction. Sigh. Big sigh, even. Like, the biggest of sighs. We’ve talked about claims that video game addiction is a documentable affliction in the past, as well as the pushback that claim has received from addiction experts, who have pointed out that much of this is being done to allow doctors to get…
This author seems pretty comfortable mocking the concept of games being addictive.
Loot boxes need to stop for sure, but things like limited-time content are 100% designed to form habits and ultimately feed gaming addiction. Season passes or weekly achievements require you to log on and grind out challenges at regular intervals to avoid missing out on rewards that are required for competitive play.
I know plenty of people who have had to make an active choice to stop playing certain games because they found they couldn’t play the game ‘on their own terms’. It sucks as an adult, but kids without fully developed brains capable of rational thinking would stand no chance.
things like limited-time content are 100% designed to form habits and ultimately feed gaming addiction. Season passes or weekly achievements require you to log on and grind out challenges at regular intervals to avoid missing out on rewards that are required for competitive play.
Hell, even subscription-based games like MMOs. After all, if you’re paying every month for something, you want to get your money’s worth.
That’s part of why I never played WoW. I knew that I’d constantly be like “I’m paying for it I should be playing”.
Funny, when I played it, it was always “wow, I’m really getting a good bang for my buck.” It was a huge money saving for me because instead of going out to a bar an extra one or two nights a week, I stayed home and gamed online with friends. Never once did I think “I should play to make it worth it” I was making it worth it without a thought. lol
Depends on the implementation: I liked Eve Onlines model where, yes, you had to pay the sub but your character would train skills even while offline.So at least to me there was less of this classical fear of missing out.
Ugh, don’t get me started on EVE. Like yeah, there’s an awesome game underneath it all, but the fact that they make you train your character in real time by reading skill books feels so scummy when they are billing you a monthly fee. Like that has such an obvious perverse incentive. You think those skill books take as long as they take because it’s fun? No way. They take that long because it maximises profit.
I was quite addicted to a Facebook game back in the day. Never went more than a day without playing it and even then I had scripts to play the repetitive parts of the game while I was away. I might’ve spent $50 total on the game but I never really felt like I was missing out because of not spending money. When they got to the point where it was blatantly obvious I would miss rare items or other collectibles if I didn’t pay then I quit altogether.
I think the system could use a change but I still prefer minimal interference. It could do a lot of good if players were notified (monthly/weekly) how much they’ve played the game and how much they’ve spent. The “micro” part is probably what gets a lot of people and they never realize what they’ve paid in total.
know plenty of people who have had to make an active choice to stop playing certain games because they found they couldn’t play the game ‘on their own terms’.
Yep, this is me. stopped playing at least 2 or 3 games they forced stupid unnecessary grind or daily/weekly quests (that are basically all the content there is) on me. Nope, not doing that shit anymore.
I don’t want to be all old man yells at cloud, but back in my day popular games were played a lot because they were primarily enjoyable for the story, the achievement of completing a particular level or boss, playing against friends, etc. And sure, you’d have the odd bad parent trying to claim their kid was addicted to Counterstrike 1.6, but it was broadly speaking nonsense. The vast majority of games were offline, or had very limited online modes built around direct competition with other players (FPS, sports games, etc), and publishers would get all their money from the initial sale, with only a few games having expansion packs, most notable The Sims.
But in the early 2010s a few things changed:
- broadband internet became ubiquitous in markets with high levels of existing gamers
- distribution of games swapped from physical media to downloads
- ‘everyone’ had a pretty powerful computer in their pocket making it much more accessible
- a bunch of people in the industry started reading about positive psychology - the idea that you can create habits through rewards - and apply them to video games to increase playtime
- those mechanics turned out to be very powerful in driving particular user behaviours, and started to be targeted at monetisation models - and so we got loot boxes, etc
So we went from a situation where video games were fun for the same reasons traditional games, or sports, are fun, to one where many video games include a lot of gambling mechanics in their core gameplay loops - loot boxes being the obvious one, but any lottery-based mechanic where you spend real money counts - in an industry with no relevant regulation, nor age limitation.
It is definitely possible for people to get addicted to these mechanics, the same way people can get addicted to casino games, or betting on horse racing, especially when for some games that is literally what the developer wants.
I agree with all your major points, well said. I will only add that back in the late 90s, MMOs started to become more popular among PC gamers, and that those were definitely designed for mild addiction (to keep players paying a monthly fee).
After WoW took MMOs mainstream (by around 2010-2012 when its playerbase peaked), I feel that lines up perfectly with your observation that developers began incorporating more and more positive feedback loops into games. I only bring this up since I wonder if there’s an actual correlation there (along with the other elements you pointed out regarding accessibility, etc.) or if it’s just coincidental timing.
It had nothing to do with WoW, smartphones were basically to blame. 2007 was when the iPhone came out, Android followed next year, and by the early 2010s, smartphones became ubiquitous. Both the App Store and Google Market exploded exponentially in the number of apps and games. Mobile game makers soon figured out that microtransactions brought in more money than upfront payments. All the popular games started exploiting this model, such as Angry Birds, Temple Run and of course the infamous Candy Crush.
King, the company behind Candy Crush, generates over a billion dollars of revenue per year - their turnover exceeding that of several traditional PC/console game makers. In 2012, they staggering 1000% growth in just an year - and that was the trigger. That was when everyone looked at them going, “tf, why the hell are we wasting so much time and money developing AAA games, and making way less money than some cheap mobile game?”
And the rest as they say, is history.
WoW is a stepping stone, it’s used as a frequent example in Reality is Broken, which is good place to start if you want to understand where all this comes from, as well as the rather utopian hope psychologists had at the time.
Has everyone forgotten coin-ops? Or maybe I’m just old.
This started a long, long time ago, pretty much at the birth of popular casual gaming. It’s not part of the evolution, it was part of the blueprint.
The thing with coin-ops, and arcades in general, is that you still had to physically go somewhere, and have the coins to keep playing. If you walked away, someone would take the machine. Worst case scenario, the machine stopped working when it ran out of coin/token space.
I’m not denying that there are similarities, and that ultimately every game ever has been built on a fundamental mechanic of risk/reward, but it was rudimentary and broadly speaking deterministic and visible to the user (you knew how to get a free ball in most pinball games, for example).
The combination of easy payments, of very high amounts, and online competitive play where the high rollers can be multi-millionaires from anywhere in the world, and a pay-to-win mechanic makes certain modern games not just addictive, but financially crippling, if played by someone susceptible to addiction.
One of my first tasks in my game development career was to change the data type used for the main currency in [Famously Addictive Farm Simulator Game], because a user had exceeded the maximum value.
I eventually found out approximately how much IRL money this person had spent on this game…
6 figures. And not barely 6 figures.
People don’t spend that much because they’re just having fun.
There is absolutely something different about these kinds of games. It’s abusive and dangerous, and we should consider it a health hazard.
I’m glad this comment section seems to agree that some fault lies on the game companies, too. I get it that parents gotta also parent, but when games are hiring behavior/psychology experts to design their games to become addictive and suck in people’s money as effectively as possible… adults struggle enough with resisting gaming addiction, let alone kids.
I know a guy that spent all of his free time, and on average $2,000 a month, on Genshin Impact.
I have two kids. The idea that these games are not addictive is laughable. Something only someone without kids that have found roblox (or similar games) could possibly convince themselves is true. Even just looking at all FTP games I play, I can see how they are taking advantage of that need for the fix to pull money from you at the most opportune time. Lucky for me, I don’t really have an addictive personality so I’m easily able to set aside those things.
But my kids have not developed the same level of self control or self-realization yet. They just continually want that dopamine hit. We definitely limit screentime and what they play (roblox is out now). In the times we have done “device free weeks” you can absolutely see the change in behavior from the withdrawal period right after you take away the game, to at the end of the week when they barely even complain at all that they can’t play.
I remember when my older kid went away to sleep away camp for 2 weeks, and when he came back how his younger brother talking about the games seemed so foreign to him. He like had completely detoxed and didn’t care at all.
There is definitely an element of parental responsibility here too. But you what the author doesn’t seem to realize is that it’s not so easy. All of the kids are playing games these days, and it is a common past-time. While you could just say “no games” and call it a day, I don’t know of a single family that does this. Even the ones who are very strict allow their kids to play some switch games. Even the ones that think their kid has some kind of gaming addiction (and have taken away all online games) let’s their kids play certain console games as well because they don’t see it creating the same behavior. And if you open the door a bit, it’s a constant battle trying to figure out where that line in, and you’re competing against big money using experts to figure out how to win that game. It’s an extremely hard game for a parent to win.
