You and I are lucky in that we don't get addicted to games easily. A few times a year I'll binge hard, but after a couple of days I'm back to normal life, usually feeling refreshed. I know that lots of people don't find it so easy to stop.
In college I made the biggest decision of my life: pursue novel writing OR pursue game development. (Most people's biggest decision is 'Who to marry?' but I'm single and will likely remain that way). I chose writing because I've been challenged, edified, and changed by books more than games. But writing and reading are both low on the Supersensorium scale, so I have to carefully limit how much time I spend on other forms of entertainment - especially gaming - in order to preserve the quiet headspace I need. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Reading slips under the radar. It's not as flashy as TV, movies, or games, but it leaves me satisfied and sedate in a way nothing else does. I'm hoping more people join the de-dopamine push and start to value the slow, healthy forms of entertainment like books. Partly because I know how much it has helped me. Partly so I can sell more copies. It's a win-win.
I have been struggling to articulate why games, shows, youtube etc. are bad but books aren't. After all, most people who read books read fiction and that is them spending time imagining other people's lives and not living their own. I mostly read non-fiction, so I can kinda make a better argument for why books are good. They help me understand reality better. But even then its like, most of what I read, I won't end up using. So why am I doing it ? Why is it better ?
I think it’s a lot of factors. Studies have shown that reading increases your capacity for empathy, even when you’re reading totally made-up stories. There’s also a huge difference in the amount of communication that’s possible in books vs. other mediums; books are a superhighway of logic and emotion, while movies and games are blunt and simplistic in comparison. That precision is why the book is usually better than the movie. And video games, specifically, need to dumb down their messages because they usually have to be reduced to a mechanic you can interact with. They also need to give you agency, meaning you can often choose morally wrong actions with little consequence.
(Note: I like video games and I believe they’re a net good in this world. They just need to be consumed in moderation. And while plenty of people have struggled with video game addiction, I’ve never heard of someone addicted to a book.)
Lastly, I don’t think we can discount the fact that reading is more work. This is partly why it’s good for us. It requires active participation and imagination, which forges new brain synapses and literally expands our minds.
I would say that fiction also helps us understand reality more, perhaps in a more subjective way than non-fiction. We see the world through others' perspectives
I never found games appealing (funny enough for aesthetic reasons, even the pretty ones I find clunky, those characters moving in slow motion) but I developed a bad Netflix addiction. In 2.5 years I netted 1,755.5 hours of watching only TV series (there were plenty of movies but I can’t remember how many). One evening after binge-watching Netflix for 8 hours straight after work (during the week) I finally found the strength to stop. I wrote an article about the effects of watching TV on the brain: https://storyvoyager.substack.com/p/never-have-i-ever-did-a-100-day-tv
One of the main effects of watching vs reading is that watching TV has an inverse correlation with language skills or verbal IQ. The more we watch the less our language center is developed. It can even revert development in adults.
I hadn't thought of snobbery as a defence against the constant availability of low quality addictive stuff — games, TV, and other media, but also food, alcohol, drugs — but put that way it makes perfect sense. I, uh, might be 5% more of a snob after reading your essay.
I found my undergrad-age video game semi-addiction decline significantly when my work became more interesting (picking up research in grad school) and then again when I picked up hiking. Of course, these are somewhat luxury solutions in our world, not available to everyone (and tricky even for myself at times). But they are convincing me that "external locus of control" about gaming addiction isn't as wrong as people are making it out to be. (Arguably, the games I used to play -- adventures and RPGs such as TES -- were substituting for the same exploration experience that I got out of research and of hiking. Ten years ago, I knew Vvardenfell far better than my home country.)
Games occupy a strange place in my mind right now. I almost never have the time to play them, and when I do, I don't usually enjoy them much. But I do get pissed every week or so about not having the time for them. It's some sort of vexing nostalgia that doesn't actually lead to much satisfaction when pandered to. Although that might be a thing with any kind of nostalgia...
I don't enjoy playing games as used to in my teen years.
However, i'm still getting a lot of thoughts how cool would be to check out AAA or indie titles and I like to read people's opinions on games (on subreddits or social media).
And when I do sit to play the game, then the whole activity seems to me pointless. My snobbery tells me to read some brick-size book like Robert Caro's biography, to feel better than my peers.
But still, these gaming thoughts are coming back a couple of times in year. Strange. Maybe that's just nostalgia?
Notion of "great fiction" vs "cheap fiction" is what I have in my mind recently.
And I have the same opinion:
great books lets you expand your reailty. Lets you see more in your ordinary life. Similar to the good science books which gives broader picture of universe and gives you sense of awe.
So after reading Proust, Hemingway, Steinbeck or Mann I feel like I see more layers in life.
Cheap fiction, or fiction consumed to ESCAPE reality, makes you feel bad afterwards. It's a cozy feeling to escape into world of multiseason netflix series but sooner or later you're coming back to your body.
And you have this sour taste in your mouth. It's the revelation that your problems are not gone and you still have to face them.
Important caveat: this doesn't mean it's much better if somebody consumes "good" fiction to escape or distract himself - escapism always sooner later strikes back (though in smaller doses it's very useful - when the pain of life is too strong, sometimes it's good to escape)
Have you figured out a way to substitute the social aspect of gaming? I still talk to my best friend since middle school because we play DotA 2 twice a week. We both agree it’s sort of miserable (we suck, games are toxic, it’s extremely hard to control the outcome because of the sheer number of variables in each game, not to mention the ever-shifting meta game), but we do it anyway because to not do it feels like a huge loss. We still get together in real life every so often, but when we do we usually talk about DotA and play a different game (like smash, which is usually more actual fun). Gaming is just what we do, it’s what we’ve always done. I still associate Halo 3 with the smell of his basement.
I do the exact same thing with my group of friends, except we play Apex Legends. I think it's literally the best use of gaming, since you're maintaining social ties, and I don't see anything wrong with it at all!
This is a very thoughtful post, Erik, and I may well cross-post it to my own Substack (which just happens to be about gaming, would ya look at that) if that’s cool. Every time I go on a non-gaming podcast, I can always count on addiction coming up at least once (along with violence, though, mercifully, not usually simultaneously), so I’ve definitely developed and refined more than a few…. *thoughts* on the subject.
I personally dislike the term “addiction” re: problematic gaming, as there’s some nuance between compulsive gaming and more well-known addictions (as well as, crucially, not nearly as much research into the former). It’s less like an alcohol or gambling addiction (unless gacha/loot boxes are involved, but that’s another question entirely), and more akin to binge watching—another problematic compulsive behavior born from the supersensoric era, engaged in for similar reasons as video games (usually escape), and similarly optimized to keep eyes glued to screens for as long as possible.
In a way, it’s a sort of “pick your poison,” only the poison is your preferred flavor of mass medium. I’m very much a gamer, whereas my wife—who gets practically zero enjoyment from games—binges shows like crazy. One of my relatives is always holding a book every spare minute. I can only speak for myself, obviously, but I reckon the three of us indulge in our chosen escapist media more than seems healthy.
But barring deliberately exploitative and addictive game design (a hallmark of most recent MMOs, as you mentioned)—which could very well be addictive in the more commonly understood sense (alas, there’s a dearth of research into video games generally, and compulsive gaming specifically, so we can only make an informed guess for now)—if someone’s playing Breath of the Wild or Fortnite all day, it’s almost always to fulfill an unmet need.
