13 ms·

Engineers of addiction

125 points by colinbartlett 11y ago

Animats 11y ago
Quotes: "The "zone" is flow through a lens darkly: hyperfocused, neurotransmitters abuzz, but directed toward a numbness with no goal in particular." "I don’t have to think. And I know I can’t win." "You know how you get people younger to gamble? Hand them a fucking telephone." "A more exact replica of a slot may be Tinder. The mechanics of the dating app mirror the experience of playing slots." "It’s okay to addict people as long as your business model doesn’t depend on it."
n72 11y ago
First employee, pseudo-founder of Doubledown Casino here (now the highest grossing game on the iPad). The interesting thing is that we were absolute crap at the actual gamification stuff. It was simply the slots machine mechanic which drew people in. I (and another person) kept trying to push the principles of gamification, the psychological tricks, etc which had worked so well for the likes of Zynga (not entirely proud of that, of course), but were for the most part utterly ignored by the other couple of guys who didn't understand their value. So, what I find interesting here is that even without the gamification bells and whistles, the simple mechanic of a poorly skinned, very buggy slots game (which is what we had in the begging) was enough to skyrocket us (along with ridiculously cheap facebook ads back in the wild west days of the platform.)
- austenallred 11y ago
  > the slot machine mechanic... drew people in I'm not sure I understand what you're saying; do you mean that people were literally looking for an iPad version of a slot machine, and you just filled that void?
  - n72 11y ago
    No, we were originally just a flash app on FB and did mobile later. My point is that even without all the gamification bells and whistles we were very successful. It was the very simple mechanics of a slots game which drew people in — we didn't need leader boards, badges, levels, and all that other gamification stuff.
- macrael 11y ago
  I'd argue that a slot machine is spiritually the same as "gamification" in general.
  - n72 11y ago
    I absolutely agree. It's gamification distilled to its essence in a sense. I was only making that point that we didn't even do research on color or sound or anything like that. We just had a very, very simple version of a buggy slots game and even that was enough.
- ryanjshaw 11y ago
  Given that you are aware that you are basically exploiting the digital equivalent of an highly addictive substance that does lead to ruined lives/families/careers, does this weigh on your mind, and if not, why not? [1] [1] Casino licenses in most countries are tied to paying for treatment of people with gambling addiction/compulsions - similar to how many countries approach decriminalisation of addictive substances. I assume you do not fund any such programs - is that correct?
  - n72 11y ago
    I'm not sure why I'd discuss this with some random person on the internet. If you'd like to tell me that you think I did something morally wrong, feel free to do so, but have the courtesy of not disingenuously cloaking it as a question. (FWIW, I haven't been with the company since 2012.)
    - mb_72 11y ago
      I wouldn't work for gaming company in the same way I wouldn't work for a weapons company. Poker machines cause a lot of problems to not only individuals but to families; time and again I read about someone massively in debt in the local paper or internet news, someone who often has been driven to theft or fraud to support their habit. Where I live (Adelaide, South Australia) one local politician has 'made' his career on a no-pokies stance. In addition to the gambling issues, the presence of poker machines in my city has help kill off the live music scene. Pub owners now prefer to make their money from zombies-slot players, and the community and friendly atmosphere created by humans playing music has been practically destroyed as a result. IMO poker machines, especially, are a blight on the gaming world. I only feel lucky the dumbed-down 'game play' is nothing that would appeal to me or people I know, and personally speaking I would never want to use my software skills to help separate some of society's most vulnerable and naive from their money.
      - n72 11y ago
        Thank you for being straight forward with your criticism. I can't say I disagree all that much. There is a legitimate other side which would argue that your stance is too paternalistic. E.g. where do we draw the line as a society to protect ourselves from ourselves? Alcoholism is a terrible and wide spread disease. Should we outlaw pubs? I'm not arguing for one side or the other, but merely that it's a rather complicated issue and the arguments on both sides should recognize that.
- jrpt 11y ago
  Just double checked because I didn't believe what you said about the highest grossing game. The top grossing games on iPad varies by market but is one of Clash of Clans, Game of War: Fire Age, or Candy Crush Saga, except in Japan where it's Puzzles & Dragons. Doubledown Casino is high up there but it isn't the highest grossing game on the iPad. Clash of Clans and GoW:FA are making a multiplicative factor more than Doubledown Casino. I believe you about the slot machine mechanic though.
  - n72 11y ago
    I was simply going by this. I have nothing to do with the company anymore and don't actively follow things in that space so could well be mistaken: http://bgr.com/2015/04/16/top-paid-ios-apps-double-down-casino/ http://bgr.com/2015/04/16/top-paid-ios-apps-double-down-casi...
andrewstuart2 11y ago
