Month: December 2017

Bogus achievements and subtle changes to the way games are presented today maximize the dopamine hits the average gamer will receive so that they return to play habitually. This is taking advantage of human biology, and it’s unethical.

It’s just a part of human nature. When you accomplish something, your body releases the hormone dopamine to make you feel good about what you just did. Normally, this would be for things like a successful hunt, or watching a crop grow successfully, or scoring a goal in soccer, or managing to get more than a stammer out to the lady at Safeway whom you constantly forget is paid to smile at you. Increasingly, social media is actively trying to exploit the human dopamine reward system by pushing meaningless notifications – that’s right, just getting notifications is enough to give you your pleasure hormone for the day.

But that’s been written about enough. Let’s talk about the way video games have been trying so hard to brainwash you into returning to play.

First of all, achievement trophies are total bullshit. They’re immaterial titles that were once reserved for actual challenges and accomplishments, and now are awarded for as much as buying the video game. I’m not kidding, that’s an achievement. Executives and marketing teams and whatever bullshit hacks realized they could trigger our desire to keep playing without actually rewarding the player with anything. Once, completing levels and challenges unlocked cool content or bonuses for the players, and this is increasingly harder to find in video games. The best video games continue to reward the player with substance.

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