Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 9 submissions in the queue.
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)?"

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by krishnoid on Tuesday February 25 2014, @09:24PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday February 25 2014, @09:24PM (#6952)

    There's one reference to Zynga hiring a behavioral psychologist [time.com], and other references indicating that they explicitly design games for addiction.

    In protest, one game developer, Ian Bogost, created a game intended to be a conspicuously pure expression of this [bogost.com]. And to his chagrin, it was a big success [npr.org].

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2