Dev.SN

Should Games Recognize Addictive Behavior?

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 25 2014, @10:11AM   
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)?"

• Re:Should soylentnew recognize addictive behavior? (Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday February 25 2014, @11:58AM

  by VLM (445) on Tuesday February 25 2014, @11:58AM (#6687)

  Does the economist website have a responsibility to recognize and develop a treatment plan for readers holding irrational or anti-social or inhumane economic beliefs? When they take care of that little problem I'll pay attention to these dudes in glass houses throwing rocks.

  The hidden narrative of most mass media FUD articles about the evils of any modern piece of technology is that being addicted to their legacy product is a great idea, but there must be something medically or psychologically wrong with a person who doesn't share the same addictions as themselves. The hope is someone who was about to power off or click X will be intimidated by peer pressure.

  Someone who plays Mario Kart instead of watching Oprah reruns is obviously in need of diagnosis and treatment; why else would anyone flee legacy media? We're all great over here, even if no one comes here no more because its too crowded, or so they say...

  Parent

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