Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over ‘Video Game Addiction’, Because That’s Easier Than Parenting
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Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over ‘Video Game Addiction’, Because That’s Easier Than Parenting::Video game addiction. Sigh. Big sigh, even. Like, the biggest of sighs. We've talked about claims that video game addiction is a documentable affliction in the past, as well as the pushback that claim has received from addiction experts, who have pointed out that much of this is being done to allow doctors to get…
This author seems pretty comfortable mocking the concept of games being addictive.
Loot boxes need to stop for sure, but things like limited-time content are 100% designed to form habits and ultimately feed gaming addiction. Season passes or weekly achievements require you to log on and grind out challenges at regular intervals to avoid missing out on rewards that are required for competitive play.
I know plenty of people who have had to make an active choice to stop playing certain games because they found they couldn’t play the game ‘on their own terms’. It sucks as an adult, but kids without fully developed brains capable of rational thinking would stand no chance.
Hell, even subscription-based games like MMOs. After all, if you're paying every month for something, you want to get your money's worth.
That's part of why I never played WoW. I knew that I'd constantly be like "I'm paying for it I should be playing".
Funny, when I played it, it was always "wow, I'm really getting a good bang for my buck." It was a huge money saving for me because instead of going out to a bar an extra one or two nights a week, I stayed home and gamed online with friends. Never once did I think "I should play to make it worth it" I was making it worth it without a thought. lol
I had a similar thought, but moreso "i'm paying for this... why isn't it fun?" So I stopped paying after maybe 4 months.
There's a reason I used to call it World of Warcrack. That game was harder to quit than smoking cigarettes for me.
This is the real problem with subscriptions. Yes, they tend to be more expensive in the long run, but they also stress you out because you have to constantly think about whether or not you're getting your money's worth. If you buy a game, there's no stress because even if you're busy, you'll have plenty of time at some point in the future to get your money's worth.
Depends on the implementation: I liked Eve Onlines model where, yes, you had to pay the sub but your character would train skills even while offline.So at least to me there was less of this classical fear of missing out.
Ugh, don't get me started on EVE. Like yeah, there's an awesome game underneath it all, but the fact that they make you train your character in real time by reading skill books feels so scummy when they are billing you a monthly fee. Like that has such an obvious perverse incentive. You think those skill books take as long as they take because it's fun? No way. They take that long because it maximises profit.
Yep, this is me. stopped playing at least 2 or 3 games they forced stupid unnecessary grind or daily/weekly quests (that are basically all the content there is) on me. Nope, not doing that shit anymore.
I was quite addicted to a Facebook game back in the day. Never went more than a day without playing it and even then I had scripts to play the repetitive parts of the game while I was away. I might've spent $50 total on the game but I never really felt like I was missing out because of not spending money. When they got to the point where it was blatantly obvious I would miss rare items or other collectibles if I didn't pay then I quit altogether.
I think the system could use a change but I still prefer minimal interference. It could do a lot of good if players were notified (monthly/weekly) how much they've played the game and how much they've spent. The "micro" part is probably what gets a lot of people and they never realize what they've paid in total.
I don't want to be all old man yells at cloud, but back in my day popular games were played a lot because they were primarily enjoyable for the story, the achievement of completing a particular level or boss, playing against friends, etc. And sure, you'd have the odd bad parent trying to claim their kid was addicted to Counterstrike 1.6, but it was broadly speaking nonsense. The vast majority of games were offline, or had very limited online modes built around direct competition with other players (FPS, sports games, etc), and publishers would get all their money from the initial sale, with only a few games having expansion packs, most notable The Sims.
But in the early 2010s a few things changed:
So we went from a situation where video games were fun for the same reasons traditional games, or sports, are fun, to one where many video games include a lot of gambling mechanics in their core gameplay loops - loot boxes being the obvious one, but any lottery-based mechanic where you spend real money counts - in an industry with no relevant regulation, nor age limitation.
It is definitely possible for people to get addicted to these mechanics, the same way people can get addicted to casino games, or betting on horse racing, especially when for some games that is literally what the developer wants.
I agree with all your major points, well said. I will only add that back in the late 90s, MMOs started to become more popular among PC gamers, and that those were definitely designed for mild addiction (to keep players paying a monthly fee).
