Video Game Addiction
Why you’re addicted to video games
Yes, one can ask oneself, especially the older generation, being improperly curious about the affairs of others, wondering how people manage to sit up late night, several hours, and even days, playing video games. There are experts out there who claim video game addiction is a thing, and god damn they are right. There must be some kind of explanation, an explanation to why people just sit there compulsively playing video games all day. Even when you’re admittedly not enjoying it! It all comes down to the big question: Are some of the video games on the market specifically designed to keep you playing?
Yes. And their modus operandi is imperiously scary.
Think of a cage, a trapped animal is locked. There is a lever inside which can be pressed to acquire food pellets. A researcher working for Microsoft found out that it is possible to control behavior with test subjects, in this case, rats. By giving the rat some kind of motivation for stimulation, and being rewarded for it thereafter. This is a theory which has actually been proved, and can be used as an illustration for people playing video games.
The history of video games has changed from what it was back in the late 80-90’s. A single video game would around those times, would be estimated to cost around 300 kroners. So how did the developers make their paychecks of selling single units of games? They did not care for how long we played, as long as we bought the game. Instead the concept was to make the customers convinced to buy the next game. The industry have progressed a long way since back then. Today it is all about subscription based games, which means that with each month/year that goes, you pay a certain amount of money, to be allowed to play it.
So why is it that people spend hundreds, even thousands of kroners just to be allowed into a fictional world? Surely, they cannot create enough material to make you play this game for several hours. So what they
Yes, one can ask oneself, especially the older generation, being improperly curious about the affairs of others, wondering how people manage to sit up late night, several hours, and even days, playing video games. There are experts out there who claim video game addiction is a thing, and god damn they are right. There must be some kind of explanation, an explanation to why people just sit there compulsively playing video games all day. Even when you’re admittedly not enjoying it! It all comes down to the big question: Are some of the video games on the market specifically designed to keep you playing?
Yes. And their modus operandi is imperiously scary.
Think of a cage, a trapped animal is locked. There is a lever inside which can be pressed to acquire food pellets. A researcher working for Microsoft found out that it is possible to control behavior with test subjects, in this case, rats. By giving the rat some kind of motivation for stimulation, and being rewarded for it thereafter. This is a theory which has actually been proved, and can be used as an illustration for people playing video games.
The history of video games has changed from what it was back in the late 80-90’s. A single video game would around those times, would be estimated to cost around 300 kroners. So how did the developers make their paychecks of selling single units of games? They did not care for how long we played, as long as we bought the game. Instead the concept was to make the customers convinced to buy the next game. The industry have progressed a long way since back then. Today it is all about subscription based games, which means that with each month/year that goes, you pay a certain amount of money, to be allowed to play it.
So why is it that people spend hundreds, even thousands of kroners just to be allowed into a fictional world? Surely, they cannot create enough material to make you play this game for several hours. So what they