4 ms·

Agreed. I've often thought of this, with respect to MMOs, and RPGs/etc with drop rates. Inherently games are all just dopamine drivers. Some are of course base

Agreed. I've often thought of this, with respect to MMOs, and RPGs/etc with drop rates. Inherently games are all just dopamine drivers. Some are of course based on physical skills (coordination/timing/etc), others on knowledge as a skill (exploiting game mechanics/etc). Where it gets fuzzy fast for me is very basic MMOs, RPGs, etc - RNG based mechanics. The fact that i completed the dungeon with a skill (knowledge/etc to play the dungeon correctly and win) doesn't seem, to me, to change the RNG roll at the end. I'm in no way arguing that any RNG equates to gambling.. in the classical sense.. but it kinda does, if you squint. So when does it become bad? Is it when we make gambling addicts? Because old fashioned games with RNG rewards (loot/etc) likely form addicts (if we stretch the word for discussion).. myself included. Or is it just when we involve money? Money seems an easy line to draw.. but is it fair to children if we make them gambling addicts and only charge them once they hit 18? Spend their youth training for the casinos, only to take part when their old enough to lose it all? I don't have any answers.. but it feels like we're playing fast and loose with weaponized dopamine here. As with most of our society, i suppose.

fxtentacle 4y ago
I fully agree that we're training future addicts. And it's not like people don't know. There will be a deliberate sequence of hook, time sink, random reward because that's most addictive. But I find balancing this very difficult. We want fun games and fun things are addictive. But we don't want addict-creating games. So how do you measure which amount of addiction is the correct amount?
- lijogdfljk 4y ago
  I suspect we're unable to do anything until we understand the brain better, what defines addiction (at a very measurable, concrete way), etc. The one thing that does scare me about addiction + money is that, like Diablo, the companies incentive seems aligned with getting players to spend vast quantities of hours and money. Regardless of what it is right now or what value it offers for free, that seems to be their incentive. Simple buy models without MTX seem an easier model to keep company incentives aligned with player incentives.

fxtentacle 4y ago

I fully agree that we're training future addicts. And it's not like people don't know. There will be a deliberate sequence of hook, time sink, random reward because that's most addictive. But I find balancing this very difficult. We want fun games and fun things are addictive. But we don't want addict-creating games. So how do you measure which amount of addiction is the correct amount?

lijogdfljk 4y ago
I suspect we're unable to do anything until we understand the brain better, what defines addiction (at a very measurable, concrete way), etc. The one thing that does scare me about addiction + money is that, like Diablo, the companies incentive seems aligned with getting players to spend vast quantities of hours and money. Regardless of what it is right now or what value it offers for free, that seems to be their incentive. Simple buy models without MTX seem an easier model to keep company incentives aligned with player incentives.