There's no way I'm the only one wary of the moral implications of trying to addict your users without their knowledge and for a profit. It just seems like the most self-centered possible way of using your skills when you don't care at all whether it's going to destroy lives as long as it brings their cash to your (and/or your investors') bank account. I have no problem with helping people understand how to use their brain chemistry to help themselves do things they want to do. This, however, just feels so bad for the human race as a whole. I guess what I'm saying is that it makes me sad that this happens and that people are okay with doing it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - cloverich 11y ago
    I'd counter that the definition of a consumer product is to trade a product with the consumer -- you provide something of value to them (the product), they provide something of value to you (the money). I suppose the implication with addiction (and its analogies here) are that they provide a way to get something of value from the consumer (money) without providing them any value in return -- only the illusion of value. Its not to say that all addictive products are inherently value-less -- but that their perceived value is far greater than their actual value -- by design (with the perception being driven by addiction). Your specific point -- that endorphin hit you get is a social reinforcement for a positive contribution to the community of Hacker News. Its not an addiction by design -- its using our internal wiring as it was intended (social contribution makes us feel happy)
    - andrewstuart2 11y ago
      Not sure that was a counter as much as agreement, based on parent's comment after the quote :-) EDIT: now I'm confused. The comment I thought you were replying to appears to be a different comment now and the original deleted. Maybe I'm going crazy.
    - avivo 11y ago
modeless 11y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if free-to-play gaming ends up regulated like gambling in the future.
- n72 11y ago
  It absolutely should be. Also, it would be quite easy to help people self-regulate by creating a blacklist of credit card numbers which one could sign oneself up on and which all online casinos would have to use.
  - nerfhammer 11y ago
    This is called self-exclusion or voluntary exclusion where you can elect to have yourself banned from casinos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Exclusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Exclusion some states have a state-wide list and some casinos in other states have their own self-exclusion lists
    - nmrm2 11y ago
      A little bit like the anti-procrastination feature on hn.
carsongross 11y ago
If you want a picture of the future, imagine casino lights blinking in front of a blank human face, forever.
- rhizome 11y ago
  "Look at 'em, look at how peaceful they all seem. But on the inside: busy, busy, busy." --Gideon, "Minority Report"
- joezydeco 11y ago
  It's probably not the future you expect. The casinos are not raking in the money from slots and table games like they were in decades prior. What used to be free or loss leaders for the casinos (rooms, buffets, shows, nightclubs, even the pools) are now massive revenue generators for the resorts. Aside from that, casinos are also experimenting with games of skill (aside from poker) as possible ways to attract players now. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/24/402010841/the-free-throw-experiment http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/24/402010841/the-f...
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    > The casinos are not raking in the money from slots and table games like they were in decades prior. You're pretty far off base here. Just looking at the Las Vegas Sands Corp's 10K, their annual revenue by source: Casino - $12.0B Rooms - $1.54B Food/Bev - $0.78B Mall - $0.55B Convention, retail, other - $0.55B So well over 80% of their revenue still comes from gaming -- and this is all extremely high margin revenue. The Casino PR industry is making a lot of noise about how diverse their income streams are but it doesn't follow in reality.
austenallred 11y ago
I'm really just replying to this so that I can see my karma score go up and I can get a little endorphin hit, really. But in all seriousness, it seems that the things that are most destructive are those things that have brains have been trained to drip feel-good chemicals - we distill the essence of that thing and make it easy and cheap to reproduce. Your brain likes it when you eat food because it keeps you alive? Well, it looks like a lot of that is coming from sugar/carbs. How about we put an absurd amount of sugar in water and call it "soda," adding a little caffeine for good measure, and sell it for $1/bottle? Your body reacts pleasantly (in the short-term) to fats? Here's a hamburger. Your body will eventually regret it, and overall the outcome will be negative, but the initial spike will be enough that you either never put the two together, or can't resist it. Evolution has trained you to enjoy reproducing? Well really you just enjoy the act of sex. And actually not even sex per se, it looks like we can stimulate you with a few visuals and something touching you... porn becomes one of the biggest industries that exist. Drugs are a much more literal version of that, distilling what makes your brain act certain ways in a literal sense. But in my mind whether or not something is a "drug" isn't binary; it's a continuum. I'd like to see someone try to take Diet Coke away from my cousin and then convince me it's not a drug. So is candy crush an addiction? For some people, absolutely. They've moved themselves along that continuum. The scary thing is if you have a consumer product, trying to make someone become addicted is pretty much the definition of what you do. Cigarettes are good business; would you start a cigarette company? Soda is good business, would you start a soda company? Brownies are good business, would you start a brownie company? It seems to me that our minds haven't yet adapted to the reality that now the entire world of information is in our pockets, not to mention buzzing and sending us notifications. It's certainly no mystery why people are always so buried in their phones. It really concerns me personally, enough that I turn off all notifications and don't even allow myself to download certain apps, because I know I'd use them. My hosts file is full of sites that are addictive. I don't know what the answer is, but it's something I think about a lot as the founder of a consumer product. I would love people to feel like they have to come back and use my site every day. I'm trying to create that feeling. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know.
