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If Videogames and Apps Are Addictive, Should Designers Worry about Liability?

• deleted 8y ago
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• sandov 8y ago
  I don't understand what makes people disdain freedom so much that they'll deem this sort of state overreach as reasonable. Holding Tobacco producers liable is paternalist & wrong, this is almost totalitarian.
  • neom 8y ago
    Tobacco sellers failed to educate the public of the dangers of smoking, and in some instances advertised it as healthy. To a point that society considered it beyond ignorance and into disingenuous. Are you saying that designers != studios?
    • sjroot 8y ago
      Why is it the job of the tobacco seller to educate the public on the dangers of smoking? Why would they invest their money in such an anti-marketing campaign? Advertising with factually inaccurate information, of course, should be punishable by law. Consumers need to be educated from an early age on how to identify legitimate sources of information. That is becoming more apparent every single day.
      • smallnamespace 8y ago
        > should be punishable by law. That's exactly what happened, e.g.: 'For example, Pennsylvania brought suit alleging a "conspiracy in concealing and misrepresenting the addictive and harmful nature of tobacco/nicotine[,] . . . industry control and manipulation of nicotine to foster addiction and thus profits[,] . . . intentionally attracting and addicting children to tobacco products," and "targeting African Americans" (complaint in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Philip Morris, Inc.). These claims encompass civil conspiracy, willful and negligent breach of a special duty, fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, negligent design, strict liability, unfair trade practices, public nuisance, and negligent and intentional entrustment.' [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agre...
        • thaumasiotes 8y ago
          But the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement apply to all tobacco companies regardless of whether they existed at the time. You can't argue that a new tobacco company did anything wrong. But they're fully as liable as the old ones, somehow. It's also hard to see how the punishment for misconduct, even misconduct that actually occurred, can be a fine paid every year for eternity.
      • rco8786 8y ago
        > Consumers need to be educated from an early age on how to identify legitimate sources of information. That is becoming more apparent every single day. Absolutely right. And a huge part of that involves rooting out those who publish misinformation and pay money to get that misinformation published in what is otherwise a reliable outlet for information. Like in the case of tobacco.
      • namlem 8y ago
        If your product is hazardous, it should at the very least include warnings on the package. We require this of medication, why not other products like tobacco. It's unrealistic to expect consumers to be able to thoroughly research everything they buy. Warning labels are not paternalism, they're a way of correcting information asymmetries.
  • tlb 8y ago
    I haven't heard a good defense of tobacco producers. For decades they suppressed evidence that their product caused lung cancer, which seems a rather bad thing to do. Even ultra-libertarians seem to agree that dangerous products should be labeled as to how dangerous they are, so that consumers can make an informed decision. Can you summarize or link to an argument that tobacco producers did nothing wrong?
    • robertAngst 8y ago
      Crazed libertarian an-cap here. When your product damages people, you should be responsible to label it as such. I'll even say the government was one of the reasons they have been immune up until the recent few decades.
    • KozmoNau7 8y ago
      I don't think the solution is to ban tobacco/sugar/alcohol/weed/opioids/new-drug-of-the-day, and I honestly think they should all be legal. The plain packaging law instituted in Australia and other places is a good way to do it. Plainly state what product is inside the pack and the dangers it presents. No "hip" and enticing designs to lure the impressionable, but let people make an informed choice for themselves.
      • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
        What would the average pay-to-win game look like without the hip packaging? Basically just a collection of buttons to click with cooldowns before you can click the button again and a way to pay to click it sooner?
        • KozmoNau7 8y ago
          Something like that, yeah. (I know you're being sarcastic) I'm not sure I buy the idea that pay-to-win games are anywhere near as addictive as tobacco or alcohol or opioids or similar substances.