After WoW took MMOs mainstream (by around 2010-2012 when its playerbase peaked), I feel that lines up perfectly with your observation that developers began incorporating more and more positive feedback loops into games. I only bring this up since I wonder if there's an actual correlation there (along with the other elements you pointed out regarding accessibility, etc.) or if it's just coincidental timing.
Has everyone forgotten coin-ops? Or maybe I'm just old.
This started a long, long time ago, pretty much at the birth of popular casual gaming. It's not part of the evolution, it was part of the blueprint.
The thing with coin-ops, and arcades in general, is that you still had to physically go somewhere, and have the coins to keep playing. If you walked away, someone would take the machine. Worst case scenario, the machine stopped working when it ran out of coin/token space.
I'm not denying that there are similarities, and that ultimately every game ever has been built on a fundamental mechanic of risk/reward, but it was rudimentary and broadly speaking deterministic and visible to the user (you knew how to get a free ball in most pinball games, for example).
The combination of easy payments, of very high amounts, and online competitive play where the high rollers can be multi-millionaires from anywhere in the world, and a pay-to-win mechanic makes certain modern games not just addictive, but financially crippling, if played by someone susceptible to addiction.
I agree, but I was responding specifically to the claim that the use of psychology to tweak the design of a game in favour of profitability happened in 2010 / 1990 / etc.
The fact that it's now orders of magnitude worse is, of course, true, but it didn't start there by any definition.
It had nothing to do with WoW, smartphones were basically to blame. 2007 was when the iPhone came out, Android followed next year, and by the early 2010s, smartphones became ubiquitous. Both the App Store and Google Market exploded exponentially in the number of apps and games. Mobile game makers soon figured out that microtransactions brought in more money than upfront payments. All the popular games started exploiting this model, such as Angry Birds, Temple Run and of course the infamous Candy Crush.
King, the company behind Candy Crush, generates over a billion dollars of revenue per year - their turnover exceeding that of several traditional PC/console game makers. In 2012, they staggering 1000% growth in just an year - and that was the trigger. That was when everyone looked at them going, "tf, why the hell are we wasting so much time and money developing AAA games, and making way less money than some cheap mobile game?"
And the rest as they say, is history.
WoW is a stepping stone, it's used as a frequent example in Reality is Broken, which is good place to start if you want to understand where all this comes from, as well as the rather utopian hope psychologists had at the time.
I was there, and it didn't "come from" WoW. Mtx were already popular in South Korea and China, with games like MapleStory (2003) and ZT Online (2006) being early examples, which predates mtx in WoW. Farmville also had them back in 2009, around the same time WoW started selling pets. And back then Zynga were making like a $1mil a day from Farmville mtx, and this was before WoW pet sales really took off.
Yes, WoW did play a role, but it wasn't as big as you think - after all, it had a very niche audience, whereas games like Farmville, Candy Crush, Angry Birds etc had a much wider appeal that reached out to several age groups and audiences, whilst simultaneously being a lot more accessible - which made them so much more dangerous (in terms of addiction).
WoW appealed to the hardcore MMO gamers, gamers who were used to paying for virtual goods, whereas games like Farmville normalized mtx across for the general and wider public. Paying for virtual items was no longer something that nerds did, it was a completely normal thing. And then Candy Crush tweaked the formula even further. WoW's mtx was a lot more benign compared to some of the shady psychological designs games like Candy Crush implemented.
I absolutely agree that Farmville had a bigger impact, especially as it was geared towards a more casual market. Showing that people who would not describe themselves as gamers would spend a lot of money on games was a huge thing that a lot of people set out to copy.
I worked at GameStop when Farmville was big. Regularly had older women come in and spend $40 to $100 dollars on Farmville cards. A couple of these women came in every week, outspending almost every "traditional" gamer I knew.
Yes! There’s a reason Microsoft bought Activision-Blizzard-King
One of my first tasks in my game development career was to change the data type used for the main currency in [Famously Addictive Farm Simulator Game], because a user had exceeded the maximum value.
I eventually found out approximately how much IRL money this person had spent on this game…
6 figures. And not barely 6 figures.
People don’t spend that much because they’re just having fun.
