The,Psychology,Social,Gaming,N business, insurance The Psychology of Social Gaming

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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE They say don't measure life by the breaths you take, but by the moments thattake your breath away. Well, anyone who has ever been addicted to FarmVille orMafia Wars on Facebook would rather measure life by the number of hours beforethey can harvest their crops or get their precious daily energy pack. Social games can be so addictive that a blogger who goes by the monikerHarryJerry wrote: "Once you've started playing with them you no longercare about your girlfriend, college assignments or a kidney failure. Thesegames get into you like oxygen." Some behavioral experts would squirm at the use of the word"addiction" when describing such, ah, er, extreme attachment to thesegames. Obsessive players, however, insist that the condition is real. When yousneak a peek into Facebook while at work to grab virtual golds for St.Patrick's Day or set alarms and wake up at 2 a.m. to harvest your crops so theydon't wither, or when you eat your lunch right in front of your PC so you canattack other Mafia Wars players in between bites, what else do you call that?And the number of players is staggering. In fact, Farmville, currently themost popular game app on Facebook with 83 million active users, is even biggerthan Twitter which has slightly over 80 million members (RJ Metrics). Fortunately, not everyone is susceptible to the charms of online games.According to Jay Parker, a chemical dependency counselor and co-founder ofInternet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Washington, there are certaintypes of people who are likely to get addicted to social gaming, and these arethe isolated, the lonely, the bored, and those who have little interest in sex("I don't care if I wasn't invited to Megan's stupid debut or my boyfrienddoesn't speak to me anymore. See, I'm already level 1,500 in Mafia Wars and Iwin every fight I get into. Bleh.") Can you just imagine if everyone would get hooked on these games? Fewerbabies would be conceived (experts should start looking into the potential ofonline games as a deterrent to population explosion), bars would go bankrupt,Sasha Baron Cohen could be elected to the highest office in the land, theglobal economy could hit an all-time low and people wouldn't give a hoot aslong as they have Internet connection at home and can play 24/7. Playing online games can also solve the problem of racism. People all overthe world will no longer be divided based on the color of their skin but as towhether they are Mogul, Fearless or Maniac (character types in Mafia Wars,Maniac being the best as you can level up real fast). If you made the mistakeof choosing Mogul or Fearless types when starting out in the game, don't worry.You can just buy points to change your character type and be a proud Maniac. If you think the think tank behind such seemingly silly but highly addictiveFacebook games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars and their equally enslavingcousins Cafe World, Farm Town, FishVille and Yoville just stumbled upon theidea by accident, think again. They are cunning people who employ well-plannedpsychological tricks to make these game apps highly irresistible to the youngand old and keep them playing until the wee hours of the morning (Damn. It'salready 3 a.m. and you haven't had a bath since you woke up 20 hours agobecause you have been glued to your computer. It's okay. Your online friendscan't smell you anyway). The attraction starts innocently enough: You are pitted against your friendsin a friendly competition and you can get ahead of them by playing more often.Then you collect achievements or earn rewards as you move up the ladder ofFarmville or Mafia Wars success. You can play at normal speed to level up andearn virtual cash OR you can shell out real money and buy points so youprogress through the game at a much faster rate. And the more time you investplanting eggplants and blueberries or attacking other players, the more likelyyou are going to shell out real cash to gain game mastery, said Jesse Schell,an author and game design professor at Carnegie Mellon University during aspeech at DICE 2010 in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. 'Oh, this must be worthwhile. Why? Because I've spent time on it. Andtherefore it must be worth me kicking in 20 bucks, because look at the timeI've spent on it. And now that I've kicked in 20 bucks, it must be valuable,because only an idiot would kick in 20 bucks if it wasn't! So there's a lot ofpsychological cleverness going on with these things," Schell told theaudience. At some point you might think of quitting the game. There could be severalreasons for that: a) you got fired by your boss after he caught you scouringthe Internet for tips on how to have multiple chicken coops instead ofanswering calls from clients); b) you realized that you have become a slob(your armpit hair is now four inches long and you're female); or c) after yourneighbor called 911 because she was worried since you never returned any of hercalls). Not so fast, buddy. These game developers are skilled mind readers whoare constantly cooking up new exciting gimmicks to reel you back in. According to Schell, as more people get hooked on these games, there willcome a time when the external game reward system will permeate the real world.Whereas before, game makers were mainly concerned about creating some sort of aparallel universe where people can escape into when real life proves too muchfor them, there is now a growing interest to merge fantasy and reality. "We live in a bubble of fake bullshit, and we'll do anything to get towhat is real," Schell said, describing a future where game elements areintegrated into the real world. For instance, people would earn experiencepoints from the toothpaste company by brushing their teeth, or from theinsurance company by walking to work instead of driving. Let's explore the possibilities. You organized a concert to help the quakevictims in Haiti? That's worth 10,000 experience points! You managed toconvince warring countries to agree to a permanent ceasefire and vent theirrage against each other by declaring war on Mafia Wars instead? Why, that earnsyou 500,000 experience points!Imagine that. You can become a responsible, socially aware individual justby playing Farmville or Mafia Wars. If you try playing these games hard enough,who knows you might even snag the Nobel Peace Prize someday. Article Tags: Social Gaming, Mafia Wars, These Games, Online Games, Experience Points