has to have been posted

[bonestomper]

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html">http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5- ... icted.html</a><!-- m -->

[Slamz]

Interesting, but I think it's attributing a lot of well-thought-out malice to concepts that at least initially were nothing but very lazy game design and coding.

The current pay-to-play MMORPGs are based on old MUDs -- multi-user dungeons. They were free to play and apparently coded and run by bored college students. They wanted a lot of gameplay but they didn't want to spent a lot of time coding unique new content. Consequently the games were mostly what we would call a "grind".

It wasn't a money making scheme or a nefarious plan to get people addicted, it was just the easiest way to add lots of game time: by creating a lengthy leveling system with progression in stats rather than any sort of real content. Creating real content is hard and as a college student working on a game part time for fun, spending time on content is not what you want to do. Creating a sword with 2% higher stats and a monster with 2% higher stats to fight, using that sword -- that's easy. And you can keep doing it over and over.

It's not really addicting, but if you're a poor college student stuck in the dorms on a limited budget, it's better than TV or the library.


EQ was basically a 3-D transformation of the MUD. And every MMORPG since has basically been doing the same thing.


I actually don't think this plan is working that well. Whatever effect is has on hooking gamers early on, it wears out after a few years. None of us lasted long in Aion or Age of Conan because ultimately they were the same game we'd already gotten tired of. We'll still try new stuff for the novelty but once we get down to the core "grindey" game play we tend to get bored and quit.

I feel like the MMORPG industry is not healthy because it's stuck on these old, lazy, college dorm room game design models and the players eventually tire of it -- not just tired of a particular MMORPG, but of the whole industry, because so many of them are so similar.


So my conclusion is the opposite of the author's: he thinks that some years from now MMORPGs will just be that much better at these addicting elements. My opinion is that some years from now MMORPGs will either be dead or largely re-invented, because the current model only appeals to new gamers. Old gamers get burnt out on the concept and go fishing for other types of games.

[bonestomper]

i don't know enough to say on the transformations of MUDs to MMOs, but i would be inclined to think that the next games will all have conscious efforts to be addictive.

[Slamz]

My prediction is that the next games will all have conscious efforts to be addictive, and they'll all fail for that reason. Warhammer, Aion, Age of Conan, Champions, Star Trek Online, etc -- these games had all of the elements of an "addictive" game as described by the article and in the end they all lost the bulk of their playerbase within the first few months.

There simply is no "addiction" to filling up bars.

The next big, successful game will have to innovate. We aren't addicted. We are the opposite of addicted. We're bored!

[Breand]

The next big, successful game will have to innovate. We aren't addicted. We are the opposite of addicted. We're bored!

I tend to disagree. The Purge is bored, but gamers are addicted. I think we are a different batch of gamer, middle aged working professionals with a very low threshold for bullshit. We've been around playing these games for over a decade now and we can smell the bullshit a mile away. We also are simply limited by time, which college kids and young adults have much more of.

But think about all those college kids, young adults, and the socially inept and there's a hugely addictive mentality there waited to be mined for money. There is no doubt in my mind that MMO's are designed to keep a player addicted and continually paying a monthly fee. WoW took that to a ridiculous level. They even copied what worked from other games to keep players paying.

I was definitely addicted to EQ and WoW. I specifically remember you as a player Slamz and you were always on the outside of the addicts. You cared more about gameplay skill and PvP, and you never got into the High End game that required hours of instance clearing. I wasnt as much of a "cool shiny thing" reward player in EQ than I was in WoW, (tho i still remember the hours I spent trying to farm a fungal tunic) but in WoW I was in 2 different raiding guilds after the Purge and I was an addict. We raided 4 days a week and each night was at least 4 hours farming the same dungeons over and over again for shiny trinkets. I got to a point where I was pretty much maxed out on the best DPS gear for a warrior...and then the expansion pack came out rendering all that shit useless. That was probably the breaking point for me.

In any event, don't discount the gaming companies and what they will do to keep you paying a fee, and don't discount the market that is out there of people who are addicts and crave these games as some sort of personal worth. We're older and wiser, but most people aren't. there are still 11.5 million people playing WoW and the game is over 5 years old now.

[Slamz]

My disagreement is largely based on the notion that Purge mostly represents typical people, albeit typical people with 10 years of MMORPG gaming under our belts (which is not typical...yet).

I think we're simply a predictor for where the rest of the population is headed. We're tired of it now, they'll all be tired of it in 5 years.