The three “pillars” of self-actualization are competence, agency, and social connection—and video games provide all three in spades. This is why games were such a crucial social outlet during the lockdown years, as well as why a bullied and awkward teenage nerd who’s terrible at sports (*raises hand*) spends untold hours getting good enough to top the leaderboards or break a speed running record—to get that feeling of being competent at something. And, of course, you already mentioned agency, so I won’t rehash it.
Now, I do think it’s important to reiterate your point that these are ultimately *simulacra* of attaining competency, asserting agency, and forging connections IRL, so deep down inside, getting that rare Steam achievement ultimately feels hollow. So you keep playing, in search of that elusive feeling of accomplishing something. But if your IRL circumstances adequately and regularly fulfill your needs for self-actualization (say, through a job where your skills are needed and appreciated), then you don’t need to plug into a virtual world for an inferior substitute.
Which I suppose is a VERY long-winded way of saying: if you address the deeper issues that make excessive gaming so appealing, then 9 times out of 10, the excessive gaming takes care of itself, and the player dials back to a more moderate and manageable play schedule, or stops playing altogether.
Now, does this mean that there are NO “addicted” gamers, in the “classical” sense? Of course not—there obviously are, and I suspect we’ll see a lot MORE as the industry continues its shift towards cynically designing games that are barely even “games,” and more like glorified slot machines or Skinner boxes. If, even after making changes in lifestyle, environment, etc., the gamer STILL can’t control their playtime, then maybe it really is best for them to put the controller down and “touch grass”—for good. But from what I can gather (because, again, more and better research into this area is DESPERATELY needed), these cases are not nearly as widespread as news reports make it seem, and may well be exceptional cases.
Now, I’m not saying that to diminish or minimize their struggles, or their families’, in any way. Even if only one person were the grips of a gaming addiction, that’s still a human being (and even more human beings who care for them) going through a harrowing and torturous ordeal. We should be helping to ensure these folks get the support they need to live a life free from such acute emotional (and sometimes physical) hell.
I’m just skeptical of claims that *video games* are to blame for whatever the social malaise du jour is. And frankly, I’m over it—as I mentioned, when I’m presenting at a panel or on a podcast, the amount of time between my concluding remarks and the first audience question on video game violence or addiction is so precise I could set my watch to it. I will grant that the addiction question is more nuanced—partly because of the sheer emotive power of games’ interactivity, and partly because for some developers, addiction *is the point.* But I’d wager my left joy-con that in most cases, excessive/problematic gaming is more likely a *symptom* of mental distress than a *cause.*
Not that the two can’t be operating at the same time, of course. Buuuuut… I’ve said enough already. Sorry about that! But again, great article, great food for thought, and great discussion fodder 🙂
Thanks for the thoughts Jay - oof, yeah, when it comes to monetization there's a lot of possible bad practices (skinner boxes) that can come out. At the same time, while I agree that the stereotypical "everyone is addicted" is certainly not true, I do think there is a close connection between despair and gaming, perhaps especially for young men. But that doesn't mean one leads to the other all the time, or anything like that, nor that gamers lead lives that are inherently depressing, etc. But the connection feels real to me, just from what I've observed of the world, in that it's something that is always a possibility.
Certainly, I can actually relate on that front: Breath of the Wild was basically my therapy when my daughter was in the NICU, so the link with despair was quite obvious. Gaming has certainly been a salve for me during many challenging times. The key is not to let it become a crutch, which when you’re in emotional pain, is MUCH easier said than done.
So I could definitely see the allure of excessive gaming being quite strong today, especially as everyone processes and grapples with all our collective pandemic trauma. I know firsthand how games can be helpful in this regard, though I also recognize the risks, and ultimately, they’re no substitute for therapy (unless your therapist uses games as part of your treatment).
But alas, with mental health care being as inaccessible as it is in the US, games may well be the closest thing to a therapist for a lot of people. I suppose time will tell how that all shakes out in the end. But I digress 🙃
(Oh, one last thing—I do take issue with the comic about the gamer basically "gaming his life away," and its barely-veiled thesis that gaming is a waste of time. I vehemently (but respectfully) disagree; time spent having fun and creating memories is just as intrinsically valuable as time pursuing goals and being out in the world.
And it does make me wonder... if someone isolates themself in a room for their entire life doing nothing but reading books, we'd think of them as an eccentric but ultimately harmless (not to mention very well-read) hermit or scholar. Why, then, do we attach such a stigma to those who do likewise with video games? Both the hermit and the basement gamer refuse to engage with society and the world around them, instead pursuing human experience through simulacra. If it's because books are just "better" than games because they're "smarter," then the legions of indie creative geniuses fostering narrative innovation in games would like a word; there's no reason a good game can't be as intellectually enriching and stimulating as a good book, just in different ways.
I agree that our culture has unfairly demonized games, but I do still think there's a qualitative difference between games and other media.
Part of it is the rarity of deep, meaningful games (although those do exist).
Another is the fact that your average book takes ~10 hours to read, but your average game - and especially the games people play addictively - take much longer, sometimes in the 1,000s or 10,000s of hours. That means the gamer is perfecting a very small set of skills repetitively, while the reader who read for 10,000 hours consumed a thousand different worlds, characters, and circumstances. That's going to result in a bigger impact on their ways of thinking.
I also think games allow us to develop skill-sets, but only in a "gamified" way, so the effort-to-reward ratio is dialed way higher than other real-world skills. Mastering Guitar Hero is worlds away from mastering guitar. It's not fair to other skills to say that being an expert gamer is on the same level. (But to be clear: I've watched competitive StarCraft for over a decade, and I know that the pros are putting in long, arduous hours and working their butts off. It's not a matter of *time*, but that the reward ratio is unfairly high in a game because it's allowed to be.)
That’s a fair point, but I think we’re both talking about different kinds of games. The type of infinite/MMO/GaaS/endless games that people sink thousands of hours does indeed provide a limited experience and develops a narrow set of skills.
But what about single-player narrative games, with a set end point? Those are essentially interactive stories, no less enriching than a book or movie (and I’d even argue they could be even more so, due to player agency amplifying the experience more than in passive media). Gamers that play games for their stories are not much different from folks who watch movies or read books for the stories. Not everyone plays for story--some for competition, social connections, etc--but just as playing Guitar Hero is not the same as playing a guitar, I’d say it’s equally unfair to narrative-driven games to suggest they do the same for gamers as a dopamine-optimized MMO.
It’d be the same as saying a reader gets the same thing out of the Hobbit as she does out of Sherlock Holmes--both literature and gaming are too diverse a medium to paint in broad strokes (besides, there is a *lot* of mindless, formulaic genre fiction out there as well, which isn’t very enriching at all).
As far as deep and meaningful games, they’re more common than you’d think. They’re just obscure because they don’t have ginormous AAA marketing budgets backing them. I write an entire Substack about featuring such games—I invite you to check it out 🙂
Good point. I tend to find that most gamers who spend 10,000 hours are putting a lot of those into MMO/strategy/esport games. But if it's all in crafted narrative experiences then that does feel much more on par with movies or books. I myself have played the Mass Effect trilogy probably 6 times, and I'm not done.
And I'm happy to hear that deep games aren't that rare. But the sad reality is that I want deep games with decent production values, which feels like a bit of a white stag. I actually think this might be a place where recent advances in AI help a lot, allowing small teams to model, texture, compose, and voice-act their games on a modest budget. Time will tell.