There is absolutely something different about these kinds of games. It’s abusive and dangerous, and we should consider it a health hazard.
I'm glad this comment section seems to agree that some fault lies on the game companies, too. I get it that parents gotta also parent, but when games are hiring behavior/psychology experts to design their games to become addictive and suck in people's money as effectively as possible.. adults struggle enough with resisting gaming addiction, let alone kids.
I know a guy that spent all of his free time, and on average $2,000 a month, on Genshin Impact.
I have two kids. The idea that these games are not addictive is laughable. Something only someone without kids that have found roblox (or similar games) could possibly convince themselves is true. Even just looking at all FTP games I play, I can see how they are taking advantage of that need for the fix to pull money from you at the most opportune time. Lucky for me, I don't really have an addictive personality so I'm easily able to set aside those things.
But my kids have not developed the same level of self control or self-realization yet. They just continually want that dopamine hit. We definitely limit screentime and what they play (roblox is out now). In the times we have done "device free weeks" you can absolutely see the change in behavior from the withdrawal period right after you take away the game, to at the end of the week when they barely even complain at all that they can't play.
I remember when my older kid went away to sleep away camp for 2 weeks, and when he came back how his younger brother talking about the games seemed so foreign to him. He like had completely detoxed and didn't care at all.
There is definitely an element of parental responsibility here too. But you what the author doesn't seem to realize is that it's not so easy. All of the kids are playing games these days, and it is a common past-time. While you could just say "no games" and call it a day, I don't know of a single family that does this. Even the ones who are very strict allow their kids to play some switch games. Even the ones that think their kid has some kind of gaming addiction (and have taken away all online games) let's their kids play certain console games as well because they don't see it creating the same behavior. And if you open the door a bit, it's a constant battle trying to figure out where that line in, and you're competing against big money using experts to figure out how to win that game. It's an extremely hard game for a parent to win.
It would be much easier if it were illegal to use these intentionally addictive mechanisms in games targeted at non-adults.
I think the most important thing to teach young people in today's gaming market is that microtransactions are NEVER worth it. Yeah, maybe you want 500 gems to buy another builder or whatever, but then you'll be out $10 or however much it is and nothing fundamentally changes about your experience to make it $10 more fun. Games can actually become less fun when you start spending depending on the game, because then you're just paying to either win or make progress, which ruins the whole point of a game.
You should only ever pay money for actual content. Paying for the base game and certain types of DLC can be worthwhile. If the game has a currency you have to buy, you're probably getting scammed.
I'm really just driving home your point here.
I played a lot of clash royale, which I loved, and people always whined about it being ptw. This is because you reach a certain point that is hard to pass with your current card levels, where your win loss ratio goes to 1-1. But what would happen is you would pay some money to upgrade your cards, and then you rise in the ranks a bit, and then right back to being at the point where you are at a 1-1 w/l ratio.
It was really just "pay to do the same thing at a higher rank."
Yup. I don't play Royale (and no longer Clans), but Clash of Clans was the game I had in mind for my example and it does pretty much the same thing. I got a pretty high town hall and IIRC never paid a dime, just years of grinding. It's a game with a lot of fun mechanics, but the monetization has become unbearably annoying, intrusive, and manipulative. The last straw for me was when they fucked up the UI for no apparent reason.
I do feel like it's kind of a bad thing that many large game devs employ psychologists specifically to come up with ways that psychologically addict players. They could be addicting even without being specifically designed that way, but going out of your way to ensure it is does, does not seem the least but ethical to me.
Like EA who use the same technics that casinos for their loot boxes. But you have better odds with casinos than EA...
EA is hardly the only one doing that. I'd even argue that there are far more offensive examples, sadly. Just look at the mobile market, it's a cesspool of extremely exploitive tactics and even more accessible than traditional gaming.
Yeah let's just disregard the prevalence of gambling mechanics deliberately intended to induce addiction in minors to juice them for their parents' cash.
Exactly. There's a lot more nuance than just 'oh video game good, can't control addiction, bad parents'.
