Designing Addiction: The Twisted Psychology Of Game Design

Is it possible to design a video game to be addictive and if so, what exactly keeps you playing?

Loot boxes and microtransactions have dominated recent discussions on gambling in video games and gaming addiction. But game studios were deliberately designing addiction into games long before either of these existed. This is why outlawing them won't stop developers from using the same twisted psychology tricks that made them so successful to design even more addictive experiences in the future.

In this video, I take a look at the strategies, techniques and dark patterns used to make games difficult to put down. How they share many similarities to online casinos and online gambling, and how they have been a part of gaming long before microtransactions or loot boxes.

#lootboxes #microtransactions #gamedesign

Links:

Addiction by Design:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Addiction-D...

Kotaku article on loot box bill
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/05/us-...

Positive reinforcement
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Reinforce...

Interview with Jamie Griessmer
https://www.engadget.com/2011/07/14/h...

Apex legends loot box FAQ
https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends...

A very long article on variable-ratio schedules
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

00:00 Intro
1:12 The war on loot boxes
2:35 Designing addiction
4:18 Psychological tactics
6:34 Gambling parallels
10:23 Raising the stakes
14:27 Where do we go from here?

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