- n72 11y ago
  Perhaps this is simplistic, but one question you might ask yourself is whether you're offering something of value or exploiting a psychological weaknesses inherent to humans.
ksk 11y ago
The idea that purposefully creating a psychological dependence on something as unproductive as gambling is a good thing boggles the mind. I'm glad that my response is that of disgust rather than "admiration" or "envy" for these businesses.
downandout 11y ago
Casinos like to say that roughly 2% of players become addicted. What they fail to mention is that approximately half of all their revenue comes from these 2%. A more telling statistic is that approximately 10% of players account for 90% of all casino revenue [1]. The numbers are quite similar for games with IAP [2]. While every casino in the US displays signage claiming to support "responsible gaming" and claims to have policies in place to stop addicts from gambling, the reality is that if addicts were stopped, all casinos would be closed and bankrupt within a month. No capital-intensive industry could survive if 90% of their revenue suddenly vanished. And with that, we arrive at the truth: casinos are built explicitly for the creation and exploitation of addiction. This is pretty evil, but it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. The only meaningful way to address it is to focus resources on treatment and prevention. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579123383535635644 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023046261045791233... [2] http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-12-monetizing-games-crucial-advice-from-key-players http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-12-monetizing-...
- Red_Tarsius 11y ago
  > it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. It's quite a complex issue. How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? How do they discern lawful play from illegal play? Treatment, prevention and awareness is the only practical solution.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    > How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? You don't seem to understand that addicts aren't free. If, as downandout suggests, the industry can't exist without the addicts, then the choice isn't one of freedom versus tyranny. It's a choice of which infringement on freedom we find worse: a predatory industry ruining people's lives or the state saying, "Sorry, you can only play games for fun, not money."
    - eikenberry 11y ago
Red_Tarsius 11y ago
This is my field of study. Sometimes It's difficult to draw the line between well-designed and addictive. My personal deal breaker is when play becomes a sinkhole for money. A more moral strategy would be to foster user awareness with threshold mechanisms: "You spent more than [threshold]$ today. We won't accept any more purchases until tomorrow." If you're interested, I highly recommend N. Schüll's Addiction by Design.
- panic 11y ago
  A more moral strategy would be to foster user awareness with threshold mechanisms: "You spent more than [threshold]$ today. We won't accept any more purchases until tomorrow." I wonder why mobile app stores haven't implemented such a mechanism.
  - Red_Tarsius 11y ago
    1) It's less profitable. 2) The popup might "break the spell" and frustrate players. They would likely move to more compelling activities. People who are severely addicted to slot machines don't care about winning or losing. They just want to keep the flow. Every distraction is detrimental to the experience.
- amsilprotag 11y ago
  There is danger in creating artificial scarcity by cutting off gamblers after a threshold. It will likely result in an increase in desire and addiction. Consider Candy Crush, a game where players are cut off access to the game after a certain amount of plays. This has the result of increasing desire, habit formation, and decreasing burnout. If there is a solution, I think it lies in educating the population and making access as inconvenient as possible.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
Is wikipedia all that different? Youtube? Even Google itself? Different manifestations of the same sort of thing, if you shift your perspective just a bit and look at how people use them.
- eropple 11y ago
  Wikipedia isn't taking your money. Neither is Google. So, yeah. Difference in kind, not merely degree.
  - waterlesscloud 11y ago
    Google/YouTube is making money from your addiction, so...no, not difference in kind.
    - eropple 11y ago
      You have a very long row to hoe to establish that incidental advertising revenue is the same as literally taking money out of the pockets of the fixed-income elderly. Feel free to start, but 'till then I'm going to have a powerfully hard time taking your argument seriously. And Wikipedia doesn't have advertising at all, so don't throw out your back lugging them goalposts.
      - waterlesscloud 11y ago
        LOL at "incidental" You know, it's just Google's main revenue stream. By several orders of magnitude.
        eropple 11y ago
