Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Is "addicting" a good trait for a game? Or why "addicting" doesn't equal "good".

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
I have been thinking recently about this. It seems like games have more and more began to strive for "addiction" rather than being good. There are a lot of reasons to spend hours upon hours into a game. One of these reasons is if the game is good-the gameplay is fun, the story is great, i.e. the game is so good you want to continue playing it.

The other way to spend a lot of time in a game is to be "addicted'-you spend a lot of time not because you are having fun, but because you cannot stop. It's not that you want to continue playing because the game is good-you simply cannot stop playing.

When I say "addicting", I primarily mean the game is designed around tricking your brain into continue playing through some deliberate designs. It is primarily about repetitive content (either grinding or doing samey missions) focused around a false sense of achievement (i.e. better loot, less quest markers, getting one more "quest complete" message). Generally, it is content that can be taken into small portions-each "run" or each side mission takes 3-5 minutes, so starting a new one doesn't seem like an investment. Which is why you have less incentive to stop.

Examples in regard to this gameplay approach (this gameplay loop) are abundant in each genre. For example:

Diablo 2-each cow run/Bael run takes several minutes, so it's easy to start the next one. You gain levels and items, which gives you a sense of progression. The content is repetitive, so you just do "one more". You can spend exorbitant time doing this.

Oblivion/Skyrim-the design is deliberately focused on map markers and clearing your quest log. There is always another samey quest you do in the same dungeon. The main design approach is "discover new unknown locations", i.e. the brain's urge to see new stuff. Spoiler alert-the "new" locations are the same, but your brain just has to make sure.

Counter-Strike-matches are short, there is little investment in starting a new one, the content is extremely familiar let dynamic, you get a sense of achievement through winning the 2-minute match/scoring frags. Applies to practically all multiplayer games focused around very short (1-2 minute) rounds.

MOBAs-same loop as above, except matches are longer. Each game tries to increase speed/make matches shorter in order to make the game more addicting. DotA (Warcraft 3 map) matches used to last 40-50 minutes. Modern MOBA games last about half that.

Cyberpunk 2077-design focused around both "new locations" and "clearing your quest log one 2-minute gig at a time".

Far Cry 3/4/5-same as Cyberpunk.

World of Warcraft-pretty self explanatory. Short quests, short arenas, dungeons that are done to death.

I can go on and on.

The one thing that is the same in all of those games is that you can spend hours upon hours on them, forget to eat and drink, focus on doing "just one more" of the gameplay loop hook, and leave with no memory of the whole thing. You don't play because it's fun, you play because you cannot stop.

The other end of the spectrum are, you know, the good games. On the surface, you can spend many hours in them, but it's because you want to see what happens next, not because you cannot stop due to a basic psychology of addiction trick that is exploited for profit.

Compare the gameplay loop of VtmB to Cyberpunk. In Bloodlines, you have no repetitiveness. (except for the notorious barrens and endgame). The game is good, it's not addicting. Same with Codex's classic favorites. None of them are designed around a simple psychological loop and you leave each of them with a memory of what happened instead of a black hole in you day where time should have been.

And in the end of the day, the games that remain classics are the ones you remember playing, not the ones you sank most time into. But in short-term gaming profit, there is no difference if gamers play because they have fun or because they cannot stop. Hence we see this horrible design everywhere nowadays.

And in the end, I will leave with a disclaimer-I see nothing wrong with this design in online games. I do however have a problem with it plaguing single-player games, where it has no place.


EDIT: Also the deliberate game design around "addiction" rather than, you know, good game design, is the reason we have:
-Map markers
-Quests compass
-Filler content instead of good content.

Content has to be quick, easy and accessible. If you have any barrier to experiencing this content, the loop breaks. Great stuff-like having to look for landmarks instead of quest marks, following a real compass instead of a quest compass, paying attention etc-it all breaks the addicting loop of quest-immediately ready next quest, and also makes the investment into those shitty side missions too big for the noexistent payoff.


This is all deliberate design, not incompetence. Or, more accurately, it's incompetence only to the extent that creating addictive loops is a shortcut from creating good content.
 
Last edited:

Ghulgothas

Arcane
Joined
Feb 22, 2020
Messages
1,598
Location
So Below
The best kinds of games are the ones you feel an urge to come back to and keep playing. A game is compelling because of its merits; gameplay, atmosphere, enjoyment etc. All natural and healthy reasons to play games multiple times for hundreds of aggregate hours. Even the hiking exploration in Skyrim to a number of marginally different locales can be compelling in it's own way, and the same is true of more positively regarded games like STALKER.

A gaming addiction driven by meaningless task fulfillment and achievement hunting from you derive no intrinsic joy and merely extrinsic obligation is disgusting. I don't really classify the main content of shit the Far Cry's and Cyberpunks have in the same category as a competitive games' Win v Loss ratio or the autistic drive for numerical supremacy in Diablo-clones or MOBAs, the former's exploitation loop isn't as perpetual. Lame modern-day gaming practices aside, there's still a contained game in there. The coterie of Cheevo Hunters who gobble those games up like starved pigs on the other hand are in that same group.
 