Purge is the canary in the coal mine, IMO, and game companies are foolish to keep trying to copy the WOW model. As the current batch of new gamers become veterans like us, they'll want what we want, which is more substantial gameplay and less "grind".




Not to say concepts like progression and random loot drops will go away, just that they can't continue to hold the interest of gamers by themselves. If we're addicts, then we're addicts who have built up a resistance to the current type of gameplay and now require something stronger.

[Arsilon]

It could very well be that gaming will go the way of other mass-entertainment where there is a target age market and MMO's will cater to the 18-24 (or fill in appropriate age bracket). We've started to grow tired of the way the typical MMO is. The next batch will outgrow it too only to be replaced by the next generation.

We're all looking for MMO's to evolve with us when there's a whole new generation of people out there that aren't as jaded as we are. Perhaps we need a whole new game segment to be created for our generation now and leave the MMO's to the young'uns.

[Diggles]

MMO's do not cater to 18-24+. They are seeking people with disposable income that WONT be using the service 24/7.

Crice & Snowreap probably account for about 10-20 18-24 yr olds with how much they spend on games!


I'm just waiting for the gaming equivalent of a company like Dyson vacuums to come along and address problems that other companies simply ignore. Cheating & griefing are 2 big ones that companies just dont anticipate or do anything to proactively combat.

[Arsilon]

MMO's do not cater to 18-24+. They are seeking people with disposable income that WONT be using the service 24/7.

My point wasn't so much the age group specifically but rather the concept of targeting a narrower portion of the market. Right now the MMO market is a catch-all (with sub genres around Fantasy vs War vs ....) I'm suggesting that the market needs to be further segmented into those that haven't gotten sick of all that the current crop of MMO's are and another segment that some company has yet to come up with -- most companies continue to rehash the same EQ/WoW mold with a new wrapper.

I'm sure the initial WoW/EQ generation is there and ready for the next new concept -- clearly we seem to be. I would think that there's more out there like us.

[Dustie]

Purge is the canary in the coal mine

I think that describes us pretty well.

[bonestomper]

there are some problems with this tho.

we all know more people who are not gamers than are. then on the flip side, i agree Crice and Snow would count for a multitude of college age players.

the problem is going to come when game developers come to the conclusion they can't hook us, and just concentrate on making games for the younger, impressionable, less experienced players that keep being born and cycling the same repackaged content.

that would keep the super hero, vampire, fantasy, war genres alive; but not ever satisfy an adult gamers content. adult games will turn into porn until you get so old solitaire and tetris look appealing.

[Slamz]

Yeah, I definitely think that Aion, etc, are going after "new gamers". I just don't think they realize it. I don't think anyone sat at a desk and said, "We need to aim for the new, inexperienced gaming audience."


In fact, I think Aion is some proof of this. They apparently have been answering calls to reduce the grind, even though the Aion grind is already way less than it ever was in EQ. I feel like it's comparable to WOW (on release) in terms of level grinding. The complaints, I suspect, are coming from the ex-WOW crowd. They've already been through the grind and far from being "addicted" to it, they're tired of it and don't want to do it again.


And I think that targeting "new gamers" is a risk. New gamers are surely more likely to go into consoles than into MMORPGs (because consoles are cheaper). And the console gamers I know who don't do MMORPGs say that they're "too boring", so once they've gone into consoles you've lost them unless you can come up with a much better design.

[Vanraw]

I recall reading something like this, perhaps even the same info, back in the EQ days. Some EQ addict write his college thesis on it....

[Kakarat]

I recall reading something like this, perhaps even the same info, back in the EQ days. Some EQ addict write his college thesis on it....

hmm, sounds like me... We had to come up with a speech on any topic that was 5 minutes. Then answer questions about it. So I did it on EQ... That was 8 years ago when I was 20, but you hit me on the button~

[Diggles]

I recall reading something like this, perhaps even the same info, back in the EQ days. Some EQ addict write his college thesis on it....

hmm, sounds like me... We had to come up with a speech on any topic that was 5 minutes. Then answer questions about it. So I did it on EQ... That was 8 years ago when I was 20, but you hit me on the button~

I did a English comp paper on QWTF~. And I've used my WoW gaming to sell me in interviews. In larger pve guilds, being a guild officer is same as management experience~

[Jakensama]

Except for those real life repercussions of your decisions as someone in management, yeah, exactly alike.

[Airyth]

I brought my EQDKP raid attendance chart to my interview to show my dedication to long boring hours of doing the same ol' shit.......