(no subject)
/Addiction?
As WoW is such a phenomenal success, there has been many many pieces of work written about it. One of them was a short article about the often mentioned ability of WoW to tap into their player's OCD tendencies. This ability, described as compulsions, has made many people back into the game and propelled it to the top of the heap.
My thoughts were that WoW has extended beyond the realm of compulsion to addiction. They've managed to so finely tune the experience of the game that it has become an addiction to many.
(Thesis note: Would it be ethical if I had somehow discovered a way to make people addicted to work?)
In the end, it all comes down to engineering the ability for our brain to release happy chemicals to make us feel good. As we all know, the triggers for these happy chemicals arise anywhere from candle drips to bungee jumping to dinging another level.
So, what are these compulsions?
Learning
Gaining social status
To make progress
When one gets rewarded when one of these compulsions are triggered, we get a dose of happy juice in our brain. Similar to when we get a 10 and ace in blackjack, we need to have the capacity to recognise the impact and magnitude of the success ("I just won everyone's money!") while masking the context of the reward ("Everyone bet 10cents. Wtf"). It doesn't matter what the reward is, it should feel exclusive and for that one moment, the player feels dominant and important.
Repeat this often, consistently and in many forms (damn, chinese vocab taking over), and the system should see the user come back for more on his own. Hence, addiction.
As WoW is such a phenomenal success, there has been many many pieces of work written about it. One of them was a short article about the often mentioned ability of WoW to tap into their player's OCD tendencies. This ability, described as compulsions, has made many people back into the game and propelled it to the top of the heap.
My thoughts were that WoW has extended beyond the realm of compulsion to addiction. They've managed to so finely tune the experience of the game that it has become an addiction to many.
(Thesis note: Would it be ethical if I had somehow discovered a way to make people addicted to work?)
In the end, it all comes down to engineering the ability for our brain to release happy chemicals to make us feel good. As we all know, the triggers for these happy chemicals arise anywhere from candle drips to bungee jumping to dinging another level.
So, what are these compulsions?
Learning
Gaining social status
To make progress
When one gets rewarded when one of these compulsions are triggered, we get a dose of happy juice in our brain. Similar to when we get a 10 and ace in blackjack, we need to have the capacity to recognise the impact and magnitude of the success ("I just won everyone's money!") while masking the context of the reward ("Everyone bet 10cents. Wtf"). It doesn't matter what the reward is, it should feel exclusive and for that one moment, the player feels dominant and important.
Repeat this often, consistently and in many forms (damn, chinese vocab taking over), and the system should see the user come back for more on his own. Hence, addiction.