True but parents have a responsibility to look at the game before letting their children play it. Should the mechanics exist? No. But should the parents look into the game beforehand? Yes
How realistic is this though especially when certain mechanics get unlocked later in the game? The fact that these micro transactions, loot boxes, and everything else only exist to enrichen a few select people at the expense of everyone playing the game, it makes it hard to feel sympathetic toward these companies.
This isn't viable because the systems these companies use to get the kids gambling is not obvious, even to a watchful adult. This is by design. Companies are also not obligated to give any information parents can use to identify this. Lastly, a lot of these games are free to get into, so the parents have no reason to know/ find out their kid is playing fortnite for example.
Again, these aren't circumstance, they are deliberate design choices to skirt the law and prevent potential action to stop it early.
Switch the word 'game' with the word 'drug' and the word 'play' with the word 'use', and your comment still reads the same.
We still outlaw addictive drugs.
I highly doubt I will have the time to try all the new research drug-games my children acquire access to. Better stick to first party Nintendo games-drugs.
In all seriousness, PBS kids apps on mobile go hard, work on any device, and are fairly educational while being easy to use and fun enough to hold attention while being completely FREE.
We've paid for ABC mouse but the whole fuckin thing reeks of slot machine pokie stimulus while the puzzles and games crash often. The only thing that 100% works all the time is the store to exchange your "tickets"
Abc mouse is the highest rated most teacher recommended app and it's fucking awful.
My 3 year old has gotten way more out of free software than any pay software that's littered with addictive BS.
I would recommend:
GCompris
Khan academy kids
Learn to read Duolingo ABC
PBS anything
Two things.
First, teenagers are also children, and every product that you describe would not fit them, those are more for the very young.
Second, we're talking about designing the game in such a way that it provokes the brain in the same way a drug would, in essence being a drug itself.
Comment does not read the same at all, and two of the most addictive drugs, alcohol and nicotine, are legal.
Now if you'd said "we still outlaw addictive drugs FOR KIDS", you'd be right.
Well, let's see...
They read the same to me. Both of them are about parents watching what a child does (gaming or drugs) and having responsibility over the child, which no human being can watch another one 24/7 successfully (even people in prison get murdered).
And children are not allowed to purchase those, because it's harmful for them.
We, as a society, help the parents look out for their child by making laws to protect them.
Do we though? Alcohol the most commonly used addictive drugs is allowed for adults and even children in many states as long as the adults approve and do it in in private residences.
Parents need to be better about paying attention to games. I remember telling my aunt about a game my 10 year old cousin wanted. She was horrified and said absolutely not. She bought it for him when he asked when they were in the store because she doesn't take any time to pay attention to game They're for kids. Even though games are clearly marked with any objectionable material. She "blindsided" by what was in the game when her son booted it up dispite the game be rated as mature, marking objectionable things and me giving her a play by play.
There are a lot of additive things that we expect parents to use their judgment on. Sugar for example. Until someone is talking to me about how we need a bad on soda and BS like that because parents can't be expected to parent their kids about it, I don't really care about the most optional of activities that is games. Children have extremely limited access if their parents don't allow it. Theu buy the phones/tables/game consoles and robust parental controls have existed for a while.
Kids can be addicted to all sorts of things and it's still on the parents. Because it's technology we for some reason stop believing parents can do a thing. Oh however would the person who controls the internet ans the devices control their child's access to social media (another one I see whining about) and video games. As a parent myself, I'm just under the impression that at least watching in my circle, the parents who don't aren't paying attention or don't actually care that much, they just don't like the outcome judgment.
Not to get dragged down into a IANAL argument, but children purchasing alcohol though is not legal.
And what you described is adults helping children get around the law.
The law still exists.
I am acknowledging the issue. However, how would a kid have money to spend on games? When I was little, I would not have been able to participate because there was no debit card linked to any of the used accounts.
You'd be surprised at the amount of kids that "steal" their parents' credit card to buy in game stuff.
I won't read the article with such a stupid title.
In other situations they call it victim shaming. There is a reason laws exists to forbid gambling for minors. Many video games are built as loopholes to circumvent such laws. Publishers and producers must be punished for this. Parenting is not a relevant topic here, as we are talking about society.
In a society the distribution of parenting capabilities has large variability, and it does not always depends on the parents themselves, but also on environmental factors (such as work-related stressors).