Just for fun, a quick list of narrative games I have loved:
Ah, yes—deep and meaningful with AAA production values is indeed another beast entirely, and much rarer. Fortunately, there's a slow shift in that area, as indie devs become more proficient, experienced, and learning to do more with less, all while the technology for making games continues to become more sophisticated and accessible at the same time. I hadn't thought of holistic game development as a use case for AI, but it makes a lot of sense. I sure hope it turns out that way!
You've got a solid list of narrative games right there! Stray was such a joy from start to finish, and of course Mass Effect is one of the narrative GOATs. The only ones I haven't played yet are Spec Ops and Before You Blink, I'll have to check them out.
I've also got a recommendation: if you haven't played EarthBound, I highly suggest bumping it to the top of your backlog—with the caveat that you need a Nintendo Switch and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription (but only the basic tier, fortunately) to play it... well, *legally*, at least.
If you're not familiar, it's an RPG from the SNES era set in an affectionate parody/pastiche of modern America. It's one of the most beautiful stories I've experienced in any medium, not just games, and it has one of the best game finales ever, the kind that changes people in that way that only great art can. I firmly believe I'm a better person, with a better outlook on life, for having played through that game. Even nearly 3 decades since its release, I can't think of a better example of a deep game (except maybe its sequel... but alas there's no way to legally play it if you can't read Japanese).
One thing that people often miss when discussing gaming addiction is the pursuit of mastery. Infinite games with high-skill ceilings often have this effect, with many gamers identifying their ability in their game of choice as their most proficient skill. When I was studying to become an Architect and lamenting that I probably wouldn't be the next Santiago Calatrava, it seemed very fulfilling to be better than the other 99.99% of players.
An interesting niche that never entirely caught on is Life RPGs: the gamification of habits where you get new gears, abilities, and level up by self-reporting your real-life habits or tasks. Wouldn't it be nice if we were all addicted to calling our mums, doing our homework, and flossing our teeth 😬
I think this relates to Jay's formula earlier: "The three 'pillars' of self-actualization are competence, agency, and social connection." I think the word "competence" plays a role similar to "mastery," although without a competitive element (which you referenced at the end of your first paragraph). If the competitive element is put aside, competence/mastery relates closely to the ability to reach a flow state in the execution of complex tasks. It is an ordinarily achievable reward for invested effort in many facets of life, and the reward can be continuously enhanced by additional effort that magnifies the skill with which a practice is executed.
The psychologist who coined the term "Flow" (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) found decades later that brain activity measured in the lab of people playing mastered video games confirmed that gaming did indeed share neurological features with "classical" forms of skill mastery (dance, music performance, sports). In terms of value, these activities are "autotelic": they present for those who have mastered them as ends in themselves, and skilled engagement in them is self-fulfilling.
Jay's formula also includes the "social" dimension, which relates to your Life RPG metaphor. I think the pejorative term "addictive" relates to an issue of social disconnection (different from the society found in a multi-player game). Many other forms of skill mastery--artistic or mundanely professional (like the skill of a good auto mechanic who sometimes loses herself doing a complex repair job)--are embedded in broader social frameworks that accommodate skill performance in a broad web of social transactions: rewarding an audience; earning income; providing some service in social demand. A person who trains many hours a day to become or succeed as a sports pro links the rewards of flow to a social role (and esports may provide a similar outlet), but a person who is not on a pro track yet who devotes himself to basketball eight hours a day (with or without social company) may just be lost in the game itself, and that may be something we'd call an addiction (unless you're a devotee of David Chalmers, as Erik describes his ideas--Chalmers elsewhere finds a universe of sentient satisfaction animating our home thermostats too). I think the issue we see with gaming--which Csikszentmihalyi also found in some culturally sanctioned flow-state skills that he felt could become addictive--may be the detachment of the mastery and its rewards from a larger context of social goals, rewards, and contributions.
And because this response needs to be even longer, I want to note that there does exist an ethical philosophy of Life RPGs: the early Confucian utopian (and unrealistic) goal of a society where all people become mutually interacting masters of the social roles they move through via a set of objective, reciprocal, and serially inculcated ritual scripts. The payoff is psychological--the rewards of increasingly complex and diverse personal skill mastery in resonance with other people--and social/political/economic as well: the many-sided productivity of fully transparent and cooperative social harmony. The ancient Confucian always called his mum.
Really great article, sometimes I wonder how you manage to find so many relevant but relatively niche quotes and sources. You're a diamond miner, Erik.
I would add that a lot of the appeal comes from escapism, if not escapism of time then escapism of thought. For me, my worst bouts came when I was gearing up to go to college and when my first semester in college. It was useful for me to take up the time and mental capital thinking about the game rather than all the new responsibilities and new relationships I would have to make. I imagine and have seen this translate into other challenges in life.
Honestly, this thought wasn't provoked until reading this article, so thanks for that.
Erik, I have one to add to your list. In my experience, becoming a game developer is a lovely way to beat the addiction. Like any illusion, seeing how games are really made tends to spoil the magic. For myself, I play games more like a researcher nowadays and only occasionally find myself spending more time than I intended.
Thanks for sharing your story, as usual you’ve done a lovely job exposing nuance. The current mix of practices, incentives, and discourse about this issue isn’t getting us anywhere. Most sides of the debate need a little help. I would love to read or even someday contribute to a Substack that illuminates such issues as:
- Game developers who could use a little more sobriety about the negative impacts of the overuse that we are specifically trying to engineer.
- Domestic and global market forces that push game developers to design highly engaging and long-lasting experiences.
- Addiction being a scary word that drives a lot of media engagement. There are many properties of gaming overuse that don’t fit the clinical definition of addiction, which is very important in regards to how you treat the issue in a patient.
- Gaming culture needing to grow up a bit in terms of its relationship to overuse. Looking at user reviews, it’s clear that some people are seeking addictive experiences.
- Widespread cultural perspectives needing to become a little more informed and less judgmental of people who player games.
- Gamers who need to accept some responsibility for how we choose to spend our time. This is also related to the clinical addiction debate, since there is no factual evidence of physiological mechanism in someone “addicted” to games.
- Friends and family of gamers, especially parents, who need to accept responsibility to intervene when they see a problem. If allowed, my young child will eat cupcakes until violently ill. It’s my responsibility to prevent that from happening, not the bakery.
As a very occasional modder, I have seen some game development live, and I can say at least for the teams I've known: no one is trying to *engineer overuse* in computer RPGs. This might be different in mobile gaming, but, naive as this may sound, most computer game designers are actually motivated by creative self-expression and a desire to build something beautiful, interesting or at least entertaining. The extra hidden cave gets added not in order to force players to spend hours deciphering every book or combing every waterfall; it gets added because its developer fondly remembers solving such a puzzle in his own gaming experience. Even "replay value" (which may or may not be correlated to addictivity) is something that is much more valued by the C suite than by actual developers.
The scary thing is that it is often the quality of the art and the extra mile that developers go to make their worlds seem alive that causes players to get overimmersed and addicted. The typical addictive game is not Flappy Bird.
I don’t want to diminish your experience as a modder, so I’ll just clarify that I’ve been making PC RPGs for the better part of the last decade. My comment may sound cynical but I’m only trying to be realistic. I agree that many developers are intrinsically motivated. I have put many nostalgic, personal details into my own work over the years. I also agree that designing specifically for revenue, engagement, or some other business goal is usually a mistake to be avoided.
