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Should Games Recognize Addictive Behavior?

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the games-watch-you! dept.

siliconwafer writes: "An article in The Economist raises some interesting points about addiction to video games, drawing from psychology and sociology to describe why certain people prefer certain types of games, and why they might become addicted to them. It is suggested that to discourage addiction, game designers could have their games recognize addictive behavior and respond to it by encouraging gamers to take breaks. Do game designers have any responsibility to recognize addictive behavior, or does this responsibility fall solely on the gamer (or the gamer's parents in the case of a minor)?"

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:26PM

    by c0lo (156) on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:26PM (#6617) Journal

    Does soylentnews have any responsibility to recognize addictive behavior, or does this responsibility fall solely on the contributor?

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by clone141166 on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:50PM

    by clone141166 (59) on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:50PM (#6631)

    In no event shall SoylentNews be liable for any special, consequential, incidental, potential, optimal, suboptimal, direct or indirect damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of sleep, sanity, socks or any pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use this news service.

    Now where is NCommander, I need my next fix...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:55PM (#6638)

      Mumble-mumble... something about some difference between responsibility and liability

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:58PM

    by VLM (445) on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:58PM (#6687)

    Does the economist website have a responsibility to recognize and develop a treatment plan for readers holding irrational or anti-social or inhumane economic beliefs? When they take care of that little problem I'll pay attention to these dudes in glass houses throwing rocks.

    The hidden narrative of most mass media FUD articles about the evils of any modern piece of technology is that being addicted to their legacy product is a great idea, but there must be something medically or psychologically wrong with a person who doesn't share the same addictions as themselves. The hope is someone who was about to power off or click X will be intimidated by peer pressure.

    Someone who plays Mario Kart instead of watching Oprah reruns is obviously in need of diagnosis and treatment; why else would anyone flee legacy media? We're all great over here, even if no one comes here no more because its too crowded, or so they say...

  • (Score: 2) by lhsi on Wednesday February 26 2014, @08:32AM

    by lhsi (711) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @08:32AM (#7198) Journal

    Does soylentnews have any responsibility to recognize addictive behavior, or does this responsibility fall solely on the contributor?

    I get messages about attaining SoylentNews achievements (attaining achievements is something that could be attributed to gaming addiction), but following the link to see all of them doesn't show me anything. Maybe that is their way of preventing user addiction :-)

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 26 2014, @08:38AM

      by c0lo (156) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @08:38AM (#7203) Journal

      Maybe that is their way of preventing user addiction :-)

      This and capping karma at 50.

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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0