        incidental, adj.: accompanying but not a major part of something. Which is why I picked the phrasing I did; advertising is completely and inarguably incidental to the consumption of the content that somebody is on YouTube to actually see. Is it Google's main revenue stream? Sure. Is it significantly impactful to the consumer? No, not really. But let's take a step back. Do you actually intend to defend your assertion that advertising is the same in kind as literally taking money out of somebody's pocket? Or is this just the tacit admission that, no, you can't, so let's play definitional games?
jscottmiller 11y ago
I found the following passage most striking: > "I lost my husband two years ago to throat cancer," she explained. "He was the love of my life, and I started doing this just to — I was out of my mind and spent a lot of time at the cancer center." ... Singleton says she never recovered from the pain of her loss, and that’s why she keeps coming back to the slots. The person quoted above is in need of counseling and support. Instead, she's getting a drip-feed of low-cost morphine to mask her loss, like a debtor going from pay-day loan to pay-day loan to stay solvent. Academically, we seem to have strong evidence linking stress to reduced impulse control. I'm no expert in the matter, but surveys such as this [1] seem convincing. Despite this, the popular conversation seems to stay away from root causes and instead ends at the label 'addict.' I wonder what percentage slot machine and clash of clans-styled mobile gaming revenue is due to this kind of coping-related addiction. downandout's comment [2] suggests it is probably quite high. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732004/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732004/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9557208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9557208
- golergka 11y ago
  This segment about people coping with loss using slot machines was really eye-opening. And actually, it made me think better about this industry than before. Of course, using slot machines for that is not as healthy as going through counseling, but it seems a lot better than almost all other alternatives. And the players themselves seem to have a pretty good understanding of the mechanic: they're not hoping to win, they're not tricked, they trade their money for the "flow", and are open about it.
jkincaid 11y ago
If you're concerned about the way the tech industry engineers addiction by exploiting bugs in our brains, check out Time Well Spent - http://TimeWellSpent.io http://TimeWellSpent.io It's an (early-on) movement exploring ways to build products that respect our time and focus. (Watch the video for a good overview).
thewhizkid 11y ago
If you haven't seen the Southpark episode "Freemium isn't Free" you really should...hits the nail on the head on the addictive nature of free to play mobile games.
interesting_att 11y ago
A lot of people in this thread have moral qualms with slot machines. I know I did. However, I have since been heavily involved in the industry (not of my choosing), and have been able to better understand it. The slot industry is not the epitome of evil. 1) Slots can be fun- Most people think slots are bad because they are "addicting". They conclude that these machines are addicting in large part because they themselves can't wrap their heads why ANYONE would spend so much money on a game without some serious mental disorder. But that completely ignores the actual voices of the users (who slot designers actually talk to). Players actually enjoy the thrills of winning AND losing. We have to come to grips that what others consider fun is sometimes beyond our realm of imagination. And just because we don't understand the thrill of their experience, doesn't mean the machine is tricking them. I don't see most people confused when their 75 year old grandmother doesn't like Call of Duty. 2) Spending lots of money on slots isn't necessarily a symptom of addiction- I have met so many people (Completely normal, wealthy people) who have a limit of spending $30/day on slots in their spare time. That is, they spend around 10k/year on slots. Anyone seeing 10k/year would think that this person was addicted, but they don't measure his/her background. Slot players tend to be older, they tend to spend on little else (they don't go out to bars!), tend to have a good amount of free time, and tend to have a good bit of savings. They - of all people- should be allowed to play slots if they so choose to. Obviously the money society spends on slots would be better used to feed some starving child or build some fancy new lifesaving technology. But that's more of a critique of capitalism, not just slots. 3) Casinos don't target gambling addicts- Of course slot makers do basic A/B testing of their games. But it's not like casinos put ads outside of Gambling Addicts Anonymous meetings. They target people in general, and gambling addicts will always find a way too them. When do we start placing the responsibility on the end user? 4) Is the rate of problem gamblers (gamblers who spend a lot of money and can't) who use slot machines higher than the rate of alcoholics? Shopping addicts? Drug addicts? Do you suggest banning alcohol because some people can't handle it? 5) Casinos and slots are heavily regulated by what they can and cannot do. Moreover, taxes on casinos do go to fund problem gambling help, schools, and a lot of great other things. In the end, unless you actually take an effort to learn how to enjoy slots, you won't understand why people like it. And because of that, you will just vilify the industry. Eerily similar to the war on drugs.
- 11y ago
Plough_Jogger 11y ago
Which iOS game development companies are the most effective in driving this kind of behavior?
lips 11y ago
I hope Ellen Degeneres & Duck Dynasty sleep tight with their images being used to brand these things. Seems one of the more dubious licensing agreements you could make.