As society we need to fight any predatory business model that exploits society and individuals weaknesses.
Many games work on the exact same feedback loop as gambling. Squeezing as much dopamine out of your brain as they can.
Big companies spend a huge amount on psychologists to make their games as addictive as possible.
The same way my parents had no idea how dangerous the internet could be in the late 90s, many parents won't know about this.
This is my biggest concern about video games when I become a parent. My parents were far more concerned about "violence," but I'd rather have a 10yo child play doom than candy crush. One might initially look more dangerous to the untrained eye, but looks can be deceiving.
100% I've pushed my kids towards games like Minecraft and Stardew Valley. Games that need a bit of focus and planning rather than quick fire rounds full of ads or micro transactions.
The most fun I have ever had in any game in my entire life was playing modded multiplayer Minecraft in private or non-p2w servers. The gameplay is fun and engaging, offering a wide range of experiences and great pacing. Many large modpacks do a great job of expanding on the base game's progression cap, giving you more content to discover, and greatly improving the base-building and automation aspects of the game. Nobody is trying to make the game artificially hard so you pay for progress and the designers and developers focused on making the game as fun as possible instead of manipulating and addictive, which ironically just lead to me spending more time playing it than other games.
Here's the thing: as a parent you had a high amount of control over what your children consume. Yes, there is peer pressure, but you can just decide to make your kid uncool or weird or quirky. My child basically doesn't see ads. She travels with her own tablet and hotspot with ad-free services and ad-free mobile games. Tiktok and YouTube shorts is almost totally banned in my house, but she may watch a few videos specifically on my devices under my supervision if she wants to see something her friends send her. I don't really have a problem with tiktok per se, more how it zombifies kids with constant dopemine hits. Youtube is a whitelist since don't trust that algorithm at all.
You get the picture. I won't say that my kid is watching things wholly appropriate for her at all times, but my mission as it stands is to keep her attention span solid and teach her moderation, so some games get banned before she ever get to play them (roblox), some get banned after me seeing the impact on her cousin (fortnite) and some get banned for impact on her (mobile games are evil). The fall out can be severe, but in this respect I'm an authoritatian parent. My word is law. Your feelings don't matter. You'll thank me later. Or not. You have a long adulthood play videogames.
You are also not allowed as a parent to enforce your child not playing after a certain age. It will depend on the country, but where I live you are, among other things, not allowed to forbid social contacts of your child unless there is significant harm involved. No judge would see "they are playing video games at their friends house" as serious harm.
Social contacts or social contracts? Does gambling fall under this? I could see someone arguing that some of these games are essentially gambling.
Actual gambling is for adults (18+ and I think casinos are 21+). So when parents can proof the friend of their child is actively involving the child into that type of gambling they could potentially forbid the contact.
But Fortnite for example is free for kids 12 and older. There is nothing you can legally do about your child visiting a friend and playing Fortnite there.
You also can't stop your child from coming into contact with games on smartphones other people bring to school.
Where do you live? I've never heard of anything like that.
I live in Germany. You can read about the law here, for example:
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch
Yes parents need to parent their kids first and foremost. However, we can't keep just giving video game companies a pass for intentionally making their games addictive. When they're literally hiring psychologists to pinpoint target their games for a child's brain, that's also a problem. Both need to be addressed.
I also want to point out that a lot of these games purposefully misclassify themselves in the AppStore. Meaning if you are a parent and you say "I want my kid to have 1-2 hours of game time, but all research tools are allowed all the time" Some games will report themselves as "Information and Reading" to get around settings. I find oftentimes the more garbagey the game the more likely it will do that.
This isn't shitty parenting, companies are intentionally creating addictive mechanics in games. Instant gratification causes a release of dopamine, which keeps the person playing over and over again. It's the reason why people "grind".
They're virtual Skinner Boxes. If you don't know what that is, I suggest looking up the term and B. F. Skinner himself.
Parental controls are a thing on all of these systems aren't they? If not they should be.
Nope! Why would the company intentionally limit the way they designed the game? That's counterproductive.
In the past I might've been more critical of the parents, but honestly in this day and age?