  • cma 8y ago
    > Holding Tobacco producers liable is paternalist & wrong, Wasn't what they did with studies basically fraud? (Not sure that was what they were held liable for though)
  • Barrin92 8y ago
    Ironically this radical conception of freedom is in itself totalitarian in the literal sense of drowning out all other values but one. Health both on an individual and social level is a precondition for deeper freedoms that go beyond simple choice. Choice without restriction is paralysis, and there is nothing empowering about leaving addicts to their own vices and the guilty parties unpunished.
  • rco8786 8y ago
    Please. They knowingly sold harmful products and paid tons of money to miseducated the public about the harms. They are 100% liable.
• reaperducer 8y ago
  Today, no. Once health insurance companies start paying for video game addiction treatment, yes.
  • anothergoogler 8y ago
    Porn addiction is a thing but I haven't heard of smut producers being successfully sued for enabling it.
    • Lazare 8y ago
      That's a controversial opinion. Neither porn addiction nor sexual addiction is in the DSM-V, so it's not "officially" recognised as a real thing, and many researchers and experts believe it is not. There's not even any real agreement on what "porn addiction" would be (or if it's the same thing as sexual addiction). What little research has been done is inconclusive at best, showing that people do react to porn (well, duh), but that when, eg, brain imaging is does, the reaction doesn't really look like the reaction to drugs. It's not surprising lawsuits about porn addiction aren't going ahead when it's so easy to get an expert witness to (truthfully) testify that the psychiatric profession doesn't recognise porn addiction as a real thing. There's certainly people consuming porn who'd like to consume less, and who believe their consumption is harming their lives. That doesn't mean addiction is the correct model for what's going on, and to date, there appears to be little-to-no evidence showing that it is.
      • anothergoogler 8y ago
        Sorry if I was unclear, I meant "a thing" in the same sense as parent, in that people seek treatment for it.
      • smhost 8y ago
        Article that talks about some of the theory behind mental disorders: https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/07/creation-illness-gaming-disorder/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/07/creation-illness-gaming... Excerpt: > Carlat: How did you decide on five criteria as being your minimum threshold for depression? > Spitzer: It was just consensus. We would ask clinicians and researchers, “How many symptoms do you think patients ought to have before you would give them a diagnosis of depression?” And we came up with the arbitrary number of five. > Carlat: But why did you choose five and not four? Or why didn’t you choose six? > Spitzer: Because four just seemed like not enough. And six seemed like too much.
• werber 8y ago
  I think a similar system to what the article mentioned in Indiana where you can opt out, or more ideally set a time limit will become the norm sometime in the 20s
• Aloha 8y ago
  I'd be worried if I thought video games were substantively more addictive than TV is, for example, I dont think it is.
  • ryan-allen 8y ago
    You mustn't have played World of Warcraft, or Candy Crush. They are very addictive. Probably the worst example out there are the 'poker machine simulators', which you can see many in the App Store's top grossing apps. You can put in real money but you can't take any out, and they are completely unregulated unlike real poker machines.
  • keithnz 8y ago
    Well, there is old TV and new TV.... old TV you watched what you were given, and I don't think that is very addictive compared to how addictive games can be Modern TV where you can 'binge' series, can be addictive (I've certainly ended up staying way later than intended because of an exciting series ). It seems like this is a bit more addictive than old TV. Then there's games, which I think for many have around about the same addictiveness as Modern TV. But some seem to get incredibly addicted, with extreme cases like http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/04/01/korea.parents.starved.baby/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/04/01/korea.parent...
    • Aloha 8y ago
      No more addictive than not being able to put down a good book.
      • keithnz 8y ago
        thing is, books end. For a long time, most games end. But now there are lots of games that are reptitive play games. They don't end. Books also don't tend to have the same andrenilin rush, there are no time contraints, no other people. I think books are very different and don't seem to lead to the same level of problems as gaming does.
  • smt88 8y ago
• joeyyang 8y ago
  Yes.
• Thaxll 8y ago
  Everything is addictive, they should look into junk food / sugar for once.