125 points by colinbartlett 11y ago

Quotes: "The "zone" is flow through a lens darkly: hyperfocused, neurotransmitters abuzz, but directed toward a numbness with no goal in particular." "I don’t have to think. And I know I can’t win." "You know how you get people younger to gamble? Hand them a fucking telephone." "A more exact replica of a slot may be Tinder. The mechanics of the dating app mirror the experience of playing slots." "It’s okay to addict people as long as your business model doesn’t depend on it."

n72 11y ago

First employee, pseudo-founder of Doubledown Casino here (now the highest grossing game on the iPad). The interesting thing is that we were absolute crap at the actual gamification stuff. It was simply the slots machine mechanic which drew people in. I (and another person) kept trying to push the principles of gamification, the psychological tricks, etc which had worked so well for the likes of Zynga (not entirely proud of that, of course), but were for the most part utterly ignored by the other couple of guys who didn't understand their value. So, what I find interesting here is that even without the gamification bells and whistles, the simple mechanic of a poorly skinned, very buggy slots game (which is what we had in the begging) was enough to skyrocket us (along with ridiculously cheap facebook ads back in the wild west days of the platform.)

austenallred 11y ago
> the slot machine mechanic... drew people in I'm not sure I understand what you're saying; do you mean that people were literally looking for an iPad version of a slot machine, and you just filled that void?
- n72 11y ago
  No, we were originally just a flash app on FB and did mobile later. My point is that even without all the gamification bells and whistles we were very successful. It was the very simple mechanics of a slots game which drew people in — we didn't need leader boards, badges, levels, and all that other gamification stuff.
macrael 11y ago
I'd argue that a slot machine is spiritually the same as "gamification" in general.
- n72 11y ago
  I absolutely agree. It's gamification distilled to its essence in a sense. I was only making that point that we didn't even do research on color or sound or anything like that. We just had a very, very simple version of a buggy slots game and even that was enough.
ryanjshaw 11y ago
Given that you are aware that you are basically exploiting the digital equivalent of an highly addictive substance that does lead to ruined lives/families/careers, does this weigh on your mind, and if not, why not? [1] [1] Casino licenses in most countries are tied to paying for treatment of people with gambling addiction/compulsions - similar to how many countries approach decriminalisation of addictive substances. I assume you do not fund any such programs - is that correct?
- n72 11y ago
  I'm not sure why I'd discuss this with some random person on the internet. If you'd like to tell me that you think I did something morally wrong, feel free to do so, but have the courtesy of not disingenuously cloaking it as a question. (FWIW, I haven't been with the company since 2012.)
  - mb_72 11y ago
    I wouldn't work for gaming company in the same way I wouldn't work for a weapons company. Poker machines cause a lot of problems to not only individuals but to families; time and again I read about someone massively in debt in the local paper or internet news, someone who often has been driven to theft or fraud to support their habit. Where I live (Adelaide, South Australia) one local politician has 'made' his career on a no-pokies stance. In addition to the gambling issues, the presence of poker machines in my city has help kill off the live music scene. Pub owners now prefer to make their money from zombies-slot players, and the community and friendly atmosphere created by humans playing music has been practically destroyed as a result. IMO poker machines, especially, are a blight on the gaming world. I only feel lucky the dumbed-down 'game play' is nothing that would appeal to me or people I know, and personally speaking I would never want to use my software skills to help separate some of society's most vulnerable and naive from their money.
    - n72 11y ago
      Thank you for being straight forward with your criticism. I can't say I disagree all that much. There is a legitimate other side which would argue that your stance is too paternalistic. E.g. where do we draw the line as a society to protect ourselves from ourselves? Alcoholism is a terrible and wide spread disease. Should we outlaw pubs? I'm not arguing for one side or the other, but merely that it's a rather complicated issue and the arguments on both sides should recognize that.
jrpt 11y ago
Just double checked because I didn't believe what you said about the highest grossing game. The top grossing games on iPad varies by market but is one of Clash of Clans, Game of War: Fire Age, or Candy Crush Saga, except in Japan where it's Puzzles & Dragons. Doubledown Casino is high up there but it isn't the highest grossing game on the iPad. Clash of Clans and GoW:FA are making a multiplicative factor more than Doubledown Casino. I believe you about the slot machine mechanic though.
- n72 11y ago
  I was simply going by this. I have nothing to do with the company anymore and don't actively follow things in that space so could well be mistaken: http://bgr.com/2015/04/16/top-paid-ios-apps-double-down-casino/ http://bgr.com/2015/04/16/top-paid-ios-apps-double-down-casi...