Last edited:

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
I like the S.T.A.L.K.E.R to Skyrim/Far Cry comparison. Stalker is exploration done right-there is no deliberate addictive loop design with quest markers, "secrets" marked on the map etc.
 
Unwanted

jcd

Punished JCD
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
10,681
Location
UNATCO HQ
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Bubbles In Memoria
-Map markers
-Quests compass
The reality is that most game developers suck at communication, and are unable to clearly inform the player what to do to progress in the game. You either have quest markers or games that are frustrating, boring, and hard to progress in. Take your favorite game that doesn't have quest markers, and try to approach it blindly like a new player would. You will likely find that there are many arbitrary decisions that will be baffling without prior knowledge about the game/series/development studio. It's very rare that a game understands how new players approach it, and how to communicate its core concepts.

The easily accessible online wikis have ruined games because now everybody expects that you'll be playing with spoilers and walkthroughs on your phone or laptop.
 

Alpan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2018
Messages
1,340
Grab the Codex by the pussy Pathfinder: Wrath
While I broadly agree, the post seems to jumble a lot of stuff together. You're talking about three things and calling it all addiction-based design:

(1) Actual skinner box mechanics (Diablo, WoW, etc.)
(2) Padding to make the game larger in a boring way (Skyrim, Ubisoft games, CP2077 etc.)
(3) Ability to generate new player narratives (Counter-Strike)

I agree with (1) being bad for game design and bad for the player. (2) I don't necessarily mind because it's not necessarily addiction that it plays upon, it's more like the tendency to clean stuff up, whatever you want to call it.

(3) I think is pretty much good for a game. It means that even in a session as short as 30 minutes, the player is experiencing something new and interesting, possibly learning new things, worth recounting to others. This is also why good multiplayer is a lifeline for many games, because the addition of other humans into the game necessarily inject this dynamism. This is also why people watch competitive sports and other game-play. For single-player the easy examples are roguelikes, roguelites, and deck builders. Good ones make an art form of generating incredible variety and challenge from a limited pool of elements.

Can all these games be addicting? Maybe yes. But the way they get there is different. I think it makes a difference. Here are two games I haven't played in a long time, Path of Exile and Slay the Spire. I can look at Path of Exile and groan that I'll never get anywhere with my character if I don't make it the only game I play, because it's designed that way, to exploit me. Meanwhile I am sure I can boot up Slay the Spire and have a great time in 1 hour tops, and leave it at that. You can enjoy both games differently but there is no doubt in my mind as to what the superior design is.
 
Last edited:

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
The reality is that most game developers suck at communication, and are unable to clearly inform the player what to do to progress in the game.

Quest markers are a tool. As such, they can be used for multiple purposes. Let's compare how Kingdom Come Deliverance uses quest markers to how Cyberpunk 2077 uses them.




gHnFUHefAYPwo2LMksvMpa-1024-80.jpg.webp

77cb78963e86421ff852db0be2522b6bb05802bb.jpeg
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
While I broadly agree, the post seems to jumble a lot of stuff together. You're talking about three things and calling it all addiction-based design:

(1) Actual skinner box mechanics (Diablo, WoW, etc.)
(2) Padding to make the game larger in a boring way (Skyrim, Ubisoft games, CP2077 etc.)
(3) Ability to generate new player narratives (Counter-Strike)

I am just thinking outloud. It is possible that this theoretical construct is not perfectly sound. However, let me try to elaborate on e few things:

1. I used the Counter-Strike example for how short bursts of content (short rounds) can be addicting. This is a design philosophy. You can take the ideas of Counter-Strike and apply it to your single player game, trying to make it more addictive by making content be taken on short bursts. Take Cyberpunk's gigs-most of them are exactly 2-3 minutes long and involve shooting an alley of enemies. You know that you only have to invest 3 minutes to do so-the investment is small, so you take hundreds of 3 minute content bursts.

So it's not that those games play like Counter-Strike. It's that Counter-Strike found the perfect loop for stuff like this.


2. Making single-player games "MMO-like" is easily explained by this exact thing-taking addicting elements from online games that have proven effective and applying them to a single-player game. Of course, in the single-player game you don't have player-emergent content. But you do have MMO-like questing, MMO-like crafting, MMO-like progression.


Also, have you noticed how modern game "critics" (i.e. youtuber cucks) have stopped talking about "gameplay" and began talking about "gameplay loop". Modern games really do feel like "loops" rather than a coherent experience. Does Bloodlines have a "gameplay loop" in the same way Fallout 4 has a gameplay loop? I don't think so-Bloodlines' content is not experienced in short and complete bursts that are similar to one another. There is no "loop".

