It would help the prosecution’s case if there first was scientific evidence of there being such a thing as gaming addiction, and not just boomers arguing it because they think kids these days should go outside more.
It’s not a gaming addition that’s the problem, it’s that many of these games basically follow the same playbook that casinos do. They’re gambling disguised as a video game.
Yes, but that’s not what this story is about, and they don’t cause gaming addiction, they cause gambling addiction. You can’t get addicted to gaming itself.
You can get addicted to literally anything, but that has more to do with your personality than the vice. I knew a guy who was addicted to advil. Didn’t have chronic pain or anything, but couldn’t stop taking it.
I mean, there kinda is. Gambling addiction is a fairly well known phenomenon and while the vast majority of games aren’t purely gambling, many of them do share mechanics with gambling games. One could argue that if a game shares too many mechanics normally seen in gambling and are associated with addiction, then gambling addiction could apply.
Another thing to note is that, if I understand correctly, the modern professional definitions of “addiction” aren’t exclusive to substance abuse but include anything that can cause someone to repetitively engage in a particular behavior despite any negative effects it may have. You could argue that if someone is engaging in gaming to the detriment of their own lives, then they’re addicted. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the developers fault though, people can get addicted to just about any system that triggers some kind of reward in the brain.
However, to add onto the previous statement, it is fairly well documented that some games (World of Warcraft is an infamous example) are specifically designed to keep players engaged for as long as possible without any regard for the player’s wellbeing. If a game has a lot of systems that are designed to keep the player hooked for as long as possible then it’s reasonable to argue that the game is designed to be addictive. The catch is that you’d likely have to prove that the developers were being intentionally malicious.
So, what exactly does Minecraft (one of the primary games mentioned in the lawsuit) do to cause this? Because that seems like a major outlier compared to the other listed games.
I was speaking in a general sense. You’re right that it seems like an outlier, but it’s also possible they were playing on custom servers which could implement addictive mechanics like lootboxes. However, at the same time, it’s not the fault of Minecraft’s devs if a custom server has lootboxes. Again though, I was speaking in a general sense because I was replying to someone saying that gaming addiction is unproven boomer shit; and not about this specific case.
That’s gambling addiction, which is researched and does exist.
Gaming addiction, on the other hand, is purely speculative and often pushed by people who do not understand or like games.
While, yes, a game can have login bonuses and season passes to raise player retention, that also doesn’t become addiction, just as having a membership card with bonuses at a grocery store isn’t going to land you with a grocery addiction.
It doesn’t become gaming addiction just because the game utilizes exploitative mechanics, it becomes gambling addiction, or whatever addiction the mechanic was made to exploit. Gaming addiction in itself is as stupid of a concept as soccer addiction or book addiction.
If nothing interesting happens in the game for 8 or 3 hours, why would you willingly play it? Also, why is Sonic only 2⅔ times faster than a bus, isn’t the point of Sonic that he can run at the speed of sound?
I heard he only hits the speed of sound when he's rollin' around.
But part of the legacy of Desert Bus is that it was a big charity series that kind of set the stage for GDQ later in gaming history. A sort of virtual road trip.
So a lot of people have nostalgia for it.
Desert Bus was released as a protest game. In the 90s video games were demonized for being nothing more than violence simulators. Penn & Teller took that as a challenge and had some developers make the most non-violent game they could think of.
I really wonder how the palworld devs feel about being gamepass day 1. I have no idea what the payouts look like for them. It probably got a lot more people to try their game, but would they have done better selling it only on steam? They probably weren’t in a position to negotiate a very favorable contract with Microsoft.
I think that’s looking at the deal in hindsight. Palworld had just as good a chance at flopping completely as hitting #1 worldwide, I imagine they were grateful for the opportunity to have some guaranteed income at the time.
I think they meant guaranteed income prior to selling the game, since they had no way of knowing how successful (if at all) the game was going to be once released.
Because craftopia and palworld have a social aspect getting a big seed of players who only played it because it was free (for them) was I think a catalyst in making palworld blow up like it did. There are too many games out there for people to look through so it probably helps get word out effectively to sell out cheap for a big initial audience like gamepass when you’re a small dev. I only knew of craftopia or palworld because of gamepass at least
The flip side is Microsoft is 100% giving the above as a sales pitch to devs why they should put their game on gamepass for peanuts (paid in exposure!). That’s probably some of what drives the shittier deal devs get now
pcgamer.com
Aktywne