Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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)?"

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Should Games Recognize Addictive Behavior? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 62 comments | Search Discussion
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: 1) by monk on Wednesday February 26 2014, @12:31AM

    by monk (3337) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @12:31AM (#7028)

    Granted, psychology is a primitive science at this point, but it seems reasonable that our understanding will improve. We've seen examples already of some very well thought out coercive monetization [gamasutra.com]. What will be possible in the future?

    A good analogy might be asking someone with a visual disability to sign a contract with faint enough print in sections that they don't even realize the print is there.

    Eventually there will be enough tricks and enough science that none of us will be able to see the fnords.

    --
    This sig intentionally left blank.