But let’s set aside business for a moment. Gamers have a lot options. In fact, as entertainment products, games are competing for time that someone could spend in an infinite number of ways. In competition for attention, we quickly arrive at addictive designs. Unique, immersive, immediately satisfying while endlessly interesting. How can you compete with addictive games without being a little addictive?
If you're saying that the market selects for addictive games even when developers don't intend to make ones, I get your point. Even so, I think the relevant market forces exist only in subscription-model games (e.g., MMORPGs), whereas everywhere else the incentives point in the opposite direction (the famous phenomenon of games designed for day-0 reviewers, thus breathtaking in their first 5 play-hours and progressively disappointing afterwards).
I think addictiveness in RPGs is an emergent property, much as I'd love to have someone to blame. The same forces are in play (if to a lesser extent) in fantasy literature. Did Tolkien deliberately make Middle Earth immersive to compete with real life in the minds of his readers?
This is an interesting dialogue; thanks to both of you for your comments.
I think at the end of the day though, addictive game design trumps beauty and artistic devotion (whatever way that appears). We quickly become normalized to art and beauty, but we can get addicted to the systems that properly gratify our brain pathways - gambling, substance abuse, sex, food, etc.
I also think there's not a fine line between making a game that is really compelling and fun to come back to often, and making a game that is addicting. I think it depends more on the gamer than the developer.
Agree with everything you said here. I’m also a pretty huge game snob, and loved the heck out of Pentiment. The same thing is true with every entertainment medium; since 90% of it is absolute garbage, you need to be better at picking out what’s good. That way, you’ll drastically decrease what’s really available time fill your time with. And as I was reading I couldn’t help but notice myself that all the examples were pointing to infinite games, and that’s been my observation as well. All my friends who game a TON and don’t find much meaning in their lives spend time playing League, DOTA, Fortnite and the like. Single player, narrative-driven games are not popular among this crowd. Which is why, though I also game, I find it hard to come to common ground with them. A really interesting topic and proposed solution, imo.
On the point about reality vs. simulation, I think “reality” is what doesn’t require error correction. In “reality”, there can’t be a single subatomic particle in the entire universe that fails to follow the laws of physics for even the briefest moment in time, because there’s nothing “running” reality that can make a mistake. In even the best simulation, a “bit” can in principle be out of place with respect to the ostensible “rules” of the simulation because there is an intermediary system that could in principle fail to render flawlessly.
I think this is Eric’s point from a slightly different angle, and it’s a good distinction. I’m just having trouble connecting error correction (or lack thereof) to the meaning of life, which is why I ultimately come out on the Chalmers side.
As a lifelong gaming aficionado (I won't quite say or admit to addict), your solutions ring all too true. Namely, "get older" and "play finite games". As an aging 'gamer' in a now parental role, I find that I can no longer play any game that does not meet the very strict criteria of: 1) I can pause the game with a 10-second warning, 2) Once paused, I can leave the game for a possible duration of 2-4 hours without effect, and finally 3) I can abandon the game for weeks/months at a time without significant loss of narrative/immersion/enjoyment. As you can imagine, this significantly limits my current enjoyment of games to the land of rouge-likes, puzzle games, and story-light single player games. No longer can I enjoy the modern masterpieces that are deep, 100+ hour RPGs nor the infinite depth multiplayer games such as DOTA 2 or League (or so many others including Overwatch, Rocket League, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and so on).
I find that in this new role, I lose a depth I once appreciated. I was, and still am, a huge fan of Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall and Titanfall 2. I soaked many hours losing myself in the fluidity and complexity of movement, hair-trigger responses, and map awareness that were required of the multiplayer first-person shooter games. While the spirit (and lore) of these games lives on in Apex Legends, which takes place within the same fictional universe, I find that the genre has sadly left me behind. No longer is it a place where I can actively participate and hope to truly be involved. I find this an unfortunate loss.
Paraphrasing a critic commenting on the new HBO series "The Last of Us", they commented that the video game comprising the source material is already cinematic and the TV series is akin to a live-action Disney adaptation. In other words, a retelling of a known story in a familiar medium. I vehemently disagree. Not because the adaptation is not bound to its source, but because video games and television are fundamentally different media. Video games require an involvement and an investment that television simply cannot mimic. No matter how involved or engrossed in a television series or movie you are, your input or interest will never change the outcome, timing, or results (let's not mention American Idol). I personally believe that the fan fiction or "head-canon" explanations of any TV series could never hold a candle to the data-mining and statistical analysis that takes place for games such as League of Legends. Anyone not convinced only needs to look at some random person's 30-page explanation of "Nasus's optimal build".
Gaming addiction looks different for everyone I'm sure, and is certainly tied to a modern sense that social fulfillment can come from such games, whether they involve other humans or not. As indie games become more popular, varied, and cheap, I can only be reminded of a common phrase uttered by fans of the popular single-player automation game Factorio: "The factory must grow".
A phenomenon intuitive to the average gamer but not to the outsider is that video games allow us to experiment with means and ends without facing the consequences of doing so in real life. Even though there might be similar emotional responses.
The actions you take in video games are not real, neither are the incentives, means, or ends. Yet, we might be able to argue that the existence of a drive to do those actions is real, although bound by the game's rules.
In multiple-path games, you will, at some point, have the option to betray, kill, or hurt someone the character loves. If you are curious to do so, you should ask what you would do in real life.
This was really excellent, and I share your perspective on how empty virtual worlds are. Like you, I experienced many virtual worlds but never felt addicted, and largely evolved into a snob in my 30s. The only addition that I have is that if the sim is deep enough with a market economy and social interaction and you have mastered that well enough, why not graduate from the sim and do that in base reality too? If you have the discipline to grind for what you want, how is that different from lifting weights, studying, or preparing healthy meals?
I really liked your point about infinite vs. finite games. My experience with infinite-type multiplayer games was that the most addictive feeling was right at the end, when you're deciding whether to play again. The boring or tedious parts seemed insignificant until starting a new match and committing your next 45 minutes to a repeat of the cycle.
Video games have a few hidden advantages. In hindsight, kids who played a lot of MMOs tend to have more miscellaneous historical and combat vocabulary :P. And as video games have gained more respect as an artistic medium, we can see a larger proportion of high quality creative output coming from video games. It seems like the best way to enjoy them is for video games to just be a small addition to a lifestyle you're already satisfied with.
I don’t game. My sons game routinely after school. I like the application of the Supersensorium concept as the attractant. But, as we say in social science: what are the conditions of possibility for addictive gaming? Or any addiction? The addict has to get access to the substance. This is a social process. When we look at the conditions that permit this behavior, the most critical ones to me are: social alienation and lack of communal supervision of that individual. And the incredible belief in privacy that forbids us from questioning monomaniacal sensory stimming behavior until it has become pathological. Stimming is normal only for autistic people, not 99% of humans. I’m the former.
You and I are lucky in that we don't get addicted to games easily. A few times a year I'll binge hard, but after a couple of days I'm back to normal life, usually feeling refreshed. I know that lots of people don't find it so easy to stop.
In college I made the biggest decision of my life: pursue novel writing OR pursue game development. (Most people's biggest decision is 'Who to marry?' but I'm single and will likely remain that way). I chose writing because I've been challenged, edified, and changed by books more than games. But writing and reading are both low on the Supersensorium scale, so I have to carefully limit how much time I spend on other forms of entertainment - especially gaming - in order to preserve the quiet headspace I need. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Reading slips under the radar. It's not as flashy as TV, movies, or games, but it leaves me satisfied and sedate in a way nothing else does. I'm hoping more people join the de-dopamine push and start to value the slow, healthy forms of entertainment like books. Partly because I know how much it has helped me. Partly so I can sell more copies. It's a win-win.
