I recently read a great article from Cracked.com about how video games are engineered to trigger certain pleasure/pain points in our brain to create a cycle of never-ending play.

It describes the work of B.F. Skinner, a behavioral scientist who provided a logical framework for how our brains work in terms of accomplishments and avoidance. Some tactics used in video games that rely on this behavior:

  1. Gathering - play on our brains natural instinct to gather/hoard, a skill originally evolved for gathering food, now abused to trick people into performing mindless activities for hours on end. Example: Gold gathering in World of Warcraft.
  2. Discovery - by making sure that rewards are randomly dished out instead of predictably, we never know what is going to happen. This play to chance capitalizes on our discovery mindset. Slot machines have been doing this for years. The video game example is random treasure chests, where you don’t know if you will get an empty chest or a prize.
  3. Competitiveness - by providing world wide leaderboards and online multiplayer play with access to millions of people to play against, the pull to be the best is very compelling.
  4. Avoidance - by penalizing you when you *don’t* play. For example: your castle will fall into a state of disrepair if you don’t visit. Example #2: Your Facebook farmville plants will wither if you don’t attend to them. Evil.

In a world where McDonalds can be sued for making kids fat, and casinos can be sued for problem gambling, and the tabacco industry can be held responsible for making cigarets more addictive, where does the responsibility lie for game manufacturers to curtail their behavior?

Is this really that bad? Well, people are starting to die. Note this tragic story of a couple who let their baby die from malnutrition because they were so pre-occupied by a video game — that ironically enough, was about raising virtual children. I’m not just fear mongering here, I think this problem will be getting worse before it gets better.

My gut says it is up to consumers to control themselves. I preach personal responsibility, but I must admit that I myself have struggled with video games consuming my life. So has Michael Fahey.

Video game designer Erin Hoffman said it perfectly:

Addiction is not about what you DO, but what you DON’T DO because of the replacement of the addictive behavior.

I’ve seen my kids struggle with it as well. Call of Duty has occupied with many hours of their lives, so much so that it has interfered with their education, and we’ve had to make a rule that they have to have B’s or higher to play video games.

I’m concerned about my kids’ future, and humanity as a whole. Video game manufacturers are only going to get more intelligent and more adept at creating addictive games, where will it end?