Some parents remember the time when they bought their games on floppy disk, then on CD and DVD, and played against software programmed to stand up to them. But the development of the Internet has completely upended that situation. Most of the games our children play today are available free of charge online, and their designers have built in four levers to make sure they never peel themselves away! What are these methods? How can we protect our children from them?
Loss aversion
This is the first of the methods used. Imagine you start playing a pirate game. The software gives you a ship. You quickly discover that you are a vulnerable target for better-armed ships played by other players. You decide to equip yourself: each cannon costs very little, as does each piece of armour, but from the very first penny you are entering a trap called the “sunk cost fallacy”. As long as you have not spent money on a game, you feel free to leave it. But that is much less the case if you have started investing even just €10 or €20 in it. The more money you put in, the more you are tempted to put in again, in the hope of obtaining a gain in pleasure that will, in your eyes, amply justify what you spent to obtain it.
Playing on frustration
This strategy complements the previous one. These games are designed so that you never lose for good, but you never win completely either. But everything is designed so that you never obtain that satisfaction! This is what designers call “playing on frustration”, and the method proves effective.
The fear of missing out on something important
This is what the English call Fear of missing out, abbreviated to Fomo, that is, the anxiety of missing something. This fear leads many online players to stay connected longer than is reasonable. But what exactly do they fear? First, losing the fruit of their efforts. This is the first method that industry developed in persistent online worlds. If you fear that your character or your base will be attacked, or even destroyed, while you are away, you will obviously tend to stay in the game as long as possible to guard against that eventuality. The second method used does not concern the fear of losing what one has already won, but that of not obtaining what one covets. This is the “random chests” strategy. In the same way that gamblers stay at the same machine in the hope of recovering all the tokens it contains, players of certain video games are now invited to be constantly connected to their game so as to benefit from gifts that can arrive at any moment. Depending on the case, these may be exceptional weapons, magic powers or precious stones with which the lucky winner can buy whatever they desire in order to increase their power in the game.
Creating habit
Play the same video game too much and you risk growing tired of it. To remedy this, game designers introduce what are called “daily quests”. Unlike permanent quests, which the player can complete at any time, these quests can only be undertaken and won on the day they are open. They build loyalty among players looking for novelty, and feed in others the belief that some of them might bring far more than the regular quests. Hence the mental pressure felt to play every day.
Should they be banned?
Do these various methods used by video game designers to make players addicted result from psychological studies? Not at all; they are empirical methods that designers have discovered as games have developed. Do they all do it? Yes, and for a very simple reason. Companies that are able to keep their customers longer make a better profit. And since video game creation follows a capitalist logic, it is normal that all companies wanting to become competitive use these methods. In other words, for each of them, “it has to be done because others are doing it”.
At the same time, let us understand clearly that the methods used by video game makers are ones that are omnipresent, in one form or another, throughout advertising as a whole. Unless we want to ban these methods in every field where they are used, whether in the sale of cars, cosmetics or food, there is no reason to imagine, still less to want, these methods to be banned in the field of video games. Of course, buying products in a shop is necessarily a one-off action that takes place outside the home, whereas it is possible to stay in front of a computer all day. But let us not forget that there are also online shopping and auction sites available at any hour of the day or night, which use the same strategies.
How can we protect our children?
The best remedy appears, once again, to be education… of the parents! For most of them have an extremely simplistic view of video games. Either they consider it a mind-numbing and desocialising activity, and then they ban all games. Or they think that the aesthetics of certain games are rich, and that playing with others develops a collaborative spirit, and they allow their children to indulge in them without realising the risk involved, and therefore without warning them of the dangers.
It is therefore essential for the public authorities to launch an information campaign on the methods used by manufacturers so that all players are aware of the logic that organises them. Of course, not everyone falls victim to them. Addictiveness, that is, the risk of becoming dependent on an addictive product, is linked to a great many factors, including notably each person’s genetic and biological make-up, their personal history, especially traumatic, and their social environment. But we will protect our children much better from the risks specific to video games by teaching them to identify those risks, and to talk about them.
Serge Tisseron is a psychiatrist, doctor of psychology with accreditation to supervise research, member of the Académie des technologies, and associate researcher at Université Paris VII Denis Diderot (CRPMS).
