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Addiction, often spoken of in derogatory terms. The state of needing something, wanting it above all else. It's also something talked about often in game courses, because, at the root, many game designers want to addict you to playing their game. They want it to be a contest of willpower to turn it off and turn to something else. Strange, perhaps, but it is a very real consideration: How do they capture your attention and use it to convince YOU, the player, to play? Then, once you've started playing, to buy the next hit. After all, eventually the game ends, it runs out. The pleasure garnered from the game is a little less with every replay. You want more, something new. You want the next game and the one after it. To love it, to need it, to be addicted to it. To shout out, "More Final Fantasy VII! I must have it!"
There's an odd thing though, game designers also have to strive to keep the players unaddicted to their games. A player who does nothing but play the game all day long doesn't make enough money to buy new games. They leave the market, not being able to afford the latest hits that the designer has produced. There have already been cases of games that have been so successfully addicting that people have destroyed their lives playing them. I'm certain that there is some genius out there who has studied the human psychology to such a degree that he could make a game that literally was a consistent willpower challenge not to just keep playing. Blizzard addressed this in their MMORPG a while back; they didn't want people playing their game to death. A good game often plays along the edge of a real addiction, making the player want more, to keep coming back, but not so much that it destroys their lives. It is a tamed snake, dancing hypnotically to the tune of a developer behind it, drawing your eyes with its graceful and swift motions, leaving you unaware of its potentially dangerous fangs as you drop a coins into the snake charmer's hand.
After all... a gamer who has no money, buys no games.
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