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Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over ‘Video Game Addiction’, Because That’s Easier Than Parenting::Video game addiction. Sigh. Big sigh, even. Like, the biggest of sighs. We’ve talked about claims that video game addiction is a documentable affliction in the past, as well as the pushback that claim has received from addiction experts, who have pointed out that much of this is being done to allow doctors to get…
One of my first tasks in my game development career was to change the data type used for the main currency in [Famously Addictive Farm Simulator Game], because a user had exceeded the maximum value.
I eventually found out approximately how much IRL money this person had spent on this game…
6 figures. And not barely 6 figures.
People don’t spend that much because they’re just having fun.
There is absolutely something different about these kinds of games. It’s abusive and dangerous, and we should consider it a health hazard.
I’m glad this comment section seems to agree that some fault lies on the game companies, too. I get it that parents gotta also parent, but when games are hiring behavior/psychology experts to design their games to become addictive and suck in people’s money as effectively as possible… adults struggle enough with resisting gaming addiction, let alone kids.
I know a guy that spent all of his free time, and on average $2,000 a month, on Genshin Impact.
I have two kids. The idea that these games are not addictive is laughable. Something only someone without kids that have found roblox (or similar games) could possibly convince themselves is true. Even just looking at all FTP games I play, I can see how they are taking advantage of that need for the fix to pull money from you at the most opportune time. Lucky for me, I don’t really have an addictive personality so I’m easily able to set aside those things.
But my kids have not developed the same level of self control or self-realization yet. They just continually want that dopamine hit. We definitely limit screentime and what they play (roblox is out now). In the times we have done “device free weeks” you can absolutely see the change in behavior from the withdrawal period right after you take away the game, to at the end of the week when they barely even complain at all that they can’t play.
I remember when my older kid went away to sleep away camp for 2 weeks, and when he came back how his younger brother talking about the games seemed so foreign to him. He like had completely detoxed and didn’t care at all.
There is definitely an element of parental responsibility here too. But you what the author doesn’t seem to realize is that it’s not so easy. All of the kids are playing games these days, and it is a common past-time. While you could just say “no games” and call it a day, I don’t know of a single family that does this. Even the ones who are very strict allow their kids to play some switch games. Even the ones that think their kid has some kind of gaming addiction (and have taken away all online games) let’s their kids play certain console games as well because they don’t see it creating the same behavior. And if you open the door a bit, it’s a constant battle trying to figure out where that line in, and you’re competing against big money using experts to figure out how to win that game. It’s an extremely hard game for a parent to win.
It would be much easier if it were illegal to use these intentionally addictive mechanisms in games targeted at non-adults.
I think the most important thing to teach young people in today’s gaming market is that microtransactions are NEVER worth it. Yeah, maybe you want 500 gems to buy another builder or whatever, but then you’ll be out $10 or however much it is and nothing fundamentally changes about your experience to make it $10 more fun. Games can actually become less fun when you start spending depending on the game, because then you’re just paying to either win or make progress, which ruins the whole point of a game.
You should only ever pay money for actual content. Paying for the base game and certain types of DLC can be worthwhile. If the game has a currency you have to buy, you’re probably getting scammed.
I’m really just driving home your point here.
I played a lot of clash royale, which I loved, and people always whined about it being ptw. This is because you reach a certain point that is hard to pass with your current card levels, where your win loss ratio goes to 1-1. But what would happen is you would pay some money to upgrade your cards, and then you rise in the ranks a bit, and then right back to being at the point where you are at a 1-1 w/l ratio.
It was really just “pay to do the same thing at a higher rank.”
Yup. I don’t play Royale (and no longer Clans), but Clash of Clans was the game I had in mind for my example and it does pretty much the same thing. I got a pretty high town hall and IIRC never paid a dime, just years of grinding. It’s a game with a lot of fun mechanics, but the monetization has become unbearably annoying, intrusive, and manipulative. The last straw for me was when they fucked up the UI for no apparent reason.