I have been struggling to articulate why games, shows, youtube etc. are bad but books aren't. After all, most people who read books read fiction and that is them spending time imagining other people's lives and not living their own. I mostly read non-fiction, so I can kinda make a better argument for why books are good. They help me understand reality better. But even then its like, most of what I read, I won't end up using. So why am I doing it ? Why is it better ?
Does anyone have an explanation ?
Before there were video games, people made much the same complaints about 'children who read too much'. I was one of those kids.
I think it’s a lot of factors. Studies have shown that reading increases your capacity for empathy, even when you’re reading totally made-up stories. There’s also a huge difference in the amount of communication that’s possible in books vs. other mediums; books are a superhighway of logic and emotion, while movies and games are blunt and simplistic in comparison. That precision is why the book is usually better than the movie. And video games, specifically, need to dumb down their messages because they usually have to be reduced to a mechanic you can interact with. They also need to give you agency, meaning you can often choose morally wrong actions with little consequence.
(Note: I like video games and I believe they’re a net good in this world. They just need to be consumed in moderation. And while plenty of people have struggled with video game addiction, I’ve never heard of someone addicted to a book.)
Lastly, I don’t think we can discount the fact that reading is more work. This is partly why it’s good for us. It requires active participation and imagination, which forges new brain synapses and literally expands our minds.
I would say that fiction also helps us understand reality more, perhaps in a more subjective way than non-fiction. We see the world through others' perspectives
I never found games appealing (funny enough for aesthetic reasons, even the pretty ones I find clunky, those characters moving in slow motion) but I developed a bad Netflix addiction. In 2.5 years I netted 1,755.5 hours of watching only TV series (there were plenty of movies but I can’t remember how many). One evening after binge-watching Netflix for 8 hours straight after work (during the week) I finally found the strength to stop. I wrote an article about the effects of watching TV on the brain: https://storyvoyager.substack.com/p/never-have-i-ever-did-a-100-day-tv
One of the main effects of watching vs reading is that watching TV has an inverse correlation with language skills or verbal IQ. The more we watch the less our language center is developed. It can even revert development in adults.
I hadn't thought of snobbery as a defence against the constant availability of low quality addictive stuff — games, TV, and other media, but also food, alcohol, drugs — but put that way it makes perfect sense. I, uh, might be 5% more of a snob after reading your essay.
I found my undergrad-age video game semi-addiction decline significantly when my work became more interesting (picking up research in grad school) and then again when I picked up hiking. Of course, these are somewhat luxury solutions in our world, not available to everyone (and tricky even for myself at times). But they are convincing me that "external locus of control" about gaming addiction isn't as wrong as people are making it out to be. (Arguably, the games I used to play -- adventures and RPGs such as TES -- were substituting for the same exploration experience that I got out of research and of hiking. Ten years ago, I knew Vvardenfell far better than my home country.)
Games occupy a strange place in my mind right now. I almost never have the time to play them, and when I do, I don't usually enjoy them much. But I do get pissed every week or so about not having the time for them. It's some sort of vexing nostalgia that doesn't actually lead to much satisfaction when pandered to. Although that might be a thing with any kind of nostalgia...
Games are amazing to think about. And always less fun to actually play. I don't know why that is.
I have the same.
I don't enjoy playing games as used to in my teen years.
However, i'm still getting a lot of thoughts how cool would be to check out AAA or indie titles and I like to read people's opinions on games (on subreddits or social media).
And when I do sit to play the game, then the whole activity seems to me pointless. My snobbery tells me to read some brick-size book like Robert Caro's biography, to feel better than my peers.
But still, these gaming thoughts are coming back a couple of times in year. Strange. Maybe that's just nostalgia?
I love your idea of aesthetics > ascetic.
In a documentary about Tolkin, a reader compares the impact of Lord of the Rings with cheap fiction:
Cheap fiction makes our own ordinary life feel less magical. It saddens us that we aren't great detectives, warriors or princesses.
Great fiction makes our own ordinary life feel more magical. It rubs off on the ordinary homely things of life. It fills them with meaning.
Again here is art similar to nutrition. Eating sugar makes life without it hard. Eating healthy advances base reality.
Not that this is a condition (I am not a utilitarian) but it can be a symptom.
Notion of "great fiction" vs "cheap fiction" is what I have in my mind recently.
And I have the same opinion:
great books lets you expand your reailty. Lets you see more in your ordinary life. Similar to the good science books which gives broader picture of universe and gives you sense of awe.
So after reading Proust, Hemingway, Steinbeck or Mann I feel like I see more layers in life.
Cheap fiction, or fiction consumed to ESCAPE reality, makes you feel bad afterwards. It's a cozy feeling to escape into world of multiseason netflix series but sooner or later you're coming back to your body.
And you have this sour taste in your mouth. It's the revelation that your problems are not gone and you still have to face them.
Important caveat: this doesn't mean it's much better if somebody consumes "good" fiction to escape or distract himself - escapism always sooner later strikes back (though in smaller doses it's very useful - when the pain of life is too strong, sometimes it's good to escape)
Have you figured out a way to substitute the social aspect of gaming? I still talk to my best friend since middle school because we play DotA 2 twice a week. We both agree it’s sort of miserable (we suck, games are toxic, it’s extremely hard to control the outcome because of the sheer number of variables in each game, not to mention the ever-shifting meta game), but we do it anyway because to not do it feels like a huge loss. We still get together in real life every so often, but when we do we usually talk about DotA and play a different game (like smash, which is usually more actual fun). Gaming is just what we do, it’s what we’ve always done. I still associate Halo 3 with the smell of his basement.
I do the exact same thing with my group of friends, except we play Apex Legends. I think it's literally the best use of gaming, since you're maintaining social ties, and I don't see anything wrong with it at all!
How about doing zoom improv games?
Or watch parties of sorts?
Seems like a reasonable thing to do together! Sometimes I wish I hadn’t quit for that reason.
This is a very thoughtful post, Erik, and I may well cross-post it to my own Substack (which just happens to be about gaming, would ya look at that) if that’s cool. Every time I go on a non-gaming podcast, I can always count on addiction coming up at least once (along with violence, though, mercifully, not usually simultaneously), so I’ve definitely developed and refined more than a few…. *thoughts* on the subject.
I personally dislike the term “addiction” re: problematic gaming, as there’s some nuance between compulsive gaming and more well-known addictions (as well as, crucially, not nearly as much research into the former). It’s less like an alcohol or gambling addiction (unless gacha/loot boxes are involved, but that’s another question entirely), and more akin to binge watching—another problematic compulsive behavior born from the supersensoric era, engaged in for similar reasons as video games (usually escape), and similarly optimized to keep eyes glued to screens for as long as possible.
In a way, it’s a sort of “pick your poison,” only the poison is your preferred flavor of mass medium. I’m very much a gamer, whereas my wife—who gets practically zero enjoyment from games—binges shows like crazy. One of my relatives is always holding a book every spare minute. I can only speak for myself, obviously, but I reckon the three of us indulge in our chosen escapist media more than seems healthy.