andrewstuart2 11y ago

There's no way I'm the only one wary of the moral implications of trying to addict your users without their knowledge and for a profit. It just seems like the most self-centered possible way of using your skills when you don't care at all whether it's going to destroy lives as long as it brings their cash to your (and/or your investors') bank account. I have no problem with helping people understand how to use their brain chemistry to help themselves do things they want to do. This, however, just feels so bad for the human race as a whole. I guess what I'm saying is that it makes me sad that this happens and that people are okay with doing it.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- cloverich 11y ago
  I'd counter that the definition of a consumer product is to trade a product with the consumer -- you provide something of value to them (the product), they provide something of value to you (the money). I suppose the implication with addiction (and its analogies here) are that they provide a way to get something of value from the consumer (money) without providing them any value in return -- only the illusion of value. Its not to say that all addictive products are inherently value-less -- but that their perceived value is far greater than their actual value -- by design (with the perception being driven by addiction). Your specific point -- that endorphin hit you get is a social reinforcement for a positive contribution to the community of Hacker News. Its not an addiction by design -- its using our internal wiring as it was intended (social contribution makes us feel happy)
  - andrewstuart2 11y ago
    Not sure that was a counter as much as agreement, based on parent's comment after the quote :-) EDIT: now I'm confused. The comment I thought you were replying to appears to be a different comment now and the original deleted. Maybe I'm going crazy.
  - avivo 11y ago

modeless 11y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if free-to-play gaming ends up regulated like gambling in the future.

n72 11y ago
It absolutely should be. Also, it would be quite easy to help people self-regulate by creating a blacklist of credit card numbers which one could sign oneself up on and which all online casinos would have to use.
- nerfhammer 11y ago
  This is called self-exclusion or voluntary exclusion where you can elect to have yourself banned from casinos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Exclusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Exclusion some states have a state-wide list and some casinos in other states have their own self-exclusion lists
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    A little bit like the anti-procrastination feature on hn.

carsongross 11y ago

If you want a picture of the future, imagine casino lights blinking in front of a blank human face, forever.

rhizome 11y ago
"Look at 'em, look at how peaceful they all seem. But on the inside: busy, busy, busy." --Gideon, "Minority Report"
joezydeco 11y ago
It's probably not the future you expect. The casinos are not raking in the money from slots and table games like they were in decades prior. What used to be free or loss leaders for the casinos (rooms, buffets, shows, nightclubs, even the pools) are now massive revenue generators for the resorts. Aside from that, casinos are also experimenting with games of skill (aside from poker) as possible ways to attract players now. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/24/402010841/the-free-throw-experiment http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/24/402010841/the-f...
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  > The casinos are not raking in the money from slots and table games like they were in decades prior. You're pretty far off base here. Just looking at the Las Vegas Sands Corp's 10K, their annual revenue by source: Casino - $12.0B Rooms - $1.54B Food/Bev - $0.78B Mall - $0.55B Convention, retail, other - $0.55B So well over 80% of their revenue still comes from gaming -- and this is all extremely high margin revenue. The Casino PR industry is making a lot of noise about how diverse their income streams are but it doesn't follow in reality.

austenallred 11y ago

I'm really just replying to this so that I can see my karma score go up and I can get a little endorphin hit, really. But in all seriousness, it seems that the things that are most destructive are those things that have brains have been trained to drip feel-good chemicals - we distill the essence of that thing and make it easy and cheap to reproduce. Your brain likes it when you eat food because it keeps you alive? Well, it looks like a lot of that is coming from sugar/carbs. How about we put an absurd amount of sugar in water and call it "soda," adding a little caffeine for good measure, and sell it for $1/bottle? Your body reacts pleasantly (in the short-term) to fats? Here's a hamburger. Your body will eventually regret it, and overall the outcome will be negative, but the initial spike will be enough that you either never put the two together, or can't resist it. Evolution has trained you to enjoy reproducing? Well really you just enjoy the act of sex. And actually not even sex per se, it looks like we can stimulate you with a few visuals and something touching you... porn becomes one of the biggest industries that exist. Drugs are a much more literal version of that, distilling what makes your brain act certain ways in a literal sense. But in my mind whether or not something is a "drug" isn't binary; it's a continuum. I'd like to see someone try to take Diet Coke away from my cousin and then convince me it's not a drug. So is candy crush an addiction? For some people, absolutely. They've moved themselves along that continuum. The scary thing is if you have a consumer product, trying to make someone become addicted is pretty much the definition of what you do. Cigarettes are good business; would you start a cigarette company? Soda is good business, would you start a soda company? Brownies are good business, would you start a brownie company? It seems to me that our minds haven't yet adapted to the reality that now the entire world of information is in our pockets, not to mention buzzing and sending us notifications. It's certainly no mystery why people are always so buried in their phones. It really concerns me personally, enough that I turn off all notifications and don't even allow myself to download certain apps, because I know I'd use them. My hosts file is full of sites that are addictive. I don't know what the answer is, but it's something I think about a lot as the founder of a consumer product. I would love people to feel like they have to come back and use my site every day. I'm trying to create that feeling. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know.

