The Economist: Video Game Makers Must Address Addiction Concerns

No company would appreciate being compared to Big Tobacco or gambling. Yet that is what is happening to video game makers. For years, parents have occasionally complained that their children are “addicts”To their PlayStation and smartphones. Today, however, more and more physicians use the term literally.

As of January 1, the ‘gaming disorder‘ The video game use disorder -in which video games are used compulsively, despite causing harm-, is recognized as a disease by the World Health Organization (WHO), when the latest edition of its diagnostic manual comes into force.

A few months ago, China, the world’s largest video game market, announced new rules that limit children to one hour of play per day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and none the rest of the week. Western politicians are publicly concerned about the similarity of some video games to gambling. Clinics are springing up around the world that promise to cure patients of their habit in the same way that they could cure them of an addiction to alcohol or cocaine.

Are games really addictive? Psychologists are divided. For defenders, this is just another moral panic. The spoilers of yesteryear issued just as dire warnings about television, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, comics, novels, and even crossword puzzles. Being the newest form of mass media, video games are simply enduring their moment in the eye of the storm before they finally cease to be controversial. Furthermore, advocates argue, the criteria used to diagnose gambling addiction are too lax. Obsessive video game use, they suggest, is as likely to be a symptom (of depression, for example) as it is a disorder in and of itself.

The accusers counter that, unlike rock bands or novelists, video game developers have both the motive and the means to design their products and make them irresistible. The reason arises from a change in the business model. In the old days, games were bought for a one-time upfront cost. These days, many use a model ‘freemium’, in which the game is free and the money is obtained by purchasing products within the game. That ties playing time directly to income.

The medium is a combination of psychological theory and data that helps game creators maximize that playtime. Psychologists already know quite a bit about the kinds of things that animals, including humans, find rewarding (thanks to a long line of experiments, dating back decades to those performed on rats and pigeons by BF Skinner).

Modern smartphones and consoles use their permanent Internet connections to funnel game data to developers. That allows products to be constantly adjusted and modified to drive spending. The industry is even beginning to use the jargon of the gambling business. Those who spend the most are known as “Whales”, A term that originated in casinos.

While psychologists discuss the finer points of what exactly is considered an addiction, and whether the design tricks of the video game They go overboard, the industry must recognize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing.

Now that video game addiction comes with an official WHO code, diagnoses will become more common. Clinics are already reporting booming business, while lockdowns have given the ‘gamers‘more time to spend on your hobby. The regulatory climate for technology is becoming less friendly. And being related in the public mind, fairly or not, to gambling and tobacco will not do the industry any favors.

Self-interest on many levels

It would be wise to get ahead of the discussion. A good place to start would be with hard data. Many of the studies that support the claim that video games are addictive in a medical sense are vague: they are based on self-reported symptoms, contested diagnostic criteria, biased samples, etc. Even the basic questions about the amount of time and money users spend are difficult to answer. The industry has a wealth of data that could help. But video game companies mostly keep the details of how gamers behave under wraps, citing commercial sensitivity.

In the long run, that will be foolish. Video game companies should make more information available to researchers. If, as seems likely, the concerns about addiction are exaggerated, it is difficult to think of a clearer way to demonstrate it. And if not, then companies better acknowledge the problem now and do something about it voluntarily.

The alternative is for regulators to force them to act. And as China has shown, once a government is in a moral panic, it can attack.