A Slight Glimpse at Video Game Addiction from a Designer Standpoint

The title may be misleading: This video game addiction news story on Indystar.com focuses, as all video game addiction news stories do, on one gamer’s story which makes all gamers look like, well, freaks. In this case, Parke Dieckmeyer’s attachment to video games got so bad in his freshman year of college that he had to ask his RA to lock up his computer so he could get his studying done.

But what you should focus on is the very last section in the news story, the only part actually worth something. It starts off with a great comparison: the average American spends 32 hours per week watching television. But as the article reads, these same Americans may very well be appalled by the idea of playing games for four to five hours per day, probably because they find it a “useless” activity.

This last section of the article is great because it looks at the whole addiction debate from the “gamers” side, and it’s interesting to see how it is likely to be treated by designers. Durwin Talon, an associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis who teaches video game design, said in the article: “The philosophy . . . is that you should have a ‘back door’ for people who play your games to hit ‘Save’ and have their lives back. You never want them to get into a situation where they’re constantly playing these games and they don’t feel like they can leave.”

This is actually a really great piece of advice for game designers, and I’ve always felt that it’s one that the World of Warcraft division of Blizzard Entertainment always seemed to disregard. Sure, anyone can always drop what they’re doing in WoW and prepare to leave the game, but there’s always something to do before you can do that.

Also, the situation of the electrician’s assistant, Clint Parker, is interesting–it seemed like a conscious choice for him to cut down on the hours of video games he played, and he was comfortable playing to the extent that he did.

It would be wonderful if the article made the last section a focus for the entire piece, but alas, stories of obvious moderation and common sense do not make headlines.