But barring deliberately exploitative and addictive game design (a hallmark of most recent MMOs, as you mentioned)—which could very well be addictive in the more commonly understood sense (alas, there’s a dearth of research into video games generally, and compulsive gaming specifically, so we can only make an informed guess for now)—if someone’s playing Breath of the Wild or Fortnite all day, it’s almost always to fulfill an unmet need.
The three “pillars” of self-actualization are competence, agency, and social connection—and video games provide all three in spades. This is why games were such a crucial social outlet during the lockdown years, as well as why a bullied and awkward teenage nerd who’s terrible at sports (*raises hand*) spends untold hours getting good enough to top the leaderboards or break a speed running record—to get that feeling of being competent at something. And, of course, you already mentioned agency, so I won’t rehash it.
Now, I do think it’s important to reiterate your point that these are ultimately *simulacra* of attaining competency, asserting agency, and forging connections IRL, so deep down inside, getting that rare Steam achievement ultimately feels hollow. So you keep playing, in search of that elusive feeling of accomplishing something. But if your IRL circumstances adequately and regularly fulfill your needs for self-actualization (say, through a job where your skills are needed and appreciated), then you don’t need to plug into a virtual world for an inferior substitute.
Which I suppose is a VERY long-winded way of saying: if you address the deeper issues that make excessive gaming so appealing, then 9 times out of 10, the excessive gaming takes care of itself, and the player dials back to a more moderate and manageable play schedule, or stops playing altogether.
Now, does this mean that there are NO “addicted” gamers, in the “classical” sense? Of course not—there obviously are, and I suspect we’ll see a lot MORE as the industry continues its shift towards cynically designing games that are barely even “games,” and more like glorified slot machines or Skinner boxes. If, even after making changes in lifestyle, environment, etc., the gamer STILL can’t control their playtime, then maybe it really is best for them to put the controller down and “touch grass”—for good. But from what I can gather (because, again, more and better research into this area is DESPERATELY needed), these cases are not nearly as widespread as news reports make it seem, and may well be exceptional cases.
Now, I’m not saying that to diminish or minimize their struggles, or their families’, in any way. Even if only one person were the grips of a gaming addiction, that’s still a human being (and even more human beings who care for them) going through a harrowing and torturous ordeal. We should be helping to ensure these folks get the support they need to live a life free from such acute emotional (and sometimes physical) hell.
I’m just skeptical of claims that *video games* are to blame for whatever the social malaise du jour is. And frankly, I’m over it—as I mentioned, when I’m presenting at a panel or on a podcast, the amount of time between my concluding remarks and the first audience question on video game violence or addiction is so precise I could set my watch to it. I will grant that the addiction question is more nuanced—partly because of the sheer emotive power of games’ interactivity, and partly because for some developers, addiction *is the point.* But I’d wager my left joy-con that in most cases, excessive/problematic gaming is more likely a *symptom* of mental distress than a *cause.*
Not that the two can’t be operating at the same time, of course. Buuuuut… I’ve said enough already. Sorry about that! But again, great article, great food for thought, and great discussion fodder 🙂
Thanks for the thoughts Jay - oof, yeah, when it comes to monetization there's a lot of possible bad practices (skinner boxes) that can come out. At the same time, while I agree that the stereotypical "everyone is addicted" is certainly not true, I do think there is a close connection between despair and gaming, perhaps especially for young men. But that doesn't mean one leads to the other all the time, or anything like that, nor that gamers lead lives that are inherently depressing, etc. But the connection feels real to me, just from what I've observed of the world, in that it's something that is always a possibility.
And of course, always feel free to crosspost.
Certainly, I can actually relate on that front: Breath of the Wild was basically my therapy when my daughter was in the NICU, so the link with despair was quite obvious. Gaming has certainly been a salve for me during many challenging times. The key is not to let it become a crutch, which when you’re in emotional pain, is MUCH easier said than done.
So I could definitely see the allure of excessive gaming being quite strong today, especially as everyone processes and grapples with all our collective pandemic trauma. I know firsthand how games can be helpful in this regard, though I also recognize the risks, and ultimately, they’re no substitute for therapy (unless your therapist uses games as part of your treatment).
But alas, with mental health care being as inaccessible as it is in the US, games may well be the closest thing to a therapist for a lot of people. I suppose time will tell how that all shakes out in the end. But I digress 🙃
(Oh, one last thing—I do take issue with the comic about the gamer basically "gaming his life away," and its barely-veiled thesis that gaming is a waste of time. I vehemently (but respectfully) disagree; time spent having fun and creating memories is just as intrinsically valuable as time pursuing goals and being out in the world.
And it does make me wonder... if someone isolates themself in a room for their entire life doing nothing but reading books, we'd think of them as an eccentric but ultimately harmless (not to mention very well-read) hermit or scholar. Why, then, do we attach such a stigma to those who do likewise with video games? Both the hermit and the basement gamer refuse to engage with society and the world around them, instead pursuing human experience through simulacra. If it's because books are just "better" than games because they're "smarter," then the legions of indie creative geniuses fostering narrative innovation in games would like a word; there's no reason a good game can't be as intellectually enriching and stimulating as a good book, just in different ways.
I agree that our culture has unfairly demonized games, but I do still think there's a qualitative difference between games and other media.
Part of it is the rarity of deep, meaningful games (although those do exist).
Another is the fact that your average book takes ~10 hours to read, but your average game - and especially the games people play addictively - take much longer, sometimes in the 1,000s or 10,000s of hours. That means the gamer is perfecting a very small set of skills repetitively, while the reader who read for 10,000 hours consumed a thousand different worlds, characters, and circumstances. That's going to result in a bigger impact on their ways of thinking.
I also think games allow us to develop skill-sets, but only in a "gamified" way, so the effort-to-reward ratio is dialed way higher than other real-world skills. Mastering Guitar Hero is worlds away from mastering guitar. It's not fair to other skills to say that being an expert gamer is on the same level. (But to be clear: I've watched competitive StarCraft for over a decade, and I know that the pros are putting in long, arduous hours and working their butts off. It's not a matter of *time*, but that the reward ratio is unfairly high in a game because it's allowed to be.)
That’s a fair point, but I think we’re both talking about different kinds of games. The type of infinite/MMO/GaaS/endless games that people sink thousands of hours does indeed provide a limited experience and develops a narrow set of skills.
But what about single-player narrative games, with a set end point? Those are essentially interactive stories, no less enriching than a book or movie (and I’d even argue they could be even more so, due to player agency amplifying the experience more than in passive media). Gamers that play games for their stories are not much different from folks who watch movies or read books for the stories. Not everyone plays for story--some for competition, social connections, etc--but just as playing Guitar Hero is not the same as playing a guitar, I’d say it’s equally unfair to narrative-driven games to suggest they do the same for gamers as a dopamine-optimized MMO.
It’d be the same as saying a reader gets the same thing out of the Hobbit as she does out of Sherlock Holmes--both literature and gaming are too diverse a medium to paint in broad strokes (besides, there is a *lot* of mindless, formulaic genre fiction out there as well, which isn’t very enriching at all).
As far as deep and meaningful games, they’re more common than you’d think. They’re just obscure because they don’t have ginormous AAA marketing budgets backing them. I write an entire Substack about featuring such games—I invite you to check it out 🙂
Good point. I tend to find that most gamers who spend 10,000 hours are putting a lot of those into MMO/strategy/esport games. But if it's all in crafted narrative experiences then that does feel much more on par with movies or books. I myself have played the Mass Effect trilogy probably 6 times, and I'm not done.
