Games, like social media sites, are literally designed to be addictive. That’s their primary evolutionary pressure, to be addictive. When you’re playing one game, you’re not playing its competitors. It’s a strictly limited pie (24h) that game makers compete for a larger piece of.
In games, everything is much (much!) easier than in reality. How much effort do you have to spend to get decent at something like Mortal Combat? Compared to being a decent RL UFC competitor? Have you completed a rally race IRL? Do you know, and have overcome the fear of a real life or death situation? Games condition for easy rewards.
Socialization in games does exist, but is way off normal. You may be interacting with a 40 year old dude thinking he’s a 12 year old and vice versa. That it is possible shows how unreal the social part of gaming is.
#1 here proves too much: while you’re reading my blog, you’re not reading others; while you’re watching a movie, you’re not watching other movies; while you’re attending the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you’re not visiting the science museum. But I wouldn’t call these activities addictive in the way social media aims to be.
point taken, but I think those activities are not exactly the same. You need to create a whole new movie for me to keep watching—you cannot create it once and have me watch it for two years straight. It’s a one time thing. Ditto the rest of your examples. They’re naturally limited in time.
By the way that’s exactly why shows in place of movies. Much lower expense on each episode plus addiction equals airtime and income. Movies are not made to be addictive, but shows are.
Whereas social media and games don’t have this problem. Contemporary games are endless, create once and run forever—until a better one comes along.
I think that’s a useful distinction. A lot of games do have natural endings, though some (especially online multiplayer games) don’t. I’ve definitely put much more time than I wanted into Overwatch and Rocket League; but I haven’t had that can’t-stay-away problem with most single-player offline games. Especially ones with definite narrative arcs, like, say, Final Fantasy 7 (both versions). Those are technically replayable, but like you say about movies, I don’t reach the end and think “just one more time through!”
Socialization in games does exist, but is way off normal. You may be interacting with a 40 year old dude thinking he’s a 12 year old and vice versa. That it is possible shows how unreal the social part of gaming is.
I made online gaming friends 15 years ago and I’m still good friends with some of them today.
Not that this makes you wrong, and the social part of gaming is different today, but it’s at least possible to have good social interactions via online gaming.
I think maybe it was easier to make long-lasting friends in the past? In the past an online multiplayer game would have servers hosted by users rather than the company who made the game. A community could spring up around a single server with forums and IRC channels and you’d play with the same people every day.
Games, like social media sites, are literally designed to be addictive. That’s their primary evolutionary pressure, to be addictive. When you’re playing one game, you’re not playing its competitors. It’s a strictly limited pie (24h) that game makers compete for a larger piece of.
In games, everything is much (much!) easier than in reality. How much effort do you have to spend to get decent at something like Mortal Combat? Compared to being a decent RL UFC competitor? Have you completed a rally race IRL? Do you know, and have overcome the fear of a real life or death situation? Games condition for easy rewards.
Socialization in games does exist, but is way off normal. You may be interacting with a 40 year old dude thinking he’s a 12 year old and vice versa. That it is possible shows how unreal the social part of gaming is.
#1 here proves too much: while you’re reading my blog, you’re not reading others; while you’re watching a movie, you’re not watching other movies; while you’re attending the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you’re not visiting the science museum. But I wouldn’t call these activities addictive in the way social media aims to be.
point taken, but I think those activities are not exactly the same. You need to create a whole new movie for me to keep watching—you cannot create it once and have me watch it for two years straight. It’s a one time thing. Ditto the rest of your examples. They’re naturally limited in time.
By the way that’s exactly why shows in place of movies. Much lower expense on each episode plus addiction equals airtime and income. Movies are not made to be addictive, but shows are.
Whereas social media and games don’t have this problem. Contemporary games are endless, create once and run forever—until a better one comes along.
I think that’s a useful distinction. A lot of games do have natural endings, though some (especially online multiplayer games) don’t. I’ve definitely put much more time than I wanted into Overwatch and Rocket League; but I haven’t had that can’t-stay-away problem with most single-player offline games. Especially ones with definite narrative arcs, like, say, Final Fantasy 7 (both versions). Those are technically replayable, but like you say about movies, I don’t reach the end and think “just one more time through!”
I made online gaming friends 15 years ago and I’m still good friends with some of them today.
Not that this makes you wrong, and the social part of gaming is different today, but it’s at least possible to have good social interactions via online gaming.
I think maybe it was easier to make long-lasting friends in the past? In the past an online multiplayer game would have servers hosted by users rather than the company who made the game. A community could spring up around a single server with forums and IRC channels and you’d play with the same people every day.