Large publishers and developers exist to exploit people. They exploit workers by overhiring, overworking, and then firing them gracelessly whenever they've managed to push out the next paint-by-numbers turd they have planned. It releases to the public in an unfinished state, yet the consumer is expected to shell out hundreds of dollars not only for the base game, but for season passes, FOMO mechanics, in-game shops, gambling and other anti-consumer bullshit.
They scheme to create more and more insidious systems to keep the player hooked, all the while they're abusing their workers, playing with their lives, and sometimes literally stealing from them.
The modern AAA gaming industry is worse than it ever has been, and these parents aren't wrong; the games are designed to be addictive. They'd outright encourage people to mortgage their home and steal their parents' credit cards if they thought they could get away with it.
"Parents Sue Cigarette Companies Over 'Tobacco Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting"
When a company makes a product they don't just KNOW is harmful, but BECAUSE it's harmful, and they've ENGINEERED it to be harmful, for the sake of profit, it ceases to be solely about parenting.
Honestly I agree with your sentiment with regard to video games but not with tobacco. By this point, everyone knows tobacco is bad for you. If you choose to use and get addicted to it, that's just you exercising your bodily autonomy.
For sure, but that doesn't mean we're cool with marketing it to kids.
Purged by creator
Exactly. These are carefully designed to drip-feed dopamine rewards and keep maximizing "engagement" to maximize resultant profit, or at the very least, minimize the time the user spends doing anything else (including playing a competitor's game).
Parents barely stand a chance. In child education lit, we're still relying on old 90s tropes of "don't let your kid sit in front of the TV too long" and "no more than two hours, preferrably maxed at one hour, for screentime of any screen per day".
"Do you know where your kids are?" has been replaced by "have your kids gone outside today?"
There's absolutely a level of addictive manipulation in some games targeted towards children, but on the other hand, you are responsible for making sure your child doesn't participate in their systems. Fault on both parties.
Who's educating the parents on what's going on in the games? The casinos? The slot machines? The sports betting apps?
Where do the average learn about these things?
All well and good if you are fairly well educated and know about some of the psychology going on. But damn I do not have any hope for the next generation raised on tick tocks as the GOP dismantle public education.
It's going to quickly get like Idiocracy in here all the while bystanders will say, but the parents working two minimum wage jobs to put food on the table and a roof over their head should have taken responsibility for their child!
People fall through the cracks and we all as society benefit when we are responsible enough to try to make sure the cracks can't just swallow you whole.
Shit, I've got 3 university degrees and top certifications for my specify IT field and wouldn't know much about this topic if it weren't for Sout Park Freemium Isn't Free.
We can't depend on being educated or involved with children to protect them from 24/7 365 always online dopamine addiction to compulsion loops.
I mean, the gambling industry uses some mobile games as learning material in how to snare players and trigger "that next button press" (source, I used to work for a large gambling company).
So, there are grounds to argue addiction on the same level as gambling addiction for some games.
It's also worth noting microtransactions and other player-directed revenue-enhancement schemes have been featured in games while still not being noted (even as gambling mechanics — Looking at you, EA lootboxes) by the ESRB, belying its funtion to protect children from adult content.
To this day, AAA games are offered in bad faith as adversarial to the player with the interest of exploiting them.
I'm not sure if the parents angle is the way to address these issues, but then out legal system really gives no fucks about the good of the public, case in point, SCOTUS stripping people of rights while giving corporations extended privileges.
Never get your mental health advice from a "technology consultant" especially one that quotes things like the DSM-5 without the required knowledge on how to apply it.
The DSM moves at a glacial pace as does many academic publications as it takes an extremely conservative approach to declaring new disorders. Most of the time it tries to classify things like "gaming addiction" under the general addiction category rather than make a new separate category for a specific form of it. Being addicted to anything including gaming is still a form of addiction and the lack of a specific category for it in the DSM doesn't mean it magically doesn't exist.
Tldr: this technology consultant is clueless about stuff outside of his field. Just because it beeps and boops doesn't make him a mental health expert on the use of it.