And I'm happy to hear that deep games aren't that rare. But the sad reality is that I want deep games with decent production values, which feels like a bit of a white stag. I actually think this might be a place where recent advances in AI help a lot, allowing small teams to model, texture, compose, and voice-act their games on a modest budget. Time will tell.
Just for fun, a quick list of narrative games I have loved:
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Before You Blink
- Inside
- To the Moon
- Mass Effect
- Gone Home
- Bioshock Infinite
- Spec Ops: The Line
- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
- Stray
- Portal 2
Ah, yes—deep and meaningful with AAA production values is indeed another beast entirely, and much rarer. Fortunately, there's a slow shift in that area, as indie devs become more proficient, experienced, and learning to do more with less, all while the technology for making games continues to become more sophisticated and accessible at the same time. I hadn't thought of holistic game development as a use case for AI, but it makes a lot of sense. I sure hope it turns out that way!
You've got a solid list of narrative games right there! Stray was such a joy from start to finish, and of course Mass Effect is one of the narrative GOATs. The only ones I haven't played yet are Spec Ops and Before You Blink, I'll have to check them out.
I've also got a recommendation: if you haven't played EarthBound, I highly suggest bumping it to the top of your backlog—with the caveat that you need a Nintendo Switch and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription (but only the basic tier, fortunately) to play it... well, *legally*, at least.
If you're not familiar, it's an RPG from the SNES era set in an affectionate parody/pastiche of modern America. It's one of the most beautiful stories I've experienced in any medium, not just games, and it has one of the best game finales ever, the kind that changes people in that way that only great art can. I firmly believe I'm a better person, with a better outlook on life, for having played through that game. Even nearly 3 decades since its release, I can't think of a better example of a deep game (except maybe its sequel... but alas there's no way to legally play it if you can't read Japanese).
Thanks for the rec! I don’t have a Switch, but maybe I can steal one from a friend for a little while 😛
Ah, gaming addiction, I know thee well.
One thing that people often miss when discussing gaming addiction is the pursuit of mastery. Infinite games with high-skill ceilings often have this effect, with many gamers identifying their ability in their game of choice as their most proficient skill. When I was studying to become an Architect and lamenting that I probably wouldn't be the next Santiago Calatrava, it seemed very fulfilling to be better than the other 99.99% of players.
An interesting niche that never entirely caught on is Life RPGs: the gamification of habits where you get new gears, abilities, and level up by self-reporting your real-life habits or tasks. Wouldn't it be nice if we were all addicted to calling our mums, doing our homework, and flossing our teeth 😬
I think this relates to Jay's formula earlier: "The three 'pillars' of self-actualization are competence, agency, and social connection." I think the word "competence" plays a role similar to "mastery," although without a competitive element (which you referenced at the end of your first paragraph). If the competitive element is put aside, competence/mastery relates closely to the ability to reach a flow state in the execution of complex tasks. It is an ordinarily achievable reward for invested effort in many facets of life, and the reward can be continuously enhanced by additional effort that magnifies the skill with which a practice is executed.
The psychologist who coined the term "Flow" (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) found decades later that brain activity measured in the lab of people playing mastered video games confirmed that gaming did indeed share neurological features with "classical" forms of skill mastery (dance, music performance, sports). In terms of value, these activities are "autotelic": they present for those who have mastered them as ends in themselves, and skilled engagement in them is self-fulfilling.
Jay's formula also includes the "social" dimension, which relates to your Life RPG metaphor. I think the pejorative term "addictive" relates to an issue of social disconnection (different from the society found in a multi-player game). Many other forms of skill mastery--artistic or mundanely professional (like the skill of a good auto mechanic who sometimes loses herself doing a complex repair job)--are embedded in broader social frameworks that accommodate skill performance in a broad web of social transactions: rewarding an audience; earning income; providing some service in social demand. A person who trains many hours a day to become or succeed as a sports pro links the rewards of flow to a social role (and esports may provide a similar outlet), but a person who is not on a pro track yet who devotes himself to basketball eight hours a day (with or without social company) may just be lost in the game itself, and that may be something we'd call an addiction (unless you're a devotee of David Chalmers, as Erik describes his ideas--Chalmers elsewhere finds a universe of sentient satisfaction animating our home thermostats too). I think the issue we see with gaming--which Csikszentmihalyi also found in some culturally sanctioned flow-state skills that he felt could become addictive--may be the detachment of the mastery and its rewards from a larger context of social goals, rewards, and contributions.
And because this response needs to be even longer, I want to note that there does exist an ethical philosophy of Life RPGs: the early Confucian utopian (and unrealistic) goal of a society where all people become mutually interacting masters of the social roles they move through via a set of objective, reciprocal, and serially inculcated ritual scripts. The payoff is psychological--the rewards of increasingly complex and diverse personal skill mastery in resonance with other people--and social/political/economic as well: the many-sided productivity of fully transparent and cooperative social harmony. The ancient Confucian always called his mum.
Really great article, sometimes I wonder how you manage to find so many relevant but relatively niche quotes and sources. You're a diamond miner, Erik.
I would add that a lot of the appeal comes from escapism, if not escapism of time then escapism of thought. For me, my worst bouts came when I was gearing up to go to college and when my first semester in college. It was useful for me to take up the time and mental capital thinking about the game rather than all the new responsibilities and new relationships I would have to make. I imagine and have seen this translate into other challenges in life.
Honestly, this thought wasn't provoked until reading this article, so thanks for that.
Erik, I have one to add to your list. In my experience, becoming a game developer is a lovely way to beat the addiction. Like any illusion, seeing how games are really made tends to spoil the magic. For myself, I play games more like a researcher nowadays and only occasionally find myself spending more time than I intended.
Thanks for sharing your story, as usual you’ve done a lovely job exposing nuance. The current mix of practices, incentives, and discourse about this issue isn’t getting us anywhere. Most sides of the debate need a little help. I would love to read or even someday contribute to a Substack that illuminates such issues as:
- Game developers who could use a little more sobriety about the negative impacts of the overuse that we are specifically trying to engineer.
- Domestic and global market forces that push game developers to design highly engaging and long-lasting experiences.
- Addiction being a scary word that drives a lot of media engagement. There are many properties of gaming overuse that don’t fit the clinical definition of addiction, which is very important in regards to how you treat the issue in a patient.
- Gaming culture needing to grow up a bit in terms of its relationship to overuse. Looking at user reviews, it’s clear that some people are seeking addictive experiences.
- Widespread cultural perspectives needing to become a little more informed and less judgmental of people who player games.
- Gamers who need to accept some responsibility for how we choose to spend our time. This is also related to the clinical addiction debate, since there is no factual evidence of physiological mechanism in someone “addicted” to games.
- Friends and family of gamers, especially parents, who need to accept responsibility to intervene when they see a problem. If allowed, my young child will eat cupcakes until violently ill. It’s my responsibility to prevent that from happening, not the bakery.
As a very occasional modder, I have seen some game development live, and I can say at least for the teams I've known: no one is trying to *engineer overuse* in computer RPGs. This might be different in mobile gaming, but, naive as this may sound, most computer game designers are actually motivated by creative self-expression and a desire to build something beautiful, interesting or at least entertaining. The extra hidden cave gets added not in order to force players to spend hours deciphering every book or combing every waterfall; it gets added because its developer fondly remembers solving such a puzzle in his own gaming experience. Even "replay value" (which may or may not be correlated to addictivity) is something that is much more valued by the C suite than by actual developers.