Then take Cyberpunk 2077-every gig is the same. Experiencing 5 gigs is experiencing the same loop 5 times. The loop is: 1. Call from a fixer; 2. Shooting an alley of enemies; 3. Call from fixer to complete the quest. Compare that to Bloodlines-neither the beginning nor the end of a quest is the same. Not to mention there hardly being any quests that involve solely shooting 10 guys and nothing else.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,816
Location
Italy
a good game doesn't need to be "addicting". a bad game does otherwise you wouldn't go back to it.
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
Well, this is kind of how the modern gaming started. It's not a new thing for games to be addictive. Hook up people and get paid. Slot machines & arcade. Thaty's why devs make those. Instert the coin for more info.
True. But today it is more scientifically refined. We are being treated like the mice in those addiction experiments, pushing that lever until we faint. It's just one more reason for mainstream anticonsumerism and supporting the games that try to be good instead of using basic psychology to trick you. A good game is one you leave happy, not one you leave hating yourself.
 

Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
5,559
Location
Denmark
Addiction in any form is probably unhealthy and should be avoided.

Even addiction to "healthy" things arent good.

Big corpos want you to get addicted to their product, so you continue to spend fuck tonnes of money on it.

I.e. World of Warcraft.

Pretty simple.

A game that basically never ends, combined with basically gambling is incredibly harmful to some weaker people
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Addiction in any form is probably unhealthy and should be avoided.

Even addiction to "healthy" things arent good.

Big corpos want you to get addicted to their product, so you continue to spend fuck tonnes of money on it.

I.e. World of Warcraft.

Pretty simple.

A game that basically never ends, combined with basically gambling is incredibly harmful to some weaker people
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,432
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
I think if it's good then it will have some addictive quality, that just comes with the package of being good. "Wanting to see what's over the next horizon" is just as much an addiction as wanting to repeat a loop.

How good or bad it is depends on how adversely the addiction is affecting the major part of your life and your responsibilities, and how intense it is - I've been addicted to games for a few days with that intensity, but I think I'd feel I was in trouble if it lasted for longer than a week or so. Sooner or later it breaks though. Inevitably, you understand the system thoroughly, you've seen inside the sausage factory, and you can't again view the game with the same naivety.
 

Faarbaute

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
760
This reminds me of that time Josh Sawyer said he intentionally made Pillars of Eternity bland because he wanted people to have a healthy relationship with games or whatever. Play it once, then put it down.

Turns out, he forgot to make sure the game was fun in the first place.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Addicting is a good trait for game/movie/novels, because it hit straight at the nature of them: a tool for entertainment. As long as the audience find it "god, I cant stop", "dont stop", "more, give me more", it's good entertainment.

What you feel (or I feel) as "should be" doesnt really matter, because we are not the whole audience.
 

Marat

Arcane
Wumao
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
2,585
Addictiveness of gameplay relies on a simple manipulation of human psychology. Whereas a regular gameplay loop consists mostly of challenge, followed by some reward, addicting gameplay skews this proportion drastically by modifying the loop into very short intervals of low challenge (so you won't get discouraged) - low reward (so you'd want more). It appeals to a very primal, animalistic part of human instinct and compels player to keep going to amass ever more substantial "reward". Thus, gameplay does not rely on bringing enjoyment through satisfaction of overcoming a challenge or some such, but makes itself into a tedium interceding short stimulation that is designed not to satisfy you. In such a case, instead of actually enjoying the gameplay and satisfaction that flows from it, playing a game turns into waiting for short periods of "withdrawal" and awaiting fulfillment that the game never brings. So, to answer your question, no, "addicting" is not a good trait, but a circumvention of a requirement that gameplay be enjoyable.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
If the gameplay is fun and the progression to get somewhere seems realistic, I'll stick with it to get to a satisfying conclusion.

If the gameplay is fun but the progression will eventually become a thankless job, I'll drop it pretty quickly because enjoying a swim isn't the same if I'm just treading water most of the time.

If the gameplay sucks and the progression sucks, I'll wonder why I'm being forced to play Pillars of Eternity and how many bullets are in the revolver being held to my head.
 

Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
Joined
May 3, 2020
Messages
24,566
Location
Reichskommissariat Russland ᛋᛋ
I don't understand how you can play something that you don't like. I don't care much for gameplay loops or psychological tricks, if I don't like the game I drop it

Like, I would never play WoW regardless of how smart it is in manipulating human psychology
 

Wirdschowerdn

Ph.D. in World Saving
Patron
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
34,451
Location
Clogging the Multiverse with a Crowbar
For me, a good game is about sneaking into a bathroom, moving crates aside and incidentally discover a tiny hole in the ground. Then I dive jump into it, swim through its narrow channel, wondering where it will lead me to, and finally emerge in a pirate hideout full of treasure!
 

oldbonebrown

Arcane
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
841
Location
TELAH
It is dreadful when games are more addictive than rewarding. I kept playing Slay the Spire far past the point of it giving anything back to me.
 

ADL

Prophet
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Messages
3,677
Location
Nantucket
The games I typically play require some carrot on a stick to chase after. The FOMO garbage of live service games is what brings my piss to a boil. It's not even just cosmetics and gear anymore, look at what Destiny did wiping 30-40% of the game out of existence because they can't compress their game which includes a shitload of pre-rendered video and multiple language files by default.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom