[m463]

I think some games do have a dark side, crafted by the creators to hook into the psyche of the players.

I talked to a developer of a popular free-to-play game, and he told me of many of the psychological hooks they use in their game.

Exploitation of hoarding behavior, community fame for specific players, random occurrences that are carefully scripted, etc.

Nowadays it's hard to find games free of ulterior motives.

Yes, addictive games and personalities have always existed, but now there's money mixed in.

[dymk]

Videogames have always had "money mixed in", profitable videogame studios are as old as videogames themselves, and your glasses are just rose tinted.

I'm not even sure what kind of "old" game you're picturing that you think didn't have "money mixed in" - tetris? pong? goldeneye?

[Zeebrommer]

I guess the difference is that classic videogames make their money by a single purchase upfront. Modern MMO/F2P games need the player to get hooked and spend their money on loot boxes and outfits.

[pushpop]

Arcades were a thing before home consoles. The entire premise of an arcade is to get people hooked on short tasks of intermediate reward so they keep churning their coins into the machine.

[village-idiot]

Arcades are also a fundamentally social experience, which changes the tenor significantly.

No, most online games don’t count as social. They’re anonymous, faceless, and typically populated with the utter dregs of humanity willing to say the most vile thing to get attention. Genuine human interaction this is not.

[pushpop]

> Arcades are also a fundamentally social experience, which changes the tenor significantly.

The social experience has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Carnival games and casinos are also engineered to prey on the same human responses - often transparently engineered to be addictive - yet are social environments too.

Plus the people who develop problems will often be sat on their own - hooked on the machine they're playing and oblivious to anyone around them in spite of the social setting.

> No, most online games don’t count as social. They’re anonymous, faceless, and typically populated with the utter dregs of humanity willing to say the most vile thing to get attention. Genuine human interaction this is not.

That very much depends on the game and community you meet. Some fall into the category you describe while there are others that do not.

There are plenty of inspiring stories like the following that show good communities and genuine friendships can spring from online gaming:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-47064773

[baud147258]

The few time I talked with another player in a MMO, even as a noob, were cordial. I'd say it depends on the kind of people playing the game, I guess

[coldtea]

>typically populated with the utter dregs of humanity

Or, pretty typical 13 to 25 year olds, millions of them, people that could be your son or daughter or friend, and who you enjoy the company otherwise everyday...

>willing to say the most vile thing to get attention. Genuine human interaction this is not

Or perhaps totally genuine (which is different than "compassionate"), and context-appropriate?

It's a competition, from the ancient times you're meant to take sides, disparage the opponent, sing a nice insulting song against the other team, and enjoy crushing them!

[pushpop]

“trash talk” is fine but I think what the former poster was referring to is the trolls. Online gaming is no different to any other online activity in that regard (or even real life playground “banter”). Ie some people are little shits and others aren’t. The trick is to give the shits a wide birth; which is often easier said than done.

[coldtea]

>I'm not even sure what kind of "old" game you're picturing that you think didn't have "money mixed in" - tetris? pong? goldeneye?

How about an old adventure game, where you were expected to pay once, enjoy the story and quizzes, and complete in X time (no "dark patterns" etc)?

And of which the creators were as passionate about the their creation and genre as you, as opposed to cynical 'let's make another addictive MMOG' or 'let's make another FarmVille' or 'let's make Angry Birds 335' studios?

Food also has "money mixed in" but you can have a honest local food joint, and you can also have a global "give them crap" chain like McDonalds. Sometimes with identical prices too.

[rizzin]

>And of which the creators were as passionate about the their creation and genre as you, as opposed to cynical 'let's make another addictive MMOG' or 'let's make another FarmVille' or 'let's make Angry Birds 335' studios?

This is how I feel too. All games are addictive and have psychological "feel good" hooks in them. However it feels like a lot of those scummy mobile games prioritize engineering addiction and exploiting those hooks over making a fun game. Add to that recent controversies about some games being considered gambling which, as an industry, shares this goal of making people addicted to the rush so that they spend more.

What pains me the most is that it works. People vote with wallets and support these developers.

[baud147258]

Except than game based on a one-time purchase, without any kind of expectation of recurring revenue from IAP/lootboxes, wouldn't get much benefit from too many dark pattern equivalents/skinner boxes, but rather from being a fun game.

[baud147258]

Also I would say it might a difference in priority: one game could be designed to be as fun as possible, which might cause it to be addictive to some player; whereas a F2P game would optimise in addictivness first and foremost, since its business model rely on it.

[m463]

Ha, I was thinking historically like solitaire or chess or bridge or the like.

The real exception is gambling games.

And I did think along the same lines (in a very minor way) with arcade games. Pinball - where skill let you prolong a game gave way to video games (like pacman or tetris you mentioned), which quickly got too hard to keep going. And it went further when games like gauntlet kept you feeding quarters in a pay to play way.

But at that time, we got atari and nintendo and so forth. Pay once, play for a long time. Kids grew up with this, and parents worried about the cost of a cartridge.

But the current crop of games is free, yet blatantly money oriented. Plants vs Zombies pre-EA vs post-EA comes to mind. Add grinding and then pay to not grind.

Yes, a little rose colored. But in vegas you can actually register as a compulsive gambler and the casinos will not serve you.

[Tarean]

There is money in getting players addicted to increase revenue. The oldest example of that might be WoW but that was far less manipulative nor focused kn whales like many mobile games nowadays are.