Gaming has involved psychological tricks since it was invented. No, not the first console. Not the first computer either. Casinos, card hustlers, and carnival games all use a variety of tricks to keep us playing, and more importantly, spending money.
Farmville is the first PC game to be so obvious about what’s its doing to players. Its no secret that Zygna employ a behavioral expert to make their games as addicting as possible. In last weeks article (how to buy stuff you don’t want) we looked at how you can be primed to buy things you usually wouldn’t think about, but when the game itself is designed around addiction, sales are all but guaranteed.
But while clever companies are raking in the cash from addicted players, are the games actually fun?
Addiction alone doesn’t make something fun. An addiction is just a habit that you can’t break – the obsessive compulsive who can’t stop washing his hands isn’t having fun, and arguably the compulsive gambler who can’t stop himself placing one more bet or trying the fruit machine one last time isn’t having fun either.
The psychology of addiction is something we’ll look at another time (such as next week), but until then, lets look at Farmville again. Do you know anyone who makes wall post after wall post about Farmville? Do they berate other people for not “helping”? Or pass the time between FV actions by reading about strategies, trying to refer others, or just sitting there waiting?
Are they really having fun?
I’d argue that they aren’t having fun. In the beginning, exploration and growth are both fun as well as addicting, but in the end, I don’t think most players realize why they play the game anymore. I’ve played a number of MMORPG’s, Final Fantasy XIV most recently, and I end up leaving them all after snapping out of a very hard to reach realization that I’m not having fun, but am hooked. Final Fantasy XIV started off amazing. It looks beautiful, I was having fun exploring, but then it became a chore. I spotted it’s flaws, I realized where it was hooking me and how, and I dropped it. All in all, I don’t think a lot of these games people play are all that fun, I think they start off fun, gain addictive grounds, and then are so addictive that the lack of fun is invisible from then on.