n72 11y ago
Perhaps this is simplistic, but one question you might ask yourself is whether you're offering something of value or exploiting a psychological weaknesses inherent to humans.

ksk 11y ago

The idea that purposefully creating a psychological dependence on something as unproductive as gambling is a good thing boggles the mind. I'm glad that my response is that of disgust rather than "admiration" or "envy" for these businesses.

downandout 11y ago

Casinos like to say that roughly 2% of players become addicted. What they fail to mention is that approximately half of all their revenue comes from these 2%. A more telling statistic is that approximately 10% of players account for 90% of all casino revenue [1]. The numbers are quite similar for games with IAP [2]. While every casino in the US displays signage claiming to support "responsible gaming" and claims to have policies in place to stop addicts from gambling, the reality is that if addicts were stopped, all casinos would be closed and bankrupt within a month. No capital-intensive industry could survive if 90% of their revenue suddenly vanished. And with that, we arrive at the truth: casinos are built explicitly for the creation and exploitation of addiction. This is pretty evil, but it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. The only meaningful way to address it is to focus resources on treatment and prevention. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579123383535635644 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023046261045791233... [2] http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-12-monetizing-games-crucial-advice-from-key-players http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-12-monetizing-...

Red_Tarsius 11y ago
> it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. It's quite a complex issue. How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? How do they discern lawful play from illegal play? Treatment, prevention and awareness is the only practical solution.
- wpietri 11y ago
  > How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? You don't seem to understand that addicts aren't free. If, as downandout suggests, the industry can't exist without the addicts, then the choice isn't one of freedom versus tyranny. It's a choice of which infringement on freedom we find worse: a predatory industry ruining people's lives or the state saying, "Sorry, you can only play games for fun, not money."
  - eikenberry 11y ago

Red_Tarsius 11y ago

This is my field of study. Sometimes It's difficult to draw the line between well-designed and addictive. My personal deal breaker is when play becomes a sinkhole for money. A more moral strategy would be to foster user awareness with threshold mechanisms: "You spent more than [threshold]$ today. We won't accept any more purchases until tomorrow." If you're interested, I highly recommend N. Schüll's Addiction by Design.

panic 11y ago
A more moral strategy would be to foster user awareness with threshold mechanisms: "You spent more than [threshold]$ today. We won't accept any more purchases until tomorrow." I wonder why mobile app stores haven't implemented such a mechanism.
- Red_Tarsius 11y ago
  1) It's less profitable. 2) The popup might "break the spell" and frustrate players. They would likely move to more compelling activities. People who are severely addicted to slot machines don't care about winning or losing. They just want to keep the flow. Every distraction is detrimental to the experience.
amsilprotag 11y ago
There is danger in creating artificial scarcity by cutting off gamblers after a threshold. It will likely result in an increase in desire and addiction. Consider Candy Crush, a game where players are cut off access to the game after a certain amount of plays. This has the result of increasing desire, habit formation, and decreasing burnout. If there is a solution, I think it lies in educating the population and making access as inconvenient as possible.

waterlesscloud 11y ago

Is wikipedia all that different? Youtube? Even Google itself? Different manifestations of the same sort of thing, if you shift your perspective just a bit and look at how people use them.

eropple 11y ago
Wikipedia isn't taking your money. Neither is Google. So, yeah. Difference in kind, not merely degree.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  Google/YouTube is making money from your addiction, so...no, not difference in kind.
  - eropple 11y ago
    You have a very long row to hoe to establish that incidental advertising revenue is the same as literally taking money out of the pockets of the fixed-income elderly. Feel free to start, but 'till then I'm going to have a powerfully hard time taking your argument seriously. And Wikipedia doesn't have advertising at all, so don't throw out your back lugging them goalposts.
    - waterlesscloud 11y ago
      LOL at "incidental" You know, it's just Google's main revenue stream. By several orders of magnitude.
      - eropple 11y ago
        incidental, adj.: accompanying but not a major part of something. Which is why I picked the phrasing I did; advertising is completely and inarguably incidental to the consumption of the content that somebody is on YouTube to actually see. Is it Google's main revenue stream? Sure. Is it significantly impactful to the consumer? No, not really. But let's take a step back. Do you actually intend to defend your assertion that advertising is the same in kind as literally taking money out of somebody's pocket? Or is this just the tacit admission that, no, you can't, so let's play definitional games?