The scary thing is that it is often the quality of the art and the extra mile that developers go to make their worlds seem alive that causes players to get overimmersed and addicted. The typical addictive game is not Flappy Bird.
I don’t want to diminish your experience as a modder, so I’ll just clarify that I’ve been making PC RPGs for the better part of the last decade. My comment may sound cynical but I’m only trying to be realistic. I agree that many developers are intrinsically motivated. I have put many nostalgic, personal details into my own work over the years. I also agree that designing specifically for revenue, engagement, or some other business goal is usually a mistake to be avoided.
But let’s set aside business for a moment. Gamers have a lot options. In fact, as entertainment products, games are competing for time that someone could spend in an infinite number of ways. In competition for attention, we quickly arrive at addictive designs. Unique, immersive, immediately satisfying while endlessly interesting. How can you compete with addictive games without being a little addictive?
If you're saying that the market selects for addictive games even when developers don't intend to make ones, I get your point. Even so, I think the relevant market forces exist only in subscription-model games (e.g., MMORPGs), whereas everywhere else the incentives point in the opposite direction (the famous phenomenon of games designed for day-0 reviewers, thus breathtaking in their first 5 play-hours and progressively disappointing afterwards).
I think addictiveness in RPGs is an emergent property, much as I'd love to have someone to blame. The same forces are in play (if to a lesser extent) in fantasy literature. Did Tolkien deliberately make Middle Earth immersive to compete with real life in the minds of his readers?
This is an interesting dialogue; thanks to both of you for your comments.
I think at the end of the day though, addictive game design trumps beauty and artistic devotion (whatever way that appears). We quickly become normalized to art and beauty, but we can get addicted to the systems that properly gratify our brain pathways - gambling, substance abuse, sex, food, etc.
I also think there's not a fine line between making a game that is really compelling and fun to come back to often, and making a game that is addicting. I think it depends more on the gamer than the developer.
Agree with everything you said here. I’m also a pretty huge game snob, and loved the heck out of Pentiment. The same thing is true with every entertainment medium; since 90% of it is absolute garbage, you need to be better at picking out what’s good. That way, you’ll drastically decrease what’s really available time fill your time with. And as I was reading I couldn’t help but notice myself that all the examples were pointing to infinite games, and that’s been my observation as well. All my friends who game a TON and don’t find much meaning in their lives spend time playing League, DOTA, Fortnite and the like. Single player, narrative-driven games are not popular among this crowd. Which is why, though I also game, I find it hard to come to common ground with them. A really interesting topic and proposed solution, imo.
On the point about reality vs. simulation, I think “reality” is what doesn’t require error correction. In “reality”, there can’t be a single subatomic particle in the entire universe that fails to follow the laws of physics for even the briefest moment in time, because there’s nothing “running” reality that can make a mistake. In even the best simulation, a “bit” can in principle be out of place with respect to the ostensible “rules” of the simulation because there is an intermediary system that could in principle fail to render flawlessly.
I think this is Eric’s point from a slightly different angle, and it’s a good distinction. I’m just having trouble connecting error correction (or lack thereof) to the meaning of life, which is why I ultimately come out on the Chalmers side.
As a lifelong gaming aficionado (I won't quite say or admit to addict), your solutions ring all too true. Namely, "get older" and "play finite games". As an aging 'gamer' in a now parental role, I find that I can no longer play any game that does not meet the very strict criteria of: 1) I can pause the game with a 10-second warning, 2) Once paused, I can leave the game for a possible duration of 2-4 hours without effect, and finally 3) I can abandon the game for weeks/months at a time without significant loss of narrative/immersion/enjoyment. As you can imagine, this significantly limits my current enjoyment of games to the land of rouge-likes, puzzle games, and story-light single player games. No longer can I enjoy the modern masterpieces that are deep, 100+ hour RPGs nor the infinite depth multiplayer games such as DOTA 2 or League (or so many others including Overwatch, Rocket League, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and so on).
I find that in this new role, I lose a depth I once appreciated. I was, and still am, a huge fan of Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall and Titanfall 2. I soaked many hours losing myself in the fluidity and complexity of movement, hair-trigger responses, and map awareness that were required of the multiplayer first-person shooter games. While the spirit (and lore) of these games lives on in Apex Legends, which takes place within the same fictional universe, I find that the genre has sadly left me behind. No longer is it a place where I can actively participate and hope to truly be involved. I find this an unfortunate loss.
Paraphrasing a critic commenting on the new HBO series "The Last of Us", they commented that the video game comprising the source material is already cinematic and the TV series is akin to a live-action Disney adaptation. In other words, a retelling of a known story in a familiar medium. I vehemently disagree. Not because the adaptation is not bound to its source, but because video games and television are fundamentally different media. Video games require an involvement and an investment that television simply cannot mimic. No matter how involved or engrossed in a television series or movie you are, your input or interest will never change the outcome, timing, or results (let's not mention American Idol). I personally believe that the fan fiction or "head-canon" explanations of any TV series could never hold a candle to the data-mining and statistical analysis that takes place for games such as League of Legends. Anyone not convinced only needs to look at some random person's 30-page explanation of "Nasus's optimal build".
Gaming addiction looks different for everyone I'm sure, and is certainly tied to a modern sense that social fulfillment can come from such games, whether they involve other humans or not. As indie games become more popular, varied, and cheap, I can only be reminded of a common phrase uttered by fans of the popular single-player automation game Factorio: "The factory must grow".
A phenomenon intuitive to the average gamer but not to the outsider is that video games allow us to experiment with means and ends without facing the consequences of doing so in real life. Even though there might be similar emotional responses.
The actions you take in video games are not real, neither are the incentives, means, or ends. Yet, we might be able to argue that the existence of a drive to do those actions is real, although bound by the game's rules.
In multiple-path games, you will, at some point, have the option to betray, kill, or hurt someone the character loves. If you are curious to do so, you should ask what you would do in real life.
This was really excellent, and I share your perspective on how empty virtual worlds are. Like you, I experienced many virtual worlds but never felt addicted, and largely evolved into a snob in my 30s. The only addition that I have is that if the sim is deep enough with a market economy and social interaction and you have mastered that well enough, why not graduate from the sim and do that in base reality too? If you have the discipline to grind for what you want, how is that different from lifting weights, studying, or preparing healthy meals?
I really liked your point about infinite vs. finite games. My experience with infinite-type multiplayer games was that the most addictive feeling was right at the end, when you're deciding whether to play again. The boring or tedious parts seemed insignificant until starting a new match and committing your next 45 minutes to a repeat of the cycle.
Video games have a few hidden advantages. In hindsight, kids who played a lot of MMOs tend to have more miscellaneous historical and combat vocabulary :P. And as video games have gained more respect as an artistic medium, we can see a larger proportion of high quality creative output coming from video games. It seems like the best way to enjoy them is for video games to just be a small addition to a lifestyle you're already satisfied with.
I don’t game. My sons game routinely after school. I like the application of the Supersensorium concept as the attractant. But, as we say in social science: what are the conditions of possibility for addictive gaming? Or any addiction? The addict has to get access to the substance. This is a social process. When we look at the conditions that permit this behavior, the most critical ones to me are: social alienation and lack of communal supervision of that individual. And the incredible belief in privacy that forbids us from questioning monomaniacal sensory stimming behavior until it has become pathological. Stimming is normal only for autistic people, not 99% of humans. I’m the former.