The fact that most modern AAA games have some sort of "loot box" (aka actual gambling) mechanic, and those mechanics are literally identical to the design patterns for slot machines, seems to be completely missed by the author of this article. Gambling addition is a real thing, and pushing that psychological behavior pattern onto impressionable youths should be illegal. As a citizen of the US, I can't legally go online and gamble with real money directly, but I can get the same "fix" by playing most of the big titles from EA (with real money, just one layer deeper, and with no way to get my winnings back into the real world), says a lot.
Absolutely. This isn't just that kids like games and that's bad, it's that games are literally being made with conditioning tactics to get people playing them as a habit and paying. Not only they have loot boxes that are psychologically identical to a slot machine, but games as a service have mission and reward structures designed to get people returning as a habit, not because it's fun. Look how many games have players going "I need to do my daily missions", not because that's fun, but because of a sense of obligation and Fear of Missing Out over trickling rewards.
I love it when the title of an article tells me the opinion I'm supposed to have.
The fact is there's a lot of work that goes into designing games to drive behavior. The article details some of the work that game designers do to induce compulsive behavior, like occasional free gifts to keep people from getting frustrated with certain levels. The article then poopoos this idea by pointing out that heroin addicts never get free heroin from their dealers so this can't be a real addiction. Wanna learn a fun fact that I know as a recovering addict that y'all don't know? Your dope dealer will take a short. He'll sell you a ten dollar bag for five dollars. Not every time, but every once in a while, and for the exact same reason that these games do it: he wants you stuck in, he wants you in his debt in particular and he wants you coming back to him. A sick junkie doesn't make anyone any money, we mostly just lie in bed and sob. It keeps you in the reward loop, the same as free gifts to get you past frustrating parts of a video game.
The article also acknowledges that gaming addiction is in the DSM, but tries to dismiss that as well based on notes that say further research is needed. Further research is always needed for everything, especially to do with mental health. The fact that it's in the DSM at all means that, while they may not have found the fire, they can feel heat and smell smoke. The article even concedes that 13 hours of gaming/day indicates that "something is going on here on a psychological level" but because it's not at the level of an active heroin addiction it's not worth discussing despite the author's intuition that "something is going on here" combined with the opinion of the mental health community that, from the article about the DSM linked in this one, "There is neurological research showing similarities in changes in the brain between video gaming and addictive substances."
I get it. I grew up in the 90s, when video games were new and scary and were gonna make us all smoke crack and shoot up our schools. This harmless hobby of mine was scapegoated into being the cause of so many of society's ills, and it turned out to be 100% bullshit every time. But this is different. The people who design games are open about the fact that this compulsivity is what they're designing for. The people who study this sort of behavior have already given the phenomenon a name, they're studying it and they see it as a growing phenomenon. It's likely to end up like beer, where there are people who can enjoy it sometimes in a healthy manner and people who can't. From the psychiatry.org article linked in the OP's article, it seems to be about 1% of gamers who develop problematic behavior around gaming.
Just chiming in to say that this is a garbage take. Games that are successfully designed to be addicting to adults are fishing with dynamite when it comes to targeting kids whose pre-frontal cortexes are still developing and lack the judgement and self-control to know when enough is enough.
Putting the onus on the parent isn't fair, either. On one side there's a massive corporation who employs psychologists to make their product more addicting. On the other side is a parent (or parents) who, yes, at worst are absentee and use screens as babysitters, but a lot of parents I see who struggle with this mean well but just don't understand this world. They're younger gen X or older millennials who weren't into video games growing up, aren't tech-literate the same way that this writer is, and simply want to help their kids get involved in the same stuff their friends are. They accidentally expose their kids to this greedy machine that wants to consume their every waking moment and thought for profit.
Yeah people really should experience candycrush before laughing something like this off, it's genuinely addictive.
Okay I understand that kneejerk "Be a good parent" reaction. But IMO that ship has sailed. And the more we tell parents to "be good parents" the more they think that means attending the local book burning.
Also, no sympathy to game publishers that make their games into dopamine casinos. Back in the good old days, video games (like all other media) was an art form, and the profits came from being a good work of art. Now it's a fucking nightmare capitalist cash cow milking machine (like all other media).
Remember arcades? I love video games, but there's always been a scummy element pumping out games designed to make cash foremost alongside the actual works of art. There are also still plenty (mostly indie now) of developers making games for the sake of gaming, but the schlock peddlers have gotten very good at their jobs, too.
