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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 c
by 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 agoThere'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 agoYes, 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.