It would be much easier if it were illegal to use these intentionally addictive mechanisms in games targeted at non-adults.
I do feel like it’s kind of a bad thing that many large game devs employ psychologists specifically to come up with ways that psychologically addict players. They could be addicting even without being specifically designed that way, but going out of your way to ensure it is does, does not seem the least but ethical to me.
Like EA who use the same technics that casinos for their loot boxes. But you have better odds with casinos than EA…
Yeah let’s just disregard the prevalence of gambling mechanics deliberately intended to induce addiction in minors to juice them for their parents’ cash.
True but parents have a responsibility to look at the game before letting their children play it. Should the mechanics exist? No. But should the parents look into the game beforehand? Yes
How realistic is this though especially when certain mechanics get unlocked later in the game? The fact that these micro transactions, loot boxes, and everything else only exist to enrichen a few select people at the expense of everyone playing the game, it makes it hard to feel sympathetic toward these companies.
This isn’t viable because the systems these companies use to get the kids gambling is not obvious, even to a watchful adult. This is by design. Companies are also not obligated to give any information parents can use to identify this. Lastly, a lot of these games are free to get into, so the parents have no reason to know/ find out their kid is playing fortnite for example.
Again, these aren’t circumstance, they are deliberate design choices to skirt the law and prevent potential action to stop it early.
True but parents have a responsibility to look at the game before letting their children play it. Should the mechanics exist? No. But should the parents look into the game beforehand? Yes
Switch the word ‘game’ with the word ‘drug’ and the word ‘play’ with the word ‘use’, and your comment still reads the same.
We still outlaw addictive drugs.
I highly doubt I will have the time to try all the new research drug-games my children acquire access to. Better stick to first party Nintendo games-drugs.
In all seriousness, PBS kids apps on mobile go hard, work on any device, and are fairly educational while being easy to use and fun enough to hold attention while being completely FREE.
We’ve paid for ABC mouse but the whole fuckin thing reeks of slot machine pokie stimulus while the puzzles and games crash often. The only thing that 100% works all the time is the store to exchange your “tickets”
Abc mouse is the highest rated most teacher recommended app and it’s fucking awful.
My 3 year old has gotten way more out of free software than any pay software that’s littered with addictive BS.
I would recommend:
GCompris
Khan academy kids
Learn to read Duolingo ABC
PBS anything
Comment does not read the same at all, and two of the most addictive drugs, alcohol and nicotine, are legal.
Now if you’d said “we still outlaw addictive drugs FOR KIDS”, you’d be right.
Do we though? Alcohol the most commonly used addictive drugs is allowed for adults and even children in many states as long as the adults approve and do it in in private residences.
Parents need to be better about paying attention to games. I remember telling my aunt about a game my 10 year old cousin wanted. She was horrified and said absolutely not. She bought it for him when he asked when they were in the store because she doesn’t take any time to pay attention to game They’re for kids. Even though games are clearly marked with any objectionable material. She “blindsided” by what was in the game when her son booted it up dispite the game be rated as mature, marking objectionable things and me giving her a play by play.
There are a lot of additive things that we expect parents to use their judgment on. Sugar for example. Until someone is talking to me about how we need a bad on soda and BS like that because parents can’t be expected to parent their kids about it, I don’t really care about the most optional of activities that is games. Children have extremely limited access if their parents don’t allow it. Theu buy the phones/tables/game consoles and robust parental controls have existed for a while.
Kids can be addicted to all sorts of things and it’s still on the parents. Because it’s technology we for some reason stop believing parents can do a thing. Oh however would the person who controls the internet ans the devices control their child’s access to social media (another one I see whining about) and video games. As a parent myself, I’m just under the impression that at least watching in my circle, the parents who don’t aren’t paying attention or don’t actually care that much, they just don’t like the outcome judgment.
I am acknowledging the issue. However, how would a kid have money to spend on games? When I was little, I would not have been able to participate because there was no debit card linked to any of the used accounts.
