Comments - mutonz

Durnit, forgot to past the last bit when editing for length. I'll add it here, sorry.

[..]And that's the point the author tried to make at the end, though in a, to my opinion, too discrete way.
While Dopamine is still being studied, especially on long term over-dosage, the trend of mainstream games we've seen for the past...decade or so, is worrying.

And the biggest problem comes in this:
If mainstream games use and abuse of this, players will no longer be prepared for experiences that don't feed their addiction. Therefore, for game development (and especially indies), if you don't follow that trend, you risk being forced into a niche, no matter what the base concept is, because mainstream players will no longer "connect" with whatever you can offer, since you cannot feed them enough, and only players not on overdose will come to your product.

Great article again, on a touchy subject, but I'm sure in the years to come we'll see more analysis of the consequences of all this.

Hmm, while I agree that these things do exist in human behavior, is it really something that you want to promote?
I mean clearly it's being used (and abused) in the gaming industry at large, but where does it stop and is it beneficial overall (apart from just making money that is) or is it actually hurtful.

I had a long answer coming but comments are restricted in lenght.

At point 5, you bring Dopamine into the mix, which, in the end, is what your article is all about.
I have the feeling that everything you listed above has one only goal: flood the player's brain with Dopamine, at every corner. This totally works but unlike real life, where Dopamine production is regulated (by, err, reality?!), this just makes it keep flowing and flowing, which makes the player used to it, and therefore, to get the same "feel good on reward" process, needs more and more every time.
When you see what is linked to Dopamine in our brain, it's kind of scary and an abuse of it not only risk making the "little things" in real life meaningless, but also create disorder in other cognitive functions, especially memory formation (learning, etc), attention, concentration and more.
When you realize that entire generations of kids are playing these games quite a bit in our western societies, not to be catastrophic here, but we could have an entire generation coming to adulthood completely hooked , for years, on levels of Dopamine never seen before, and then, good luck facing the little troubles and pleasure of real life...

Once again, I agree with the article, it's obvious but it's true overall , heck it's just science, and has been applied by the gaming industry (and others, but not as much) at large for some time now. However my question is:
- Do we really want to be drug dealers to 8 years old, selling for a dose for 60$?