  • hackits 8y ago
    Really just comes down to a argument what side of the fence you're on. Are you the addict? (then its bad), if you're the dealer (then its good). Mostly comes down to switching the burden of responsibility.
    • crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
      I'd say it comes down to sharing the burden of responsibility. The addict & designer are both liable for the addict's addiction.
• toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Anything that gives you positive feedback can be addictive. People get addicted to exercising to the point it can harm them. Yet Nike shouldn't be liable if someone runs themselves into the ground.
  • bognition 8y ago
    If nike knowingly sold products they engineered to drive running addiction then yes they would be liable.
    • foota 8y ago
      There shouldn't be any difference between someone selling something knowingly addictive like cigarettes and intentionally making something addictive imo.
      • master-litty 8y ago
        Adding sugar to cake, then?
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        • deleted 8y ago
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        • foota 8y ago
          I'm saying that if we allow companies to sell cigarettes then it's silly to not allow other forms of additions to be sold.
    • FLUX-YOU 8y ago
      If a study later comes out showing that they weren't actually addictive, what happens then? What happens if the initial study showing it was addictive was actually fraudulent because someone (who might now be dead) just hated Nike?
• HNthrow22 8y ago
  All things that feel good and releases dopamine ≠ equally addictive. Video games have reached levels of immersion higher than other forms of entertainment, add real $ loot boxes to that and it's clear publishers should worry about this, smart ones already are - Valve tracks Anti_Addiction_Rating for users to notify/suggest they play within healthy limits: https://www.pcgamesn.com/dota-2/dota-2-anti-addiction https://www.pcgamesn.com/dota-2/dota-2-anti-addiction.
  • themagician 8y ago
    I think the strange thing that’s happened with video games is that it used to be that you felt good because you were having fun. In this new era of micro transactions the games aren’t even fun anymore. There is only frustration, and then you pay to alivieate that frustration. You sometimes find yourself sitting there say, “why am I even doing this?” I genuinely miss gaming. When I try to get back into mainstream titles these days I evtually hit some roadblock mechanic designed to extract dollars and I’m just like, “This shit again?” and bail on the game. Some developers do it right. Most don’t. There are so many games or experiences that I just don’t think will ever exist again. I don’t know that there will ever be another Ultima Online or EverQuest, or another tactical shooter like Rainbow Six or America’s Army that isn’t pay to win. Or that we’ll ever see another decent RTS ever. It sucks.
    • greggman 8y ago
      Aren't there plenty of games that don't follow those pas patterns? I played PS4 God of War. It was amazing and had none of those features.
      • themagician 8y ago
        There are some. God of War, BotW, etc. but they are few and far between and there are entire types of games that don’t even exist anymore or get developed.
        • sien 8y ago
• InclinedPlane 8y ago
  Of course. People can get addicted to anything. But when a company makes a product that they know is not only addictive but harmful. When they go out of their way to make the product more addictive without any regard for the harm being done. When they go out of their way to specifically target those who are the most addicted. Well, then you run into some very clear-cut ethics problems. And that's the state we are in right now with a sizeable number of games. Certainly far from all, but those who are right now being the most exploitative are probably going to face a lot of scrutiny in the next several years.
  • EdgarVerona 8y ago
    I agree. This entire industry needs to take a good, long look in the mirror and ask ourselves whether the ends justify the means. Now, I'm not saying it's a clear-cut issue. There's a lot of murky grey area in the land of "what is entertainment?" versus "what is addiction?" And I think culpability on a moral level - though perhaps by necessity not a legal level - will ultimately end up being determined by the product's intent. If you ever want to bum yourself out, go down the road of asking yourself why you really find the things you do for entertainment entertaining. I don't know if it would be for everyone, but it was certainly sobering for me. As a species, we like to think that we have many of the answers about how our brain works and what certain things that feel intuitive mean - things like "entertainment." But I think we're actually a long way off from truly understanding these concepts.
    • smt88 8y ago
      There's a big difference between producing something that's addictive by accident vs. engineering the addiction. Even in the former situation, it's reasonable to ask researchers to detect and flag accidentally addictive mechanics.
      • EdgarVerona 8y ago
        Yes, exactly - I totally agree. That's why we both need to have an introspective moment in our industry - where we think about what the things we're making are really doing - and why intent is so important when talking about this issue. I genuinely do believe that a lot of companies have - for lack of a better term - stumbled into addiction.
• qop 8y ago
  I was an alcoholic for over a decade before I found my recovery. But I couldn't turn around and tell a distilleryman that he has to brew his liquor a certain way. Maybe the world would be a better place without booze. I would've had an easier childhood, maybe. I don't think addiction is necessarily the fault of production. There are certain exceptions and scenarios, like cigarette marketing to minors, marketing in lower income neighborhoods on purpose, stuff like that. Regulation is and always will be a very slippery slope. Even a small step down the slope can eventually compose into cataclysmic effects. It also makes it easier for regulatory bodies to make their case fallaciously once the first steps are taken. "You trust us with your credit card number, why not give us your location info now?" I'm rambling, but the video game industry could be irrevocably injured by trying to regulate addictive content. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but we should aim for fairness when possible, I think. Maybe awareness for individuals that are already more vulnerable to addictive behaviors? Like a surgeon general warning or something.
  • crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
    Alcohol poisons the body, so there are natural limits to how much one can drink. How much one can game is limited by how well one's meeting their own needs, eg. food, water, sleep, connection, etc. Point being alcohol probably can't be designed to be more addictive, while games can. As a recovering information addict & software developer who has studied dark designs, I can confirm people are intentionally making things with the intention of creating addicted customers. Information and gaming of various types is also freely available at most libraries, not to mention on all smartphones. Information & games are way more ubiquitously available than alcohol. They're not comparable & recovery for behavior addictions that don't contribute to social skills the way substance addictions often do can be a bit more complex. Substance addicts usually learn to navigate society well; behavioral addicts typically don't. Social connection is really important for recovery & requires skills the addict may need to develop. I know I had to do LOADS of work on connecting, as well as developing my emotional intelligence, since I started addictively avoiding my emotions around age 9. People designing things to be addictive are absolutely liable to some degree.
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• renjimen 8y ago
  There are two newer, disheartening trends in game development that feed on people’s enjoyment of games: pay-to-win and forever-early-access. Both are marketed as a way to support the game’s development, and in some cases that may be true. If it’s just cosmetics that are on sale (no loot boxes) or the developer is genuinely taking community feedback then both are bearable evils, but so often players are taken for a ride with the cost being their money, time and mental well-being. Companies should absolutely be held accountable for these practises, particularly because it’s often children and adolescents who are the victims.
  • islanderfun 8y ago
    Interesting distinction. Genuinely curious of examples from either group.
    • renjimen 8y ago
      Pay to win: collectible games (Hearthstone and Gwent), lots of free mobile games that let you pay to skip the grind (the newest Dungeon Keeper), blockbuster titles that let you buy content that is included on the disc but locked (Star Wars BF2), and a host of other shady business models. Forever early access: 7 Days to Die, Stonehearth, Star Citizen. Lots of games that were Kickstarted but couldn’t manage their scope well.
  • robertAngst 8y ago
    I dont quite understand how this problem started. Do people not know about Steam sales? Pay to win is such an awful concept, I wont touch it. Especially since there are literally 30 years of games and emulators to play. For 'forever early access', you really need to be sucked into the marketing to waste time and money on an unfinished game. I dont want to imply I'm some sort of stone wall when it comes to marketing, but I dont understand why people would do either of these. I've put 15 hours into Mount and Blade since the Steam Summer Sale and I dont think I paid more than 5 or 7 dollars. Is this an issue of uninformed consumers that dont know whats available?
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• jaredhansen 8y ago
  Anyone who does anything sufficiently valuable to society should worry about liability. Addictive or not, tons of value = tons of $$ = tons of envy = tons of political points to be had by taking you down a peg.
• stcredzero 8y ago
  That depends on how much the industry can spend on lobbying.
  • robertAngst 8y ago
    This is basically what I thought. Regardless what happens I feel like the consumer will lose.
• wutbrodo 8y ago
  I don't see much discussion of the actual contents of the article on this thread, but in case anyone else read it, this passage stuck out to me: > Gambling is a highly regulated industry. For example, in Indiana, regulatory agencies have set up voluntary exclusion programs whereby “any person may make a request to have his or her name placed on a voluntary exclusion list,” and casinos “must have procedures by which excluded individuals are not allowed to gamble.” Courts in Indiana and other states agree where such exclusionary programs are in place, casinos are only obliged to exclude compulsive gamblers who self-identify through the programs. Casinos are not obliged to “refuse service to pathological gamblers who [do] not self-identify.” I generally fall pretty heavily on the "let people make their own choices" side of the spectrum[1], but I'm always open to the argument that the individual isn't the most effective lever with which to minimize harm. The above is the kind of regulatory step that seems like it could do a lot of good while avoiding a lot of the pitfalls of the approaches on both extremes. There are some important finicky details though: how is removal from the list handled, if allowed at all? Who bears the liability if the exclusion list is violated, the provider or the user (in the form of criminal penalties, as with voluntary gambling exclusion in some states)? If the latter, is this likely to be run into the same pitfalls as criminalizing drug addiction? In the case of videogames, is it a reasonable burden to make the user provide ID (privacy implications and all), and if not, how do you prevent them from setting up a new email address to circumvent their voluntary exclusion? This is just one of the potential solutions, which IMO illustrates that there's a lot more nuance to the discussion than many here are approaching it with, and a lot more potential for out-of-the-box solutions, instead of simply having to resort to pitting the values of personal responsibility and paternalism directly against each other. [1] For example, responsible use of certain illegal or formerly-illegal drugs is as much (or more) an enriching part of my life as the regular consumption of the legal drug known as alcohol is for most people. Thank god I live somewhere that's civilized enough to avoid a heavily-enforced punitive approach to drug use and generally fosters a treatment-oriented approach to addictions.
  • robertAngst 8y ago
    I think the best case for not having another law/regulation is the future. If we regulate this today, what will this country look like in 200 years? Will we have regulations on water consumption, posture, etc... With every regulation you need regulators to enforce it and people to write the laws. Now you created cronyism to pay for it... When there is profit, profit feeds itself.
• yontherubicon 8y ago
  I mean, if they did, think about how much greater the risk would be for people like PornHub.
• donatj 8y ago
  So I have an honest naive question. Simply put, why are people playing Pay to Win games to begin with? I genuinely don’t understand where the dopamine release is? That’s what keeps people coming back, right? And is the dopamine release for some reason stronger than non-Pay to Win? Because if it’s not stronger, why do they play that rather than a flat cost game? Sunk costs? Trying to keep up with friends? I game a ton, but have never given such a game more than a couple hours, and far more rarely money because I simply wasn’t having fun... I’m not being judgmental, I’m trying to understand because I don’t. I’m assuredly the weird one.
  • watwut 8y ago
    Cause they are fun, at least initially, and cheap (free). You don't care about pay to win thing unless you are far in ladder and most people know they wont be among top anyway. I suspect that most people mind pay to win aspect much much less then noise about it would suggest. Flat cost games have to be paid before trying which means that you cant just pick them up out of curiosity. Unless you have a lot of friends to show you, it is hard to find flat cost game for you. Here I am projecting, I used to like games and they either ceased to make them for me or I was not able to find them for some reason. I was able to find pay to win I like and suit my lifestyle, after I finally actually tried them without bias (I was initially strongly biased toward the "mobile games must be shit" and "it is all pay to win crap" so I resisted long).
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > You don't care about pay to win thing unless you are far in ladder IME, P2W generally substantially effects gameplay and UX everywhere, because a P2W game is invariably designed to stress you into paying. Now, there's a big variability in the degree of impact this has, but it's pretty consistent with the degree to which a game is P2W, not orthogonal to it. > Flat cost games have to be paid before trying Limited scope playable demo/intro (including multiplayer) with pay-for-full-scope upgrade (or pay per feature which isn't P2W) have been around longer than P2W model, and F2P with pay-for-cosmetics is also a model which lots of games have succeeded with. The alternative to P2W isn't just flat cost games.
• _pdp_ 8y ago
  Good timing! I would not say that apps are addictive. Some of them are be but not all. Yesterday I was running a thought exercises around what makes Facebook, Instagram and Twitter so popular and why people keep flocking there despite their negatives - I certainly don't understand it. I reached to several conclusion but the most important one was that just like cigarettes there must be an addictive element that makes it into a rewarding experience for many people. Think of the likes count, sharing count, comments and even scrolling the news feed - you get a small doze of dopamine by just doing things and I would imagine, eventually it gets so addictive that you loose perception of time and you just get stuck in. I would not say that the Web is addictive in general. There are some places which could turn into an addiction but I highly doubt anyone would get addicted to checking the forecast or searching with Google. These are very popular utility services. The same applies with many apps and games which provide utility: spotify, iTunes, notes recording, etc. But some apps are specifically exploiting our addictive nature. Social networks which rank the top lists are good example. Even this forum can be addictive in a sense that although it provides a function it also has the concept of ratings through the karma scores. It is gamified and that is what makes it addictive. The sad fact is that many people in this forum are in fact in the business of making people addicted. We measure success in terms of how well and for how long we capture the customer's attention and if that has something to do with emotional responses I would say it is nothing but machine for making people addicted. Why would anyone spend 2-3 hours a day on Facebook or Instagram? What function these platforms provide that is useful in day-to-day life? Yes they are useful to connect with friends but this is not what they are used for mostly. You will put effort into making great posts and shares and the reward is the likes which I am sure is as addictive experience as it gets. So worrying about getting customers addicted to your app or game is counter to the goal of making the same app or game very popular and I will say that it is also business prohibitive. You could however concentrate on ideas that are utilities (all of SaaS) but you should also be aware that you will probably have much tougher time ahead to make your idea into a successful venture.
  • robertAngst 8y ago
    To be fair, for something to be addictive, it needs to get better before people get bored of it. Apparently facebook is collapsing as people are using it less. Even with every data on a human, they couldnt keep me around. I actually really enjoy instagram. I have learned a lot on it.
• skookumchuck 8y ago
  It's too bad our society has moved away from the person who chose to do something bad being liable, towards blaming people around them: 1. bartenders are at fault for the drunken actions performed by people who bought the booze 2. Seattle just passed an ordinance where gun owners are liable for gun crimes committed by people who steal those guns 3. Employers are liable for crimes committed by employees 4. Homeowners are liable if people do stupid things and hurt themselves on the homeowner's property 5. Drug makers are liable for drug users' actions etc.
  • jackpeterfletch 8y ago
    Some amount of liability, though not completely liability makes sense for all these things though. 1. Its reasonable for the public and police to expect you to regulate and secure your establishment and keep it from having a negative impact on the community. 2. Weapons are very dangerous and not everyone is licensed to distribute them. Its fair of society to expect you to take reasonable measures to keep them secure. 3. They are liable if its found that leadership haven't taken reasonable measures to make sure employees don't do bad things. You cant benefit from a company's output just to turn a blind eye to what might be illegal activity. 4. If your property isn't reasonably safe, you shouldn't be inviting people onto it, its not fair on those people might be injured, who don't know what to look out for. 5. Your saying Big Pharma has nothing to answer for the opium crisis in in the US right now? A requirement for responsible marketing and prescription of harmful and addictive substances makes complete sense.