jscottmiller 11y ago

I found the following passage most striking: > "I lost my husband two years ago to throat cancer," she explained. "He was the love of my life, and I started doing this just to — I was out of my mind and spent a lot of time at the cancer center." ... Singleton says she never recovered from the pain of her loss, and that’s why she keeps coming back to the slots. The person quoted above is in need of counseling and support. Instead, she's getting a drip-feed of low-cost morphine to mask her loss, like a debtor going from pay-day loan to pay-day loan to stay solvent. Academically, we seem to have strong evidence linking stress to reduced impulse control. I'm no expert in the matter, but surveys such as this [1] seem convincing. Despite this, the popular conversation seems to stay away from root causes and instead ends at the label 'addict.' I wonder what percentage slot machine and clash of clans-styled mobile gaming revenue is due to this kind of coping-related addiction. downandout's comment [2] suggests it is probably quite high. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732004/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732004/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9557208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9557208

golergka 11y ago
This segment about people coping with loss using slot machines was really eye-opening. And actually, it made me think better about this industry than before. Of course, using slot machines for that is not as healthy as going through counseling, but it seems a lot better than almost all other alternatives. And the players themselves seem to have a pretty good understanding of the mechanic: they're not hoping to win, they're not tricked, they trade their money for the "flow", and are open about it.

jkincaid 11y ago

If you're concerned about the way the tech industry engineers addiction by exploiting bugs in our brains, check out Time Well Spent - http://TimeWellSpent.io http://TimeWellSpent.io It's an (early-on) movement exploring ways to build products that respect our time and focus. (Watch the video for a good overview).

thewhizkid 11y ago

If you haven't seen the Southpark episode "Freemium isn't Free" you really should...hits the nail on the head on the addictive nature of free to play mobile games.

interesting_att 11y ago

A lot of people in this thread have moral qualms with slot machines. I know I did. However, I have since been heavily involved in the industry (not of my choosing), and have been able to better understand it. The slot industry is not the epitome of evil. 1) Slots can be fun- Most people think slots are bad because they are "addicting". They conclude that these machines are addicting in large part because they themselves can't wrap their heads why ANYONE would spend so much money on a game without some serious mental disorder. But that completely ignores the actual voices of the users (who slot designers actually talk to). Players actually enjoy the thrills of winning AND losing. We have to come to grips that what others consider fun is sometimes beyond our realm of imagination. And just because we don't understand the thrill of their experience, doesn't mean the machine is tricking them. I don't see most people confused when their 75 year old grandmother doesn't like Call of Duty. 2) Spending lots of money on slots isn't necessarily a symptom of addiction- I have met so many people (Completely normal, wealthy people) who have a limit of spending $30/day on slots in their spare time. That is, they spend around 10k/year on slots. Anyone seeing 10k/year would think that this person was addicted, but they don't measure his/her background. Slot players tend to be older, they tend to spend on little else (they don't go out to bars!), tend to have a good amount of free time, and tend to have a good bit of savings. They - of all people- should be allowed to play slots if they so choose to. Obviously the money society spends on slots would be better used to feed some starving child or build some fancy new lifesaving technology. But that's more of a critique of capitalism, not just slots. 3) Casinos don't target gambling addicts- Of course slot makers do basic A/B testing of their games. But it's not like casinos put ads outside of Gambling Addicts Anonymous meetings. They target people in general, and gambling addicts will always find a way too them. When do we start placing the responsibility on the end user? 4) Is the rate of problem gamblers (gamblers who spend a lot of money and can't) who use slot machines higher than the rate of alcoholics? Shopping addicts? Drug addicts? Do you suggest banning alcohol because some people can't handle it? 5) Casinos and slots are heavily regulated by what they can and cannot do. Moreover, taxes on casinos do go to fund problem gambling help, schools, and a lot of great other things. In the end, unless you actually take an effort to learn how to enjoy slots, you won't understand why people like it. And because of that, you will just vilify the industry. Eerily similar to the war on drugs.

11y ago

Plough_Jogger 11y ago

Which iOS game development companies are the most effective in driving this kind of behavior?

lips 11y ago

I hope Ellen Degeneres & Duck Dynasty sleep tight with their images being used to brand these things. Seems one of the more dubious licensing agreements you could make.