To be completely fair, in the old days most arcade cabinets were made specifically to "steal" all the quarters you had in your pockets. Still, I'd prefer to play the most difficult\unplayable arcade game instead of any shitty modern mobile game.
Honestly, some people I know are just fish in a barrel compared to some of these mobile game ads. I used to think it was a character flaw, and for most it is. For them I don't have much sympathy. For a small few, those dopamine casinos are irresistible. It's a compulsion to play, just like a gambling addiction. These are "The Whales" mobile game companies talk about. They're the fish in a barrel.
I get the feeling that "Techdirt" may be a bit biased.
Perhaps a tad.
Personally, I don't much like being told what my conclusion should be from a report. Annoying headline. Unsurprisingly, Timmy goes on to be insufferable throughout the rest of the article too.
Good! Hit them in the wallet for their abhorrent behavior.
As a disabled adult latchkey kid, we've given up on actual parenting (that is, letting the US public actually have the time and energy to parent) for half a century now. In the 1970s it took all adults working to support a houshold (contast one working adult and a homemaker in the 1950s) yet the quality of life didn't improve. We passed parenting on to teachers, and then gave them larger classes.
If only gaming companies could figure out how to get kids addicted to algebra.
this is the entire cycle that keeps undergrad computer science going
Just one more variable
In my opinion (see also Dr Gabor Maté), addictions (which, I also think, can be about petty much anything) are very much mostly attempts to escape pain, when better alternatives do not seem available to a person.
So, yeah, video game addiction can be a thing, and certain game designs exacerbate that (similar to what might fuel gambling addictions and such).
But all of this perspective only distracts from whatever is causing the people/kids pain, makes them seek out games in an addicted fashion in the first place.
Maybe those parents will understand if someone tells them that is the same thing as suing as any alcohol brand for their kid's addiction.
As much as I see what a pointless move this is from the parents, we should acknowledge the alcohol industry and retailers have to take more responsibility to keep it away from children than game companies do. Stores can be punished if a kid goes there saying "I'm definitely 21" and they sell without checking.
There is some neglect from parents, there is the way how our society is overworked gets in the way of parents who want to do better, but a fraction of the blame can be put on game companies that sell games with gambling-like monetization without even rating it properly. They are not wrong about there being "addictive features" and "predatory monetization aimed at minors". Even Mario Kart World Tour has these, and it's rated E
Absolutley, you are completely correct. I also heard that in some countries microtransaccions that rewarded "Random" items are being prohibited since its the same as gambling. Which in that case suing them for that would make sense.
What's next? Parents sue God over masturbation addiction.
The recent lawsuits against gaming companies over 'video game addiction' seem to overlook the importance of parental guidance. It's easier to blame external factors than to address the root causes at home. The principles of the AA twelve steps teach us about taking responsibility and seeking personal growth, which can be applied to parenting as well. Just as recovering from addiction requires commitment and support, guiding children through their challenges needs consistent involvement and understanding. Instead of looking for quick fixes, parents could benefit from actively engaging in their children's lives and setting healthy boundaries around gaming and other activities.
If they succeed in suing, next I'm gonna sue google for my youtube addiction, then sue reddit for my scrolling reddit addiction, then sue tiktok for my child's tiktoking addiction.
Are you suggesting that YouTube shouldn't have liability for the behavior of their algorithms?
ITT: A lot of triggered bad parents
I would love to know how to be a perfect parent.
If you have some amazing advice I'm sure we're all ears here.
You know someone is well informed when they leave a 6 word rebuttal and think they just dunked on everyone in the comment section.
It's easy: don't reproduce. The world is literally burning, yet most everyone seems to think they're special enough the world needs them to keep pumping out spawn. Wanna reduce your carbon emissions? Get a vasectomy.
It's like when parents go after the drug dealers than blame their own kid for doing drugs.
It's also like when you ignore that video game makers research and develop how to make their game as addictive as possible and ignore an entire thread talking about it. Oh wait...
Because it's never the responsibility of the user.
Uh... it's pretty generally accepted that selling drugs to kids is bad. It's also illegal. Do you agree that it should be illegal? And if so, doesn't comparing the two support the idea that the games should be regulated?