    • skookumchuck 8y ago
      Your post pretty much exemplifies what I was talking about. It's the notion that if an adult decides to pull the trigger on the gun he stole, it is someone else's fault. Consider 1. This an overreaching and hopelessly vague statement. It could be interpreted to mean pretty much anything. Consider 2. I bet your home is full of dangerous things. Have you taken steps to secure them all? Consider 3. This is why ex-cons cannot get jobs. It's because there have been successful lawsuits against companies who hired ex-cons, and then some of them committed crimes. The idea is that the employer "should have known" the employee was an ex-con and shouldn't have hired him. Consider 4. I know of cases where a painter set his ladder incorrectly, fell off, and successfully sued the homeowner. Consider 5. Recently there was an HN discussion where doctors have been pressured to simply stop prescribing opioids, thus sending their chronic pain patients to hell.
• matheusmoreira 8y ago
  There are way too many video games out there that are essentially casinos. In fact, I'd say some of those games are even worse than casinos. At least in casinos you have the chance to actually win some money. Some mobile games I've played were literal spending competitions between players, and we got essentially nothing for it. After a while it's not even fun anymore but it's pretty hard to quit because my friends and me invested so much time and money into it. The mechanics were well disguised and hidden behind several levels of indirection. There's a game component which gives you resources and generally improves your standing in the game's community. You can't just play the actual game though; you need "stamina" to play, which is just a fancy way to describe a timer. If you run out of stamina, you can't play again until it regenerates. One of the reasons this timer exists is to rate limit the game. Your progression in the game can only happen at the fixed rate dictated by the timer. The timer resets every 8 hours or so and this acts as negative reinforcement, creating a log-in habit: people feel like they're losing progress and falling behind if they don't log in 3 times a day. The timer should always be running to ensure maximum gains; every second it sits at 0 is a second wasted. Lots of people wake up at 2 AM just to do some game tasks that became available because the timer reset. It's insane. What makes it a spending competition is the fact you can pay to reset the timer. This means non-paying customers are stuck with a fixed progress rate while the whales pay to amass ridiculous amounts of resources quickly. The casual players who don't pay money only have a chance in the beginning. They simply can't compete over the long term so they quit the game. This leads to a constantly decreasing player base. The game operators usually create hundreds of different servers. They stabilize over the long term, with small groups of powerful players dominating it. Eventually, they merge stable servers in order to make players compete with each other for dominance once more. The more merges a server's been subjected to, the harder it is to compete with the other top players and the more money you must spend just to keep up. You might have been a top player in the original server, but you fall by hundreds of positions after a merge, and you're pretty much forgotten after two merges. Unless you start spending increasingly ridiculous amounts of money, of course. If they just merged old servers, eventually there'd be only one remaining. That's why they create at least two new servers at the same time. It forms a beautiful cycle. It would be perfect if every server started off with the same amount of players every time, but games lose popularity over time. Eventually, it will die. I once thought the traditional PC/console video games industry would never design money traps like these. Unfortunately, this kind of thing is slowly becoming the norm in online games. They're not as extreme as the mobile game I described above, but these ideas do seem to be slowly creeping into modern online games. If this is what the future of video games looks like, I won't shed any tears when governments regulate it.
• feikal 8y ago
  should AUDI make less nicer cars?
• deviationblue 8y ago
  Should we start holding food chemists accountable for weight gain and obesity? Rhetorical question aside, there's a lot of stimuli competing for our attention in any given day. Since we've created this brave new world, I think it makes sense to educate people growing in this society to combat that. If you're into that sort of thing. I'd liken measures against this to soda taxes and cancer photos on cigarettes. I think education is fine, but anything that impedes on personal agency is annoying. I understand addiction ruins lives. But imposing blanket measures, like soda taxes or whatever